International Incidents Information Desk Discussion

[Euroslavia]

International Incidents Information Desk

All questions/concerns about the International Incidents Information Desk should be posted here. If you are the original poster of one of these major information threads that I've put in the sticky, let me know, and we can have you copy the post so that you can retain credit for it and can edit it (Just telegram me to unlock it) whenever you feel necessary (and telegram me when you're finished editing, so that I can re-lock it). Most of this information was moved over from Jolt to these forums, so we can at east retain a lot of the time and effort that people took to help others out. There are still a few things that I would like to add, but for some reason, certain threads/posts absolutely will not open for me (from Jolt). Also, if you feel that a thread is worthy enough to belong in this sticky, link it here and I'll check it out.

I haven't gone through each post and formatted it to how I would like to see it (and to make it a bit more friendly for newer players), so that process is not complete.

[Leistung]

viewtopic.php?p=204251

^ For your consideration.

[Valipac]

I'm going to hopefully go through the whole thing, but let's start with the easiest one, the last post.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12342#p442463

The Pipian calculator no longer works, and the same goes for the Colony calculator. The thirdgeek link should be renamed "NS Economy", and the nstracker link should be replaced by http://www.nstracker.org

I don't know if you linked the NS Art of War in there, but it definitely deserves a mention. It's probably too long to go in the thread itself.

[Valipac]

Godmoding post-

Why this is Godmoding: Okay, little guy nations, I know you're anxious to start throwing your weight around, but let's be honest; you are piddling nothings when you first start out in the world. To get specific with the logistics of your military, check this thread out: What Logistics Is (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=275828)
Also, check this thread out to get examples of how other nations in real life deal with their logistics: Economy, Militaries, and Invasions - More things to know (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=297064)

forums2 links no longer work, so these need to be updated to the proper links (and if the guides were copied to these forums, just link those posts).

Note: Nothing stops you registering a group of nations and RPing each as a different but allied entity, or any other reasonable method of levelling the playing field you can come up with.

This is actually generally considered to be a horrific offense of godmoding, and is known as "puppet wank". You are allowed to RP with more than one nation, they just can not be allied or aid each other militarily. This might not have been the case when this guide was originally written, but it is definitely the case now. If it wasn't, everyone would just spam nations to gain the upper hand. And leveling is spelled wrong

3.5) Example: 'Ok, I'm going after your major cities with cruise missiles.'
'Aha! My EMP defenses short out your missiles and defeat you!'
'But...Don't they destroy every electronic device in your cities, too?'
'No, because they're...Shielded. Yeah.'
'But then why couldn't I just send a spy to buy, say, a calculator or trouser press which would allow me to learn your secrets?'


Why This is Godmoding:
EMP isn’t magic. If you're a nation which has EMP devices and uses them regularly, it'd be ridiculous to think that in all that time nobody would have come up with an effective defense. Same goes for most technology, in fact: you should at least allow for the possibility that a nation which has faced your mighty ubertech on the battlefield has gone off and built something to counter it.

I kind of agree with the logic here, but there's a difference between saying you have an uberdefense your enemy can't have, and then the EMP scenario mentioned here. Any EMP attack would take out a huge portion of civilian electronic infrastructure, and a fair amount of military infrastructure as well. What people don't realize is that EMPs are nuclear warheads detonated in space to create the pulse, which would legalize a strategic response. So while an EMP strike would certainly disable a large portion of your enemies military, they would probably launch nukes at you, so is it really worth it?

B. Invisible Troops
This section should state that invisible troops are not feasible for an MT setting.

Creating a New Region

Once you get to this point, it's rather irrelevant to II until you reach the "The Effects of War" section. Perhaps these sections could be edited out?

Other than that it's pretty good.

[Euroslavia]

forums2 links no longer work, so these need to be updated to the proper links (and if the guides were copied to these forums, just link those posts).

As I mentioned in the first post, I'm still not quite done with the specific editing of each of the individual posts. At this point, I've just copied them over and created the Index. I'm going to be going through each post, their links, and the actual content, as well as editing it so it's more user-friendly.

This is actually generally considered to be a horrific offense of godmoding, and is known as "puppet wank". You are allowed to RP with more than one nation, they just can not be allied or aid each other militarily. This might not have been the case when this guide was originally written, but it is definitely the case now. If it wasn't, everyone would just spam nations to gain the upper hand. And leveling is spelled wrong

That's still definitely not this case. There's nothing in the rules that prevents you from doing anything in roleplay (besides rulebreaking things, obviously). Is it bad form? Yes. Will it be looked down upon in the event people find out that two puppets are helping each other? Yes. Is puppetwanking against the rules? No.

I kind of agree with the logic here, but there's a difference between saying you have an uberdefense your enemy can't have, and then the EMP scenario mentioned here. Any EMP attack would take out a huge portion of civilian electronic infrastructure, and a fair amount of military infrastructure as well. What people don't realize is that EMPs are nuclear warheads detonated in space to create the pulse, which would legalize a strategic response. So while an EMP strike would certainly disable a large portion of your enemies military, they would probably launch nukes at you, so is it really worth it?

I'm not one to really get into details about the military. The statement itself isn't necessarily about details about EMP's, but rather, that nations don't act as if they've completely knocked the other nation out of commission. I'm going to leave it as is.

B. Invisible Troops
This section should state that invisible troops are not feasible for an MT setting.

Again, this is another one of those scenarios that is moreso about the idea of being unstoppable compared to an enemy you're at war with. I'd say that the last sentence makes the entire thing acceptable.

Once you get to this point, it's rather irrelevant to II until you reach the "The Effects of War" section. Perhaps these sections could be edited out?
Other than that it's pretty good.

Yep, I'll be editing out the information that isn't useful for II.

[Euroslavia]

I'm going to hopefully go through the whole thing, but let's start with the easiest one, the last post.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12342#p442463

The Pipian calculator no longer works, and the same goes for the Colony calculator. The thirdgeek link should be renamed "NS Economy", and the nstracker link should be replaced by http://www.nstracker.org

I don't know if you linked the NS Art of War in there, but it definitely deserves a mention. It's probably too long to go in the thread itself.

Calcs have been edited. I've got the link to the NS Art of War, and I'll probably be looking over it today.

[Valipac]

That's still definitely not this case. There's nothing in the rules that prevents you from doing anything in roleplay (besides rulebreaking things, obviously). Is it bad form? Yes. Will it be looked down upon in the event people find out that two puppets are helping each other? Yes. Is puppetwanking against the rules? No.

That's the only thing I really disagree with you on. There is nothing "in the rules" that prevents you from godmoding at all - the facts are that the rules weren't defined to apply to this community, so we came up with our own rules, what is godmoding, and what isn't. And having multiple nations allied together, which might not have been considered godmoding at the time this was written, is definitely considered so now. Even if you only consider it bad form, some kind of disclaimer in the post that "this is seen as bad form by most players of the community" would be nice.

Now for the next post, the Wide World of Diplomacy one.

You show the creation of transmissions in [quote] and in [code] tags, but not in [pre] tags, so you might want to mention that, now that we have those.

Love the portion on Diplomatic Immunity, a number of people on these forums could use reading that.

As far as the custom contract for creating embassies goes, that belongs more to the Factbooks forum, where the embassy exchanges now go. The "A Guide to Making Embassies" post is more or less a rehash of this, so I'm not sure that post is necessary, especially if this section is preserved. You might want to add a note that "some nations choose not to participate in embassy exchange threads, but rather assume that all nations have traded embassies with them." I for one take this approach, as do many others, although we consider it proper form to send a TG to the other nation ensuring that they are ok with it before we make specific use of that embassy.

[Euroslavia]

That's the only thing I really disagree with you on. There is nothing "in the rules" that prevents you from godmoding at all - the facts are that the rules weren't defined to apply to this community, so we came up with our own rules, what is godmoding, and what isn't. And having multiple nations allied together, which might not have been considered godmoding at the time this was written, is definitely considered so now. Even if you only consider it bad form, some kind of disclaimer in the post that "this is seen as bad form by most players of the community" would be nice.

We don't police role play besides the typical 'breaking the rules' sort of thing (flaming, spamming, trolling, etc.). If someone decides to godmode, it comes down to the community itself in determining whether one should role play with that specific individual or not. The rules were adapted to cover the role play aspect of the community, and if you believe that the moderators are called in on every case of godmoding or puppet wanking, then I'm afraid you're mistaken. In any case, I've already edited that section to include that it is considered bad form.

As far as the custom contract for creating embassies goes, that belongs more to the Factbooks forum, where the embassy exchanges now go. The "A Guide to Making Embassies" post is more or less a rehash of this, so I'm not sure that post is necessary, especially if this section is preserved. You might want to add a note that "some nations choose not to participate in embassy exchange threads, but rather assume that all nations have traded embassies with them." I for one take this approach, as do many others, although we consider it proper form to send a TG to the other nation ensuring that they are ok with it before we make specific use of that embassy.

Despite the fact that embassies are not created in this forum, a good majority of those who post those come from this forum (or the Nationstates forum, for that matter). I'd like to keep such a guide here (and I'll probably put another copy of it into the correct forum) for those who might stumble upon it within this forum first.

[Layarteb]

Stealth matters: the F-22 is much less visible to other aircraft, BUT IT IS STILL VISIBLE ON RADAR, much like the way the B-52 Stratofortress is very visible but a B-1 Lancer is LESS visible.

The F-117A is slow (sub-Mach 1), carries no gun, has no radar (it can only pick up fighters with IR sensors maybe 5 miles away), and carries maybe two reasonable-sized laser-guided bombs.

The F-22 is nowhere near as stealthy. For one, it has that massive heat signatures from the engines- the F-117A has cooling jets to reduce the signature. It has a radar and gives off a big electromagnetic signature, and enemies can know there's an F-22 around from the radar signature. The shape, while stealthy, is not perfect at all and is only moderately stealthy to radar. And it carries just 8 missiles.

Actually the F-22 is listed as stealthy as the B-2, which is a little stealthier than the F-117. The radar for the F-22 is an LPI radar that actually doesn't give a huge EM signature. By the time an enemy would detect the F-22 it would be within Sidewinder range. It is excellent acceleration and superior agility so in air combat the F-22 is utterly superior. Though it can only carry 2x 1,000 lb. or 8x 250 lb. bombs, the F-22 can penetrate the same targets that the F-117 could penetrate. If the F-22 is supersonic though this is negated. Any "stealth" weapon or aircraft, when supersonic is no longer stealthy. For example, the SR-71 is actually a very stealthy design but because it moves faster than Mach 3, it generates a lot of friction and has a huge heat signature, which is actually visible on radar with certain bandwidths as I understand it. The key thing to note here is the speed. A stealthy missile, for example, won't be if it is burning past Mach 1.

[Euroslavia]

Stealth matters: the F-22 is much less visible to other aircraft, BUT IT IS STILL VISIBLE ON RADAR, much like the way the B-52 Stratofortress is very visible but a B-1 Lancer is LESS visible.

The F-117A is slow (sub-Mach 1), carries no gun, has no radar (it can only pick up fighters with IR sensors maybe 5 miles away), and carries maybe two reasonable-sized laser-guided bombs.

The F-22 is nowhere near as stealthy. For one, it has that massive heat signatures from the engines- the F-117A has cooling jets to reduce the signature. It has a radar and gives off a big electromagnetic signature, and enemies can know there's an F-22 around from the radar signature. The shape, while stealthy, is not perfect at all and is only moderately stealthy to radar. And it carries just 8 missiles.

Actually the F-22 is listed as stealthy as the B-2, which is a little stealthier than the F-117. The radar for the F-22 is an LPI radar that actually doesn't give a huge EM signature. By the time an enemy would detect the F-22 it would be within Sidewinder range. It is excellent acceleration and superior agility so in air combat the F-22 is utterly superior. Though it can only carry 2x 1,000 lb. or 8x 250 lb. bombs, the F-22 can penetrate the same targets that the F-117 could penetrate. If the F-22 is supersonic though this is negated. Any "stealth" weapon or aircraft, when supersonic is no longer stealthy. For example, the SR-71 is actually a very stealthy design but because it moves faster than Mach 3, it generates a lot of friction and has a huge heat signature, which is actually visible on radar with certain bandwidths as I understand it. The key thing to note here is the speed. A stealthy missile, for example, won't be if it is burning past Mach 1.

That's something that I honestly have no clue about. Which is why I would definitely appreciate it if some people took out some time to review some of the specific statements when it comes to combat/military discussion and perhaps re-write 'em.

[Layarteb]

No problem. I know the DLIR and FLIR on the F-117 can detect targets much further away than 5 mi but to how far I do not know. I'd assume at least 25 mi. F-117s fly at night and an aircraft or a target in general has a higher IR signature at night due to the lower temperature and reduction in solar rays. A fighter at night would be visible on IR much further away at night than during the day.

[Feazanthia]

Since it seems a large portion of II plays future tech...

Big Stonking FT Argument Thread

[Leistung]

I don't think "large" would be an accurate term..."modest", maybe.

Also, any word on my suggested thread?

[Euroslavia]

Everything is re-posted and the formatting is complete. If there are any errors that someone notices, feel free to post here or telegram me. I'll look over the suggested thread today.

[Euroslavia]

Good lord, that future tech discussion thread is up to ...36 pages. All I can say is that if I were to toss that into the II Info Desk, I can guarantee that most of the new players, if not all, would give up after seeing that the information they need is captured within 36 pages of discussion. If someone could possibly gather up all of the important information from the thread and toss it into an informative post, that would be a godsend.

[Zinaire]

I wrote this as a replacement for the original guide to embassies and I would love to see it be officially added to the stickies.

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14066

[Solm]

Here is a helpful Topic for any Newcomers who do not know the "slang" of RPing.

OOC: Unofficial Guide To RP Abbreiviations

You Could add this to the Information Desk guide.

[Layarteb]

I don't know if this is useful but I gave a small post about revolutionary theory and what not here:

viewtopic.php?p=609559#p609559

The one thing to remember for any revolution is it's success depends on three absolutely crucial elements. Unless all three are present the chances of success are slim to nil and I'll explain why but first the elements.

1. Widespread & popular disapproval, suffering, etc. by the people (aka the masses)
2. Support by the societal elites (i.e. intellectuals)
3. Support of the military

Now if any one of these elements are not present it'll just be put down or it will be something different than a revolution.

>> If you have no support for the elites, the revolutionary masses will mostly be disorganized and flounder out, splinter apart, etc.
>> If you don't have support of the military it's just getting put down by the military
>> If you don't have support of the masses it's just a coup (if it's the military) or just a replacement of leadership (military + elites)

Classic examples of revolutions to really study and learn from are Iran in 1979, Nicaragua, Russia, and even Cuba. The ultimate, classical revolution is of course the French Revolution. Granted three out of the four are communist revolutions, each and every one had these three key and crucial elements. You can certainly have successful revolutions without total support of these three elements so the key thing here to note is while this is the most common, there are many revolutionary theories and no single theory can explain every revolution. Take, for example, the American Revolution. The second criteria was fulfilled quite early on and they created a military for number three. However, the people were split on thirds. One third were absolutely for it, another third against it, and the last third were largely apathetic either way. Yet it succeeded quite handsomely.

This is just a little snippet that goes into this and I hope it helps.

If it's a topic we'd like to explore I could make something far more formal.

[Euroslavia]

I don't know if this is useful but I gave a small post about revolutionary theory and what not here:

viewtopic.php?p=609559#p609559

The one thing to remember for any revolution is it's success depends on three absolutely crucial elements. Unless all three are present the chances of success are slim to nil and I'll explain why but first the elements.

1. Widespread & popular disapproval, suffering, etc. by the people (aka the masses)
2. Support by the societal elites (i.e. intellectuals)
3. Support of the military

Now if any one of these elements are not present it'll just be put down or it will be something different than a revolution.

>> If you have no support for the elites, the revolutionary masses will mostly be disorganized and flounder out, splinter apart, etc.
>> If you don't have support of the military it's just getting put down by the military
>> If you don't have support of the masses it's just a coup (if it's the military) or just a replacement of leadership (military + elites)

Classic examples of revolutions to really study and learn from are Iran in 1979, Nicaragua, Russia, and even Cuba. The ultimate, classical revolution is of course the French Revolution. Granted three out of the four are communist revolutions, each and every one had these three key and crucial elements. You can certainly have successful revolutions without total support of these three elements so the key thing here to note is while this is the most common, there are many revolutionary theories and no single theory can explain every revolution. Take, for example, the American Revolution. The second criteria was fulfilled quite early on and they created a military for number three. However, the people were split on thirds. One third were absolutely for it, another third against it, and the last third were largely apathetic either way. Yet it succeeded quite handsomely.

This is just a little snippet that goes into this and I hope it helps.

If it's a topic we'd like to explore I could make something far more formal.

Tossed that into the II Information Desk. Also sent a message to Solm about the abbreviation's thread. It's been a bit long overdue.

[United Earthlings]

Just found this thread, been wanting to ask you why you never {re}added the Categories of Government Types, Freedoms, Economy, Post Numbers and Their Names section, which I was thankfully smart enough to save and repost from the old jolt forums that now have ceased to exist?

Also, I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of editing your work and improving on it a little as well as changing the post names and their number counts to reflect the new forum. You Mods have also changed the way the II Desk was/is organized, however the section I recreated would best seem to fit under the E. Miscellaneous category, however I defer to your judgment on where to place it.

Here's the thread link for it...

P.S. I also placed a link to the above thread a long time ago in my signature, just in case you wanted to double check that you had the right thread.