StarDestroyer.Net BBS

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-14 03:02pm 

Because I figured SDNW4 was different enough, and of such size, it might merit its own Wiki. So I made one.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-14 03:05pm 

I was a bit confused because some people wrote their nation on the old wiki.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-14 03:18pm 

I noticed. I think some of it came because I hadn't made the new wiki yet.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-14 07:02pm 

Looking at the foreign relations chart: can anyone think of a way to move the key to somewhere it's more visible, like the top of the chart? We've got those rows of colored blocks; can we just have each color, then the status the color corresponds to to its right, then the next color to the right of that, and so on?

As it stands, you have to keep scrolling back over to the far right to look up the colors.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-14 07:10pm 

I just had a look at the foreign relations chart....and to be honest, I do not understand one bit why I am supposed to be suspicious of some powers or vice versa.

For example, why should I be suspicious towards Shinn's state or those of Ryan and Pollux? They do not border me, nor are they acting towards my state?

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-14 07:17pm 

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-14 08:28pm 

Hmm, don't have any problem with my resolution .


Probably they're trying to say they're suspicious of YOU, and used the wrong axis *. If you're not suspicious of them, change it.

*Highly likely in the case of Pollux's Pfhor, who seem to be suspicious of everyone .

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-14 08:59pm 

The only solution I can think of is to put initial letters in the colored blocks at the top to jog the memory (which I just implemented). I can't think of anything else that would work well. Perhaps have two tabs open, one with the chart and one with the key, and switch rapidly between the two?



If they were acting tight-lipped and / or strange towards your state, you might find it reasonable to be suspicious. But if you don't feel suspicious, then there is certainly no need to use that indicator. It is, of course, also unnecessary to escalate in a smooth fashion through progressively more negative (or positive) positions towards a nation. I mean, if a nation with which you have friendly relations starts acting strange, you can hop to "Suspicious" and then straight to War of Annihilation"a state of war" if they unleash bioweapons and Base Delta Zeros attack a colony or something.




That really helps to clarify things. Thanks for writing it up!

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 01:22am 

Hey all, the Empire Star Republic is finally up in some capacity on the wiki. I've been to busy to think do much on this the last couple weeks, but I should be writing out a bunch of stuff soon, so please PM me if you have any thought's on your nation's relationship with the Empire Starers. If you're in bad financial shape, or merely need some help to fund your war effort, don't despair! The Empire State'll sell you ships, guns, or any other good, extend you adjustable rate loans of almost any size, and craft whatever flavor of complex financial instrument your nation wants to disguise your debt with! And if you've got any huddled masses you're yearning to be free of, we'll take 'em!

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 02:21am 

It occurs to me that we're liable to end up with a lot of states that, fluffwise, have a thriving trade in exported weapons, ships, or other forms of technology... and precious few that lag the galaxy in anything to import all that stuff.

It might behoove us all to pick a few areas our nation is genuinely bad at, where we rely on imported goods or have a doctrinal weakness, just so that we have some flaws to plan around in the event that things get messy.

EDIT: For example, given my picture of how the Technocracy of Umeria works, obvious areas for us to be bad in are mass production of consumer goods (as opposed to specialized high-end equipment)*, managing large scale fleet actions, the liason between mid- and high levels of government (due to the nature of how the technocracy works)... I can think of a bunch of things, and will for the wiki.

*We have a small and relatively rich 'core' and a large colonial 'periphery'; the core states may well lack the industrial might to satisfy the demands of the periphery, forcing us to become a net importer of manufactured goods from other states and a net exporter of raw materials... not a good position to be in economically.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 03:51am 

Hmmm... remind me to hit you up later, once things are a bit more settled, then. You're in the perfect spot to sell you all kinds of fun stuff.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 05:18am 

I have added my "nation"'s history to the wiki. I think I'm settling on ORKS! as the nation's name

Since this is my first foray into one of these games, I'll focus more on the roleplaying/story writing aspect than on the empire building, hence why I'm building my race to be a bunch of loosely organized pirate/mercenary fleets for hire.

Regarding map location, is it possible/advisable to have small colonial sectors spread around the map? My idea is to have my boyz inhabitting rocks set in shoal areas, and usually moving around the back routes of the universe. I have plans for a home sector, though, since I need to jusitfy the ships.

As for comments on economic flaws, I'm setting my nation to be more of a "service" provider than an actual manufacturer, so they'll be pretty dependent on a wide range of imported goods (hence the occasional raiding).

Also, these are based on Wh40k Orks, but not exactly the same. I'm trying to make them less Grimdark, and play them even more for laughs.

Comments on the stupidity of my actions are welcome

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 05:32am 

I think this is an awesome idea and I fully support it. We need more activity in shoal sectors

And competition for Legion

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 05:40am 

The idea of colonies in or near Shoal sectors is an awesome one and it could be explained by some sort of benefit or function that the colony would serve, say a valuable mineral or a research station on the nature of shoals. I kinda imagine them like Wormhole space in Eve Online. Unknown, hard to access sectors with high rewards parried with high risk.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 05:44am 

There could be various colonies and outposts set up there by other entities than states, too. For example, Elysium (a Wild Space world I used in my history) could've been set up by people fed up with existing society, located inside shoals for security (it costs a lot to replace a dreadnaught's hyperdrive, so most people wouldn't bother taking over some small indie place).

Then there are pirate bases, minor undeveloped species, ancient worlds destroyed by unknown cataclysms and such

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 05:53am 

Not true, the Bragulans depend on the Sassanids for high-end goods, whereas we depend on outside sources for raw minerals due to being at the edge of the galaxy and a lot of stuff getting still settled.



And how would the risk work out? Because otherwise I think it a bit unfair to players who chose their spot without this present.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 06:10am 

Personally I want to place my Boyz in shoal areas just because it fits with their style, you know, thriving in lost rocks no one would bother settling in. They also feel like a natural fit for pirates anyway.

And I totally see them setting up the space equivalent of biker bars and trucker stops.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 06:53am 

I personally don't see how much scarcity I would want to manufacture into my society. This being space and all, even a weak industrial base should be able to keep trillions in luxury with resources to spare. Doing rough calculations it is hard to see how a civilization on this scale could fail to rapidly start harnessing entire solar outputs to meet energy needs and from there swiftly start breaking down systems to produce other items as needed. It simply isn't reasonable to assume societies that have had many hundreds of years to get things set could possibly want for anything.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 08:13am 

What about luxury goods and technological items? Why is it unreasonable to assume some items (especially ones working on exotic principles, like say hyperspace drives) would be produced at lower cost/better quality by some nations than by others, and thus be subject to trade?

Check out the modern world: there's only a few major suppliers of optics servicing pretty much everybody from observatories to militaries, because of the tolerances required. Slight advantages in technology could translate into gigantic competitive advantages with markets of tens of billions of customers.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 08:42am 

I conceived of the Sovereignty as a society that is pretty much post-scarcity but insists vehemently on pretending it isn't, because anything else will cause the suicides of millions of economists and rich people everywhere. Lots of stuff is essentially being kept artificially scarce mostly to preserve the profit margins of large corporations and the sanity of government officials who have no real clue about how you'd run a Culture-style society.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 08:51am 

Oh. My culture embraced that particular outcome. They figured it was a positive one.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 08:53am 

I dislike the term "post-scarcity", since scarcity is pretty much a property of the universe. Think about it this way: even if you have an entire solar system full of resources, they still need to be located, surveyed, mined, processed and made into finished products. AI doesn't magically solve that problem ; It just makes all the above steps easy and cheap. But when every single one of your 150 billion people want six iPhones, two gaming consoles, a virtual reality jack, a cybernetic arm, four personal vehicles, a boat and robot dog, it's not necessarily going to be possible to give it to them for free.

Think about it like the situation with clothes in the XIX century: we moved from using one sturdy hand-made shirt for two or three generations to absurdly cheap clothing made in humongous quantities to be used and exchanged frequently. However, despite easy access to materials, labor, transportation and energy, clothing still isn't free. Food is also absurdly cheap right now, yet - again - not free. Elliminate labor costs and replace it with AI, and it still isn't going to be free, because you'll need hardware and energy to run those AIs that manage your economy.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 09:01am 

That's an unmanageable level of consumption. Union citizens have it hammered into their heads from a young age that overconsumption and stuff like having too many kids results in scarcity and that scarcity means the end of civilization as they know it.


Only because there's a profit to be made selling it. We could feed almost everybody, yet we chose a system that denies it to people because they didn't amass enough currency. I said "fuck that noise" and went with a technocracy (which is actually feasible with this game's technology).


You won't need to pay people to do it though. You can motivate them by threatening to end the gravy train if they don't occasionally go in and do a little maintenance when its required (if at all).

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 09:02am 

You're right, but within the context of the game it's quite possible to create a society that is for all intents and purposes post-scarcity. Let's say one that has only a handful million citizens yet access to dozens of solar systems which are all being mined by swarms of Von Neumann probes, which feed the resources directly into some kind of matter-energy furnaces linked to fancy 3d-printers (or replicator, or what-have-you). Society would still be limited in that obviously not everyone can own their own planet, but on the personal level I don't really see why anyone would have to actually care about money when everything's self-replicating and self-sustaining.

It'd be a boring society to write about of course, but still. It could probably be done if one fancied it.

 Post subject: Re: An SDNW Proposal

Posted: 2010-06-15 09:05am 

The Byzantine Imperium in general regards itself as self-sufficient in terms of technological development etc.

What one might make a killing, really, is luxury goods. I fear that we have forgotten how to make those, in our single-minded drive to develop technologies, we have forgotten how to do art...