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Shroom Man 777 wrote:I wonder what the interstellar community's reaction to the live broadcasted executions would be. :3

The Imperium would just say, "Meh, good riddance to bad human trash. Can't think of a better punishment than to get killed by xenos."

Simon_Jester wrote:(possible exceptions for REALLY BIG UNPRECEDENTEDLY HUGE ships bigger than anything that navy has ever built before, like Fin's proposed 2500-point superhyperuberbattleships or LoC9's 600-point carriers that are twice the size of his existing battleships)

I still get my ships within a finite timeline, not when "the game has died thanks to the lack of fresh air".

Actually, I was thinking of 2000pt, so it's not too fantastically larger than my existing ones, but hey...

I, for one, approve of speeding up construction times. I'd like to write about my Design Bureau's increasingly ridiculous struggles with my paranoid Admirals over adopting new ship designs, but it's hard without newly-designed ships to argue about...

My apologies for my absence, I've been ...busy. But I'm back and catching up now. I hope to start something soon.

*evil grin*

I have plenty of ideas, just no time to write them up. I hope to change that in the next couple of days. Evil plans and all that.

Not feeling very subtle, are we?

Or we could, say, move the time ahead so that we're not awfully close to a 1:1 ratio?

PeZook wrote:Or we could, say, move the time ahead so that we're not awfully close to a 1:1 ratio?

[Groans as events outrun own desire to write big honking storylines...]

I'm not opposed, but there does seem to be a certain amount of inertia at work here. The original build times were declared before we even considered the pace at which time might progress in-game; as far as I can tell they're a logical carryover from the old SDNW3 rules.

But unless we greatly increased the pace of the game, by about a factor of four (which I doubt many people really want, though I could be wrong about that), there's still going to be a build time problem.

Since the build times are arbitrary and no one has much stake in them being exactly what they are now, there's no reason NOT to adjust them. At the same time we could also try to pick up the pace of the game, of course. But that way we wouldn't have to pick up said pace quite so much, which would arguably be to the good.

This is a game where we can have major events going down in the span of a few days of game time, events that may very well demand a timely player reaction if the player is to roleplay their nation convincingly. If we accelerate the timescale to, say, one month per week, then the physical constraints of writing replies to in-game events will start tripping people up.

We lose extended coverage of in-game events; it's a lot faster to write "We won X and lost Y, the end" than to write an interesting narrative about what happened. And we'll see people simply missing the chance to become involved in events that they would normally be interested in; a lot of people have mentioned what happened in SDNW1 when military procurement decisions were made within a few hours of real-world time. Or when the whole "Shep goes berserk and nukes everybody" disaster was resolved in... what, a few days?

Something similar may happen here if we're forced to resolve week-long in-game crises in a day or two in order to keep up with the game clock.

I'd be happy with one month per two weeks on average, and arguably I'd benefit from the discipline that would impose. But if we go much farther than that, we're going to have to take steps to increase the amount of time it takes for ships and messages to move, so that in-game decision cycles don't outrun out-of-game decision cycles.

Alternatively we stick to our nicely languid pace with occasional time-jumps whenever it suits us, drop the build times altogether, and simply trust our fellow players not to abuse the lack of a rigidly defined construction schedule? 'Sides, we still got mods to beat down those who'd declare the instantaneous construction of huge armadas -- so we're covered even if we drop this particular mechanic. It's tiresome to have to formulate build orders and keep track of the time required to build several classes of vessels; I wouldn't be at all sorry to see this bit of rules-mongering go at all.

At the very least I think people should say what they're building and how long they're claiming it'll take, since that goes hand-in-hand with managing force listing. But if dumping the build times is widely-desired I'll go along with it. SDNW4's not really shaping up in the style of prior SDNWs anyway.

Let the record state that I find Miratia entertaining on the basis of Ryan's latest, and would like to learn more. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the Umerians' kookier habits may have come from there...
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I favor open declarations of build times, and will stick to something broadly consistent with the original rules (build time scales more or less linearly with point value) because, hell, why not. But that's me; I like doing arithmetic and already have a build schedule planned out, so I can use my existing timeline or simply rescale it.

If Siege wants to declare build times arbitrarily, or if others want to do the same, I'm cool with that too. I ask only that they say "OK, here's the number of ships I'm building, and here's when I expect them to show up." Just for the sake of disclosure: it's not so much what the build time is as that one is defined, rather than ships just being pulled out of a hat at will without any kind of medium to long range planning.

Personally, I'd appreciate it if the mods do enforce some kind of constraint on build time for big warships, simply because common sense suggests that large constructs should take more time and represent a more fixed commitment than small ones. But that's not really critical either.
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That aside, the only thing I think is really that important is the rate of construction, as a percentage of a defined GDP. That is a good thing because it enforces balance and discourages "I crush you with my bottomless hordes!" wanking. So I would like to see that kept, but I'm not married to any particular construction time scale. If heavy battleships take someone six months to build instead of thirty, I'll live, as long as they can't use that to build up a fleet twice the size of mine by the end of the year and overrun me or anything crazy like that.

Simon_Jester wrote:Let the record state that I find Miratia entertaining on the basis of Ryan's latest, and would like to learn more. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the Umerians' kookier habits may have come from there...

Thanks. Do bear in mind that this is not only Future Miratia (c. >2200 AD) but a crazy computerized version with hax.

Ryan Thunder wrote:RogueIce, we should trade shit.

I can offer you dickweed and various domesticated native Miratian species (shitbird, cock goblin, troll, ceiling cat, etc.)

Or other things. Asteroid mining rights, perhaps. Or we could do tech sharing.

We could. Give me a couple days and I'll send a PM.

I would just like to say that my choice of music for this segment is in no way a slur on the Altacaran or Anglian Empires; it's merely the best suited piece I know of to match the intended mood.

Another, minor update, mostly to introduce some characters; thanks for pictures and names go the illustrious Klavo Sultan, Hunter of orks!

The escort groups will be divided into two, each with a paleocruiser and two gunskimmers, one group for the convoy bound for the Loin Stars and the Spin Zone, and the other for the convoy bound for Chamarra.

We could always peg the build rate according to how much money was ploughed into the construction...

Trying my hand on something different.

EDIT: Ack! Forgot the location. Putting it now.

EDIT 2: There. Like it?

Anyone thinking of joining the Tournament?

... Well, I guess the Imperium would try to avoid sending Astartes...

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:... Well, I guess the Imperium would try to avoid sending Astartes...

For what reasons? Their power level is too high?

Give it a while, FL; a lot of people here just don't check the thread more than once a day or so, often less.

I support the Tournament, but I myself will not be participating- both because I have another storyline running, and because I've presented Umeria as being relatively esper-poor. With only a few notable exceptions, Umerian espers aren't going to be winning any brainwrestling contests against high-end espers from other countries. Because when it comes to psychic might, we're the sick old man of the Spinward Expanse.

(Some would argue that this honor should go to Shepistan. Me, I disagree; when it comes to psychic might they are the comatose old man of the Spinward Expanse...)

So unless you urgently need people to get their asses kicked in the early elimination rounds... dunno how much help I could be.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:We could always peg the build rate according to how much money was ploughed into the construction...

So, what, a ship that's twice as expensive takes half as long to build? That strikes me as utterly perverse.

Or do you mean that you can complete an X-point ship faster by paying 2X dollars to get it? Because that I could see, in theory, though it would rarely seem like a good idea to go for it.

Force Lord wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:... Well, I guess the Imperium would try to avoid sending Astartes...

For what reasons? Their power level is too high?

I didn't think Space Marine Librarians (though I believe Fin groups all his psychic Marines into the Scholae Palatinae) were that much more powerful than baseline human psychics.

Granted, enhancement devices blah blah blah, yes... but the Byzantines aren't the only nation in the galaxy who can make cybernetic implants. Also, in my opinion:

[Mentor of Arisia]
Mechanical contrivances are no substitute for real power of mind.
[/Mentor

There are Space Marine Librarians, those that can be made compatible with the genetic modification, as well as Grey Knights. The thing is, they are trained to use their psychic powers for various abilities, not least physical enhancement. If there are any physical related games, they'd just crush the opposition.

And nonsense, mechanical contrivances can be a substitute, especially if they are designed to amplify the power of the mind two fold at least.

I imagine the Psychic Olympics will be heavily slanted towards psychic tests. Otherwise, it just becomes a contest of "how many cyber-implants and future-steroidoids can we stuff into this guy before his mental abilities decline too drastically."

As for the other...

[Mentor]
Dependency on such baubles stunts the proper development of the mind, and the growth of faculties for real thought.
[/Mentor]

On the other hand, this means Byzantine psyker enhancements will have to compete with Solarian-made CE rigs and stuff. It will be less about the actual caliber of psykers involved, than the enhancement machines used and the corporations that sponsor them! Winner doesn't get a medal, winner gets his company's stocks rise like a dick!

Oooh! The obstacles can be Dominion/Shepistan designed BFGs and Altacar nullfields! If the psykers lose against these enhancements and their brains explode, the Dominion/Shepistan BFGs win! Then THEIR stock goes up! Like a dick!

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:If there are any physical related games, they'd just crush the opposition.

That's a pretty bold claim, you know.

Don't make me sick a bastard great-great-great-great-grand offspring bearing the noble lineage of Heracules at y'all guys.