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Sea Skimmer wrote:I suggest ending things like this, air superiority is established over Shepistan, but Shepistan ground troops deploy nerve gas land mines as a line of death, and MESS political leadership decides not to cross. The disputed islands become truly demilitarized by both sides, and Shepistan is forced to spent about two years rebuilding air raid damage with heavy Japanistani aid. Lastly, people fucking LEARN NOT TO TAKE A SOVEREIGN STATES LAND. That causes wars, end of story. If you want to do it, go pick on an NPC nation, or join the great land grab I was trying to spark.

Didn't the war actually start over a tiff over so-called "demilitarized" land somewhere in the Archipelago?

I vote neither: we hammer out the outcome, let people write an occasional post about the war, and continue with the timeflow, with the conflict simmering in the background untill the pre-set date. When it comes, we negotiate peace terms.

Yeah, I also think that we shouldn't be stopping a game with what, around 20 player nations because several of them can't find a compromise solution to their war.

Why not create a wargame thread in testing, where you hammer out your war's course, and then just post what you figured out would happen in the Main thread?

Why not hear the calls for peace from many nations, from Japanistan to Shroomania?

I don't get it. Arik's post was just an indication MESS players are annoyed and tired, but it doesn't pose a huge problem to be corrected.

Stas Bush wrote:If Marina resigns, I propose saving the SDN 2 and setting up a Mod Council.

I don't want the game to die because of some stupid war.

Hear, hear!

Sea Skimmer wrote:I suggest ending things like this, air superiority is established over Shepistan, but Shepistan ground troops deploy nerve gas land mines as a line of death, and MESS political leadership decides not to cross. The disputed islands become truly demilitarized by both sides, and Shepistan is forced to spent about two years rebuilding air raid damage with heavy Japanistani aid. Lastly, people fucking LEARN NOT TO TAKE A SOVEREIGN STATES LAND. That causes wars, end of story. If you want to do it, go pick on an NPC nation, or join the great land grab I was trying to spark.

That can work.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: I apologize. You're right, the MESS as a unified clique is fucking up the game beyond description, especially with their private planning threads. That said, the response being "I release bio-weapons and everyone dies" sure as hell wasn't encouraging, fair enough?

We use the resources we have. And nothing, absolutely nothing, stops folks from using the HAB as a planning area (I can contain myself from looking in there). Or plot & plan in realtime on AIM or something.

Even our secret planning threads don't do us much good when, from our point of view, anything we try to do is negated by a wall of technobabble because we don't have the luxury of time to know exactly how many rivets are on an F-16 wing, or the exact tire pressure of a MiG-29's front landing tire, or the precise amount of powder needed to load in an artillery shell when firing at an exact 200-mil declination against the sun in subtropical conditions on a Tuesday morning.

And yet, because we don't have volumes of free time on our hands to look up all this stuff, that's somehow supposed to mean that we "lose" our engagements.

This whole thing about the MESS being 'imperialistic' or 'warmongers' is just so much bombastic propaganda anyway, and when peoples' heads are out of the game, they all know it. We've never done anything as remotely provocative or imperialistic as others, much less engaged in unrestricted industrial sabotage for no reason whatsoever.

*shrug* I need to make sure that everyone is happy, which is basically fucking impossible, Arik. This is why moderating simply sucks balls.

Anyway, would anyone object to Skimmer and I mutually working out the course of the war and me posting it, and then we jump ahead and start again?

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:*shrug* I need to make sure that everyone is happy, which is basically fucking impossible, Arik. This is why moderating simply sucks balls.

Anyway, would anyone object to Skimmer and I mutually working out the course of the war and me posting it, and then we jump ahead and start again?

\

Again, what about every other thing happening in the world? The Conference on Frequesue Neutrality, PeZook and Norse's plotline about the PeZookian students enslaved in Astaria, the various stuff going down in Frequesue?

I'd prefer if you and Skimmer agree to how the war will go and inform us, and you or Skimmer can post the progess of the war bi-daily (reflecting a month each time, since a RL day is roughly equivalent to 12 days in-game) while everything else is permitted to happen.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote: Anyway, would anyone object to Skimmer and I mutually working out the course of the war and me posting it, and then we jump ahead and start again?

Me and Shep are working out a conclusion right now, so, yes, I would.

Steve wrote:

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:*shrug* I need to make sure that everyone is happy, which is basically fucking impossible, Arik. This is why moderating simply sucks balls.

Anyway, would anyone object to Skimmer and I mutually working out the course of the war and me posting it, and then we jump ahead and start again?

\

Again, what about every other thing happening in the world? The Conference on Frequesue Neutrality, PeZook and Norse's plotline about the PeZookian students enslaved in Astaria, the various stuff going down in Frequesue?

I'd prefer if you and Skimmer agree to how the war will go and inform us, and you or Skimmer can post the progess of the war bi-daily (reflecting a month each time, since a RL day is roughly equivalent to 12 days in-game) while everything else is permitted to happen.

Didn't we just use Imaginary Time for things like this in the first game, like the conferences on Atlantis? Basically anything not in Imaginary Time proceeded as normal, while the issue in I.T. did not.

Master_Baerne wrote: Didn't we just use Imaginary Time for things like this in the first game, like the conferences on Atlantis? Basically anything not in Imaginary Time proceeded as normal, while the issue in I.T. did not.

I agree with Baerne.

Well, I'm going to reset the clock, regardless, so we can survive the downtime.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote: Didn't the war actually start over a tiff over so-called "demilitarized" land somewhere in the Archipelago?

Lonestar invented a treaty after the game began to claim those islands were supposed to be demilitarized, then invaded them despite Shepistani forces having been present for 40 years! That’s what started it, nothing more, nothing less. When you take another nations land, that causes a war, end of story.

Of course now the trend seems to be to fucking blame me for everything, because I fucking dare to have standards for conduct.

I'm not sure what blame you have save some people thinking it weird you'd declare that if Shepistan were invaded you'd attack and the entire world would be claimed by the resulting bio-chem attacks, resulting in Marina's apparent resignation and this whole nuttiness of "SDN World 3.0 is necessary now".

I don't "blame" you and Skimmer for having a frightening encyclopedic knowledge of military arcana. I'm actually in a bit of awe at it. I simply think it unfair to those of us who don't have the time to research every single miltech system or device in recent history if we're demanded to know that stuff or have every single part of our militaries rendered ignorant to such considerations and thus easy pickings for anyone who does know. I don't think it too much to ask that even if I don't know the exact specifics of how anti-torpedo warfare works, in-game the Cascadian Navy would have such people knowledgable in things like that.

Nor is it entirely fair to presume that someone would build an exact replica of a RL ship, complete with systems or lack-thereof, if their nation's security situation and potential threats are different from what the USN or RN has IRL. Of course, it'd help if people were a bit less lazy in picking their designs. How many people just claimed to have Wasp-class LHDs, for instance, instead of having an original design of equivalent mass and purpose (like I did with the Cascadia-class LHDs of the RCN, which likely has different on-board systems given the ship's role and employment in the RCN's "Combined Operations Group" formations).

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Lonestar invented a treaty after the game began to claim those islands were supposed to be demilitarized, then invaded them despite Shepistani forces having been present for 40 years! That’s what started it, nothing more, nothing less. When you take another nations land, that causes a war, end of story.

Oh calm down. Shep and I discussed it on IM beforehand, and Shepistan in-character acknowledged the treaty.

Steve wrote:I'm not sure what blame you have save some people thinking it weird you'd declare that if Shepistan were invaded you'd attack and the entire world would be claimed by the resulting bio-chem attacks, resulting in Marina's apparent resignation and this whole nuttiness of "SDN World 3.0 is necessary now".

Well all I did was point out the reality of the situation other people had created and what was going to happen if they continued that axis of advance. Not my fault everyone decided to jump into a war instead of just letting it stalemate. People thought they could project power across the globe easily, that’s never been true in real life and its especially not true when you go up against an island fortress. You sure don’t hear about low US naval losses off Okinawa…

I’m glad to see though and Shep and Lonestar seem perfectly capable of working out their own problems. How amazing.

I don't "blame" you and Skimmer for having a frightening encyclopedic knowledge of military arcana. I'm actually in a bit of awe at it. I simply think it unfair to those of us who don't have the time to research every single miltech system or device in recent history if we're demanded to know that stuff or have every single part of our militaries rendered ignorant to such considerations and thus easy pickings for anyone who does know. I don't think it too much to ask that even if I don't know the exact specifics of how anti-torpedo warfare works, in-game the Cascadian Navy would have such people knowledgable in things like that.

Well in real life NO ONE in 2008 actually has a hard kill torpedo defence system that works to any particularly satisfactory degree. Thus is its reasonable to assume other plays wont have an effective system either, since it requires new technology, not just adapting existing technology to a new role. Anyway I also know numerous times I’ve provided advice to people on how to counter specific kind of weapons, and I’ve given away more then one trick I might have used in the process, because I’m really not interested in fighting wars with other players.

Harass them with drug subs or psychotic exchange students sure, fight a little skirmish on the untamed continent because the boarder is demarcated by 1 red dash on a tree per 100 kilometers, sure. That’s all fun and good but if I really wanted to fight wars I wouldn’t have hundreds of the worlds most heavily upgraded Su-17s still flying in 2008. However while I don’t want to fight wars, I’m also not just going to sit by while people bitch and whine themselves into what they'd then declare was a flawless victory.

Nor is it entirely fair to presume that someone would build an exact replica of a RL ship, complete with systems or lack-thereof, if their nation's security situation and potential threats are different from what the USN or RN has IRL. Of course, it'd help if people were a bit less lazy in picking their designs. How many people just claimed to have Wasp-class LHDs, for instance, instead of having an original design of equivalent mass and purpose (like I did with the Cascadia-class LHDs of the RCN, which likely has different on-board systems given the ship's role and employment in the RCN's "Combined Operations Group" formations).

Well, exactly, if people pick real life ships and don’t specify any changes, then what are we to assume? I’m certainly not going to assume that they have technology that doesn’t exist yet or works poorly. Not to mention… if effective hard kill torpedo defenses do exist… then Sheppard’s SSANs could mount them too, making them absurdly hard to sink.

Igo-26 meanwhile is an existing missile with an existing electro optical terminal guidance system (claimed 20 meter CEP), and we took 1 game year to adapt it to submarine launch. Its solid fueled too so its basically just a matter of developing a torpedo tube interface for the guidance system, and making a canister which will float out and rise to the surface vertically. Considering people built space boosters in half as much time it’s not an unreasonable timeframe.

We could have used a much bigger Pershing II missile too, as that system also has a preexisting all weather terminal guidance system able to exceed 30 meter CEP, and a decently large warhead. Guidance was a radar mapping system that created 128x128 pixel images, and this was with late 1970s technology! However we decided that the combination of its long range and speed would just make it unfair, basically a land based Pershing II would be able to keep a carrier group completely out of its aircrafts striking range, so we didn’t do it.

I am not trying to "blame" anyone for anything. My position is that this has been steered towards a wargame, and in that wargame we (not just the MESS, but others as well) have been overwhelmed with a tidal wave of techobabble that invariably sparks arguments.

You've pointed out your displeasure about how many F-22s the MESS forces have, even though we started out with all of us adhering to the 1% rule. The F-22s that have come along since then were added during game time. We also started out with far smaller military forces, as Stas pointed out Japanistan alone has forces able to rival everyone on the Old Continent combined, from the CSR to Vulpesia. From our point of view, every F-22 we manufacture is an attempt to play "catch-up".

Seriously, from my perspective at least, the very things you decry about the MESS-- a powerful bloc with huge conventional forces-- can at the same time be leveled at yourself & Shep. A power bloc of two with... huge conventional forces. We produce a "lot" of F-22s, you guys have 5-hulled ubersubs and theoretical drone missiles all on shoestring budgets.

But I'll be honest with you-- Shep's advanced weapons --the titanium 5-hulled subs; the bistatic radar and uprated F-106s; the BOMARKs-- don't really bother me, because I see similar ingenuity displayed by Israel (for example) in updating their weapons over the years. Indeed, a lot can be done by a small nation with ingenuity and careful applications of budget (the fact that Shep had so few super-subs, and had sacrificed his entire surface navy to afford them, is quite reasonable)-- it's that you get bent out of shape about what we do, when it's not too much different from what you're doing, really.

Now-- let's let the original combatants; Shep and Lonestar, come to a conclusion about their own war. I'll stay out of it, so should the rest except in advisory roles. Once an agreement is made, I'll go back and re-edit my invasion post as needed to fit the agreed facts, and we'll go from there.

But overall, and this is NOT the fault of Shep or Skimmer, but in a way we're all to blame, is that this has become really a big war game. Let's face it, the FTO has really just lurched from one Congolese brushfire war after another, and about the only attempts we've had to break it up is the space race segments-- few and far between. Since our characters have been elected or inherited into office, the world has seen naught but endless spirals of war and conflict, and I'm sure by now even the most stalwart populations are about ready to frogmarch each of us to our respective waiting guillotines.

Coyote wrote: You've pointed out your displeasure about how many F-22s the MESS forces have, even though we started out with all of us adhering to the 1% rule. The F-22s that have come along since then were added during game time. We also started out with far smaller military forces, as Stas pointed out Japanistan alone has forces able to rival everyone on the Old Continent combined, from the CSR to Vulpesia. From our point of view, every F-22 we manufacture is an attempt to play "catch-up".

That’s hardly true given that my best fighter is firmly stuck in the 4.5 generation, while the experimental JF-103 is a pure interceptor aimed at coping with the F-12 and yet is inferior to it, able to sustain mach 3+ for only a few minutes instead of the entire mission.
Anyway, it was Shep who complained about F-22 numbers. I'm not seeing much I'd call spam so far.

Seriously, from my perspective at least, the very things you decry about the MESS-- a powerful bloc with huge conventional forces-- can at the same time be leveled at yourself & Shep. A power bloc of two with... huge conventional forces. We produce a "lot" of F-22s, you guys have 5-hulled ubersubs and theoretical drone missiles all on shoestring budgets.

My budget is on par with the United States in the lows of the 1990s, and I use across the board inferior technology, and never throw an old weapon away. I have a huge land army sure... and it has to drive around 700 miles through another country to even begin to attack a player state. All the reserves are T-55 class equipment. I also put up my land OOB early too, and offered up OOBs of real nations for people to use.

But I'll be honest with you-- Shep's advanced weapons --the titanium 5-hulled subs; the bistatic radar and uprated F-106s; the BOMARKs-- don't really bother me, because I see similar ingenuity displayed by Israel (for example) in updating their weapons over the years.

I'm pretty sure the SSAN is made of plain old steel. Japanistan does have some titanium hulled subs, but the things are all real Russian designs.

You want non-war stuff? I'm trying to do a diplomatic conference currently to deal with the F-ing Continent as well as arbitrating a peace for one of those brushfire wars, and I've been making overtures on space projects that only Tonkin's really picked up on.

Or how about some queasiness for the fact that Shady just pulled off a massive land-grab?

Space Projects? Well... FASTA! We can work together!

I am addressing that massive land-grab queasiness.

Steve wrote:You want non-war stuff? I'm trying to do a diplomatic conference currently to deal with the F-ing Continent as well as arbitrating a peace for one of those brushfire wars, and I've been making overtures on space projects that only Tonkin's really picked up on.

There are really too many space projects running, and one country can only possibly commit to one at a time. FASTA is my main priority right now.

Or how about some queasiness for the fact that Shady just pulled off a massive land-grab?

Well, technically, those lands are formerly of the USSR. This is just picking up where WW2 left off.

We can have FASTA work together with Cascadia's space program.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:We can have FASTA work together with Cascadia's space program.

We already started building infrastructure here. I'm not going to start paying for rockets to be shipped all over the world. It's not that simple to just "work together" unless he's just started and has no infrastructure to speak of.

Or how about some queasiness for the fact that Shady just pulled off a massive land-grab?

Well, technically, those lands are formerly of the USSR. This is just picking up where WW2 left off.

This is just clean up so the OC can work on it's Continental defence plan, the fact I get a bit of land is not really important. Historically it makes sense and solves a big problem for everyone.

And it makes for great story-telling potential.

And also, you nearly triple the size of the Shadow Empire, with all the cash and resources that implies. Very smooth, Shady, very smooth indeed.