2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, wow, and after all those complaints about me using OOC knowledge. Damn.

OK, here's what I'll do. I shall add a story post dated before the messages to Rheinland Schiffbau showing the decision-making process and the announcement that the RFP has been withdrawn. Then we shall announce that we are buying the Derfflingers.

If you still want to sue, go ahead, although I have to wonder what court would have jurisdiction here, and how they expect to enforce their verdict.

EDIT: Hell, since the date on Beo's post was 10 February, I might add an immediate follow-on post where we refuse to even acknowledge the lawsuit.

[TimothyC]

It is not in any way apparent that this did not happen. The only thing Orion did so far is notify Rheinland Schiffbau that they want to buy their Derfflinger. They didn't explicitly say they're buying them as fulfillment of their tender, nor did they say they wouldn't buy anything else.

Based on standard practices however it would be apparent that the RFP was filled.

• When filled, RFPs tend to be pulled, or at least marked that they are filled.
• E_F put dates on his posts of 30 JAN for issuing the RFP (best case is that it was issued that day) and 2 FEB for the order from Rheinland. That doesn't leave a lot of time, and admiralties don't move very fast.
• The only major naval order that I can remember that didn't have an announcement issued either from the military making the order or the company being ordered from was the recent order for the fourth Danish OPV, and even that still got a page on the shipyard's website with the shipyard's hull number and the type of vessel. In short, news about the order would leak by the 8th, which puts Beo's post dated on 10 FEB in much better shape.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, mea culpa, I goofed on the dates. It's difficult to remember how much time passes in-game as opposed to OOC discussion.

[Siege]

Look, I know some of you guys have a ton of knowledge on subjects I personally don't even have the foggiest clue about, be it military arcana or educational methods or how to build flipping laser systems. And as a result of that specific knowledge it may on occasion appear that other players are doing very silly things indeed.

But here's the thing: if you're genuinely weirded out by the actions of another player because you happen to have a fuller understanding of a particular subject then the right thing to do is to share that knowledge here so players can learn from it and improve their posts.

Frankly making assumptions based on knowledge you have but other players might very well lack is bad gamesmanship. Don't do it. Instead tell people if they're making a mistake or behaving oddly, and that way we can all learn and do better.

If we're going to do some joint worldbuilding then I'd sure prefer we do it in such a way that every once in a while one of us goes 'wow, I did not know that, thanks for telling!', instead of feeling forced to ward off what can easily be perceived as attacks they can't even see coming because they lack insight in a given topic. The latter just makes people defensive and unwilling to write anything for fear of getting a detail wrong in any one of the myriad topics that might come up and being called on it, whereas the former hopefully makes us all a little smarter and generally makes the game a lot more fun.

Functionally the difference is that if for example I were to write about one of my submarines diving to 2km, you'd not immediately write about how a sonar guy on one of your ships hears peculiar crunchy noises, you'd instead come here and tell me 'Siege you big dummy submarines can't dive that deep they'd get pressure crushed'. That way I get a chance to go 'uh, oops' and alter the diving depth to something more sensible. We all learn a valuable lesson, I get to blush in embarassment, and the game moves on its fun and hopefully positive way.

Does that make sense? I don't mean to go all Mr. Rogers on y'all but I know from experience it's infinitely more pleasant to just be told something's impossible OOC so you can correct IC mistakes than to awkwardly pretend that this is a world where on occasion highly trained professionals suddenly turn into morons of the highest order for no apparent reason. Much less all the drama that results from players feeling like they're preyed on for gotcha moments. I think we can all do without that this time, yeah?

[Beowulf]

I would have thought "choose something that meets your listed requirements" was obvious. If you're going to change what you accept, you need to announce a change of requirements, in game. As for assuming that the military is competent enough to avoid this... the USAF got sued for exactly this when it chose the KC-330 design as the KC-45, resulting in a recompete, and the KC-767 design being chosen subsequently. The given timeline, at the time I wrote the post, was such that it appeared to be deliberate that the RON was violating their stated requirements, even if OOC we know it's because EF got convinced that the requirements were a bit off.

I'm willing to retcon out my lawsuit, but E_F has to make the competition appear to be fair. Retcon the selection out, issue a new RFP with appropriate requirements. Of course, that's what the lawsuit in game is desiring to force... so...yeah. This isn't someone having a character making a decision that properly doesn't match physics. It's someone making a bad policy decision, and getting lightly whacked for it.

[Siege]

I'm all for fair, but if we're on that subject -- let me reiterate that as far as I'm concerned players don't get to assume others didn't do something just because they didn't post about it. They also don't get to presume to know what is and is not legal in another player's nation.

Maybe Orion did cancel the tender. Or maybe in Orion tenders don't have the same legal standing as they do in the USA, and aren't grounds to sue on. My point being that you don't know these things if you don't ask, and that's where as far as I'm concerned this ordeal went off the tracks. You could've just asked if E_F was deviating from the tender and informed him that if so your dudes would attempt to sue for breach of whatever. Then the both of you could've hashed out how to go about doing this in the best way possible. That would be transparent and wouldn't make his guys look like yobbo's who don't know the contract law of their own kingdom. It also would mean making a lot less assumptions about his stuff, which in my view would be good.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, wow, and after all those complaints about me using OOC knowledge. Damn.

I'm the only one who complained about you doing that before, as far as I can remember. I'm not affiliated with Beowulf (although, full disclosure, we sometimes make jokes with each other via PM). I didn't find out about this post until after he posted it.

Then I didn't realize the problem with it so much; Siege in particular did a good job of bringing me back to my senses. And yeah, it was out of line for the same reason your "My submarines are omnipresent and omniscient" stuff I complained about was.

In this case, you are right to complain that Beo is capitalizing on OOC knowledge his shipyard company could not reasonably have known. Although he might have reasonably believed that his company would have known that... he didn't see fit to tell us how they found out. Not good.

OK, here's what I'll do. I shall add a story post dated before the messages to Rheinland Schiffbau showing the decision-making process and the announcement that the RFP has been withdrawn. Then we shall announce that we are buying the Derfflingers.

I don't think the IC post should be required of you; the bare fact that you have announced it is good enough for me.

If you still want to sue, go ahead, although I have to wonder what court would have jurisdiction here, and how they expect to enforce their verdict.

EDIT: Hell, since the date on Beo's post was 10 February, I might add an immediate follow-on post where we refuse to even acknowledge the lawsuit.

It is generally poor practice to 'refuse to acknowledge' a lawsuit between major organizations. It makes those organizations very reluctant to deal with you in the future.

However, a judge might very well accept the Orion Navy's motion for summary dismissal of the suit, IF (as you say) the Orion Navy actually did do the bureaucratic paper-shuffle properly so as to cover their own asses.

That's not the same thing as refusing to acknowledge the suit, though, because the plaintiff does get their day in court. Just an embarrassing day in court.

It is not in any way apparent that this did not happen. The only thing Orion did so far is notify Rheinland Schiffbau that they want to buy their Derfflinger. They didn't explicitly say they're buying them as fulfillment of their tender, nor did they say they wouldn't buy anything else.

Based on standard practices however it would be apparent that the RFP was filled.

• When filled, RFPs tend to be pulled, or at least marked that they are filled.
• E_F put dates on his posts of 30 JAN for issuing the RFP (best case is that it was issued that day) and 2 FEB for the order from Rheinland. That doesn't leave a lot of time, and admiralties don't move very fast.
• The only major naval order that I can remember that didn't have an announcement issued either from the military making the order or the company being ordered from was the recent order for the fourth Danish OPV, and even that still got a page on the shipyard's website with the shipyard's hull number and the type of vessel. In short, news about the order would leak by the 8th, which puts Beo's post dated on 10 FEB in much better shape.

I honestly think that's a level of attention to detail above what we can realistically ask of E_F, or anyone else.

Conclusions from what you said:

1) I agree that Beowulf could reasonably argue "the Rhenisch shipyard would realistically have announced that someone had just ordered five Derfflingers in a press release because having a thirty billion dollar contract is great for your stock price and they'd be fools not to announce it. So yeah, my guys probably knew the order had been placed within a week or so of your letter sealing the deal."

2) That notwithstanding, it is NOT FAIR TO ETERNAL_FREEDOM to ask him to come up with 'realistic' dates and timespans for naval procurement decisions. So we can't use the fast turnaround as evidence that his navy screwed up the paperwork and legal ass-covering. Among other things because in real life such contracts take years to get anywhere and our game isn't moving that fast.

So as far as I'm concerned, if he asserts that his ass is covered, his ass is covered. Though foreign shipyards might still be a little warier of doing business with him since his navy does now have a history of placing an order and changing its mind in the middle of the procurement process.

Look, I know some of you guys have a ton of knowledge on subjects I personally don't even have the foggiest clue about, be it military arcana or educational methods or how to build flipping laser systems. And as a result of that specific knowledge it may on occasion appear that other players are doing very silly things indeed.

But here's the thing: if you're genuinely weirded out by the actions of another player because you happen to have a fuller understanding of a particular subject then the right thing to do is to share that knowledge here so players can learn from it and improve their posts.

Agreed, working on it, sorry, mea culpa.

Does that make sense? I don't mean to go all Mr. Rogers on y'all but I know from experience it's infinitely more pleasant to just be told something's impossible OOC so you can correct IC mistakes than to awkwardly pretend that this is a world where on occasion highly trained professionals suddenly turn into morons of the highest order for no apparent reason. Much less all the drama that results from players feeling like they're preyed on for gotcha moments. I think we can all do without that this time, yeah?

I'm sold on this, and I'd like to expand on it.

I mean hell, this is exactly what the milgeeks in the audience just did by explaining to Eternal_Freedom why putting 18" guns on his new capital ships is a bad move... which is how this happened in the first place. Someone explained to him something many people don't know about warships (i.e. why battleships are obsolete and missiles > guns). As a result, he changed his mind. BLAMING him for changing his mind would tend to create a "I just can't win" attitude on his part.

While Beowulf wanting to troll the Orion Navy isn't wrong in itself,* that doesn't mean his shipyard has an unassailable right to win its battles against them.

*A certain amount of trolling and baiting inevitably goes on in STGODs, the key is to make sure it's done in fun and doesn't simply become "lol lookit the noob" towards everyone who isn't an obscure trivia buff.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Good points on the acknowledging the lawsuit part, I'll make a note of that.

I am still curious which court it woudl be heard in, and how they hope to enforce any verdict. After all, we don't have a United Nations or ICC or anything set up yet, so I would think that judgements on international law are dicey at best.

[Simon_Jester]

Sovereign immunity is a tricky subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity

My take is that normally it is possible to bring a government organization, or military, to civil court in its own courts. At least in free-ish societies. And indeed, in real life the UN has no ability to oversee lawsuits pressed against a national government, or any subsidiary organization of that government such as a navy. They simply don't do that. Neither does the ICC, which focuses on crimes against human rights, not so much on civil law.

Now, some hypothetical HARD POWER RAAAH idiot/fetishist might say "Wait, my own courts have jurisdiction? That means I can just IGNORE THE SUIT LOL." I've known people like that.

The problem is that if Idiot's government in the practice of pissing on its own contracts, and having Idiot's judges laugh off any lawsuits that result... no one in their right mind (foreign or domestic) will contract with Idiot's government. At best they'll demand cash on the barrelhead in exchange for anything they do for the government, because they can't count on contractual obligations being respected.

Also, something like that means that Idiot's nation doesn't have a really independent or neutral judiciary, and once people start questioning the neutrality of the courts, veneration for the law decays really fast.

Incidentally, this is why Umerian government officials hate getting sued by foreign corporations. They hate losing the suit and being in a position of embarrassment and obligation to foreign private institutions; it pushes all their nationalist and anticolonialist buttons.

But at the same time, their judiciary understands that when a foreigner sues your government in your own courts, the probity and trustworthiness of your country is at stake... and they try to act accordingly.
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In this case, if Orion has an honorable judiciary they'll at least seriously consider and respect the case... but may throw it out anyway on the grounds that the Orion Navy (retroactively/can reasonably be assumed) didn't screw up its own contract law. But they'll at least stop, look things over, and issue a ruling to the effect of "provision blah says our asses are covered."

Assuming you want to write the Orion Navy as having good contract-fu.

If they have bad contract-fu, maybe they actually did screw things up and there's a case to be made that they handled the procurement process in an unfair way that allowed an insider to win the bid by offering something that didn't match the requirements... but accompanying it by a persuasive argument to accept this other thing and thereby bypass any offers made by people who did.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Ah I see. I thought that lawsuits against foreign governments were handled by some subset fo the UN or something similar.

Well we'll see what Siege/Steve say. If necessary I can have someone file for summary dismissal, especially if Beo is only able to base this lawsuit on a rumour that someone agreed to purchase ships from Rheinland, since no public admission has been made.

[Simon_Jester]

1) Nitpick: I should maybe have talked about state immunity not sovereign immunity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_immunity

2) It would not be unreasonable for Beowulf to assert that his own large shipyard firm has some way of finding out that a Rhenisch shipyard got a thirty billion dollar contract. I mean, it would normally be good business practice for the Rhenisch shipyard to announce that almost immediately accompanied by a "Good news, guys! We just landed a thirty billion dollar contract! Those poor morons at Vulkanwerft can eat our dust!"

Unless they have some specific reason to keep this secret, which of course they might... but that would be Thanas's call, not yours.
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EDIT: Of course, different corporations in SDNW6 may have different levels of openness. Siege has been explicit that the San Doradan megacorps keep boatloads of secrets from everyone including most of their own investors, for instance. What with the OOC allusions to secret boardroom cults and conspiracy theories and whatnot...

On the other hand, they operate out of a lawless free trade zone and are probably not subject to the same kinds of regulations and pressures as businesses that operate out of a country.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Very true.

Ok then, I am going to assert this now. We did in fact terminate the original RFP before agreeing to purchase ships from Rheinland. I may need to edit the dates to make more sense, but that's up to Steve/Siege. We will file to summary dismissal on these grounds unless the lawsuit is retconned.

[Simon_Jester]

That said, did you issue a new request for bids? Would that mean other foreign suppliers are allowed to bid on the revised request for a giant missile ship?

Or was the decision to order Derfflingers what we call a "no-bid contract?"

[Eternal_Freedom]

For ease and to avoid a lengthy run-around, I will go with it being a no-bid contract, with the added benefit of it being a good announcement to make while Chancellor Fischer is visiting Orion.

EDIT: Unless of course you think it would be better to issue a new RFP. As has been established, I know precisely sod-all about this area, so I will happily take advice.

[Simon_Jester]

Well.

A new request for proposals would give you the opportunity to see if anyone makes a more appealing offer.

A no-bid contract is simpler, but it means that miffed contractors who submitted proposals under the original bid might complain that you basically did exactly what Beo's lawsuit was about in the first place- made a proposal, changed your mind, then put in a noncompetitive bid for a ship that didn't match the original requirements without giving them a chance to offer a competing bid.

No-bid contracts have a certain infamy in US law because they're often associated with corruption and government officials trying to throw business to a favored crony, sometimes in exchange for a bribe.

On the other hand, Orion law may give the government broad latitude to enter a no-bid contract when it wants to, without bothering with a lengthy review process.

On the OTHER other hand, maybe Orion law on the matter is actually a bit ambiguous and some legal drama would be good for the soul. I dunno.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Sod it, I'll go with a no-bid contract. Beo can keep his lawsuit, but we officially did withdraw the RFP before placing the order with Rheinland Schiffbau.

Legal shenanigans can ensue, it should be good for a laugh.

[Beowulf]

EF: you going to edit the dates so it makes more sense? I'd suggest doing all these shenanigans in March. Gives your Navy sometime to consider, while the timing right now is almost literally choosing the first offer to come through the door.

[Simon_Jester]

Although that in turn suggests that maybe part of our problem is the months stretching out so long. It's not good for to us to require characters to take months making decisions in-game if that translates into waiting weeks or months for resolution out-of-game.

Anyone have any objection to bumping forward into March?
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Also, maddoctor, poor little kid. What is the precise significance of his mantra?

[Steve]

None. I'm still waiting for Thanas to finish that bit with his ambassador, but that's all I need for February.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah I'm fine with that, I'll change the dates to March, sine it doesn't substantially change the story at all.

EDIT: I'm in the process of sorting out the RFP problem. THe date on the order to Rheinland Schiffbau is now in early March, whilst the letter to Vulkanwerft is dated 20th February, as it is a part of the "thanks but no thanks" series of messages. The story post I'm writing now is dated 19th of February where the decision is made.

Oh and Steve? That bit about the fighters wandering into places they shouldn't is fine, thee things happen after all.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I don't expect I'll need to worry about new Arcadian designs for at least the first in-game year. Our last BBN design is only a decade or so old, which isn't that old for a modern Cap-ship design. The older BBs are being replaced by Carriers for the most part.

We'll probably need a new BCGN design at some point, but that's in the future. For now I need to figure out which storyline I want to get kickstarted

[Eternal_Freedom]

How about some big naval exercises with your old friends in Orion?

[Skywalker_T-65]

That was one of the ideas I was tossing around, especially since the Princess' fleet is probably somewhere in that area still.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well I'm sure my battleship sailors would enjoy one last dance before the ships are retired and replaced.

[Thanas]

So I get a call from one of my profs that will keep me working over the weekend. No chance of getting a post up until sunday. RL and all that.