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Innocent_Bystander posted:Sorry I forgot to tell you guys about this earlier, but starting tommorrow I'll be gone for just under three weeks (Just barely returning before the 20 day inactivity limit). Berryjon has the wheel on UNIN, Jimmy has control over the monitor design work. I trust everyone not to burn anything down until I get back. I'm doomed. Again. At least this time, my chances of being held hostage are minimized.
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May 23, 2013 21:07
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berryjon posted:I'm doomed. Again. Not unless we both show up at Machu Pichu.  But yeah, we've got the design we're planing on going with posted on the last page (Monitor with an SWACS for eyes and ears) so if anyone has any concerns, questions, or notices a thermal exhaust port that can be shot which will result in the ship blowing up, please don't hesitate to ask in thread or in IRC. The government idea looks good, though I suspect that there will be much hammering out and negotiating behind the scenes to try and figure out exactly how everything is going to be represented in the colony and such, but it's a good spring board and has a lot of good meaty ideas.
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May 23, 2013 22:05
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berryjon posted:I'm doomed. Again. The headers on this post indicate it was sent from deep inside a Federation asteroid prison.
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May 23, 2013 22:55
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berryjon, if you do get captured again, make sure you get transferred to a place that I can actually get to. Like a prison on Mars or Earth.
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May 23, 2013 23:08
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Jimmy4400nav posted:Not unless we both show up at Machu Pichu. code:Seems a little light on Armour. Perhaps 4 layers would be better. Considering we're shooting WH4 missiles, a single return hit would breach the New York, and it cant seem to actively prevent that happening. Do we want to invest in a CIWS? 10 Missiles is a hell of a volley. The Fire Control reaches further than the missiles, this provides some redundancy if we upgrade our missiles before the ship. What speed have we observed the Federation gunboats moving at. What sort of % to hit are we expecting? The AFR lists we will have at least one thing break on these each year. So we will be consuming Maintenance supplies each year of operation. Should be ok if we berth twice a year. Overall, I rekon we could bump it up to 8,000 tons, add an active sensor, 2 layers of armor and another engine.
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May 24, 2013 01:09
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Kommando posted:Overall, I rekon we could bump it up to 8,000 tons, add an active sensor, 2 layers of armor and another engine. Show me a design, please.
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May 24, 2013 01:21
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berryjon posted:Show me a design, please. Sure, let me just draft it up when I get home.
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May 24, 2013 01:36
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Kommando posted:
All very good points. While at first glance the Monitor does have some problems, sadly, there are certain aspects we were forced to accept. First and foremost, 7,050 tons was the highest we were willing to go because the EADS shipyard (formerly known as Versailles) is still fairly small, don't forget military shipyards expand fairly slowly, getting an extra thousand tons will take around a year or more of time, and that's not even counting the time it will take to refit the shipyard to make the monitor. The main purpose of the monitor to to basically be a portable long range missile flinger. It can shoot something at 71 million km. We also wanted to get a fairly large broadside per volley, so ten tubes, in addition to a fairly high missile capacity. In order to achieve all this, reduced speed and eventually, taking out the sensor was deemed acceptable, since to get the range needed on a sensor to use this platform, the array was going to have to be so big it'd cut almost 2/3 of our volley capabilities, while still having the reduced armor amount. So while a redundant sensor is possible, the main goal of this platform is to snipe ships before they can get into range to kill the SWACS. While again, a later version might have PD, CIWS or redundant sensors, our size limitation is really restrictive right here, unless we're willing to go two to three years before having a heavy combat ship. Again, this things main purpose is to sit and defend. Fuel tank wise, that's all with one tank, so no getting around that sadly. Armor wise, same conundrum. If we want the heavy volley, lots of missiles and a long range fire control, then unless we're willing to wait extra years, bringing up the mass just isn't feasible without sacrificing more of the platforms functionality. As for the missile, right now since Fred has been seen to be moving at a little bit more than 3k km/s, the proposed design for a missile for this platform is about 50%. So if a Skory were to theoretically enter the range of one of these things and it fired a full broadside at it, then half would hit. Bear in mind though the hit rate goes up as crew experience and initiative goes up, so we're looking at a range from 50%-85% theoretically And I just realized as well that the blueprints were a few more pages back than I thought, so I'll repost them here. code:code:code:code:code:code:
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May 24, 2013 01:39
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Nevermind then, the New'ark Shipwright has answered my questions.
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May 24, 2013 01:54
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Oh, wow, this thread. Thank you for enormous amount of entertainment, and also thanks for completely destroying my work morale in the past two weeks that I've spent reading this colossus instead of diligently working. Now that I've finished, I'm facing ~12 hours of work a day just to catch up to my deadline. Still, no regrets. If you don't mind, I have some thoughts about this LP in general, and also about how UN plays the game. I realise it's quite pretentious coming here and having a  post immediately, and sorry for that. On the other hand, I've just read every single post in the thread so I hope I can provide some observations that perhaps long-time readers have missed.The LP: Exciting beginnings, in the first half I was simply amazed how smoothly it flows in comparison to other political LPs. The in-game time flew, events kept happening, game kept changing, the decision process in the thread was brief and reasonably effective. When the game got to a point where not much was happening, bgreman broke the monotony by the Saturn Crisis. A welcome change of pace, and thrilling to read. Again, the thread reacted quite effectively (mostly thanks to the fact that most was decided by a single person, Spermcube.org), and it felt like we succeeded in our plans. Also important: the crisis was quite brief and didn't drag much so it didn't slow the pace of the LP. Then back to usual Aurora business, so far so good. At some point it again becomes "same old, same old", most excitement coming from the prospect of discovering new star systems. Again, bgreman sees this and throws in the First Solar War to change the pace of the LP a bit. Masterful LPing I'd say. The Mars Crisis/War was both very exciting and frustrating to read. Exciting since I couldn't stop reading because all the cliffhangers and stuff going on (great job, bgreman), frustrating because it showed the sheer incompetence of the UNEC. There was no plan, no organisation, it was total chaos, UNEC just responded to momentary events without having any clear vision of what to do, completely changing its course several times. Very little coordination between various council members, no real common plan, some councilors just did whatever the hell they fell like doing. I still don't understand how a situation where the UN knows beforehand that the Federation is trying to provoke a war, but is simply unwilling to make the first strike, ends up with the UN doing exactly what the Federation wants and giving them a cassus belli. I mean: we knew it was a trap, we even knew how the trap was supposed to work, and still we walked straight into it. Amazing, a true testament of the goon spirit. And yes, it was highly entertaining reading it, but also highly frustrating knowing I have no way of influencing several months old events. A good kind of frustration that kept me reading though. The war was definitely the high point of the LP, and it's been going downhill since. It took very long in real-life time, and I hoped we could get back to speed, again advancing the in-game time quickly just like in the old days of the LP. Discover space systems, see aliens! Sadly, ever since the war ended, not much Aurora playing has been going on, except of designing ships, which is only a small part of the game. Bgreman still advances the time, sure, but noone seems to be playing any more. The UNEC is doing random things, there's no planning, old plans have been forgotten, councilors mostly aren't doing their duties etc. If you read last bgreman's posts, it's painfully obvious how many things does the UNEC forget about. Logistics, resource acquisition, industry, exploration, research all went to hell and are operating on standing orders only (again with the sole exception of designing new ships). Nobody is planning what to do in the game any more. There is no plan, and the old ones have been abandoned without a word. What happened to project ZEUS? More importantly - I thought our main plan was to colonize other systems as soon as possible? So why the hell aren't we doing it any more? We've found two jump point, we've finished all jump related research about half in-game year ago. And we still aren't building a jump-capable ship, we don't even have a shipyard available for it, and noone seems to care. Instead the former Aurora LP seems to have become some sort of spy-oriented PnP roleplaying game. As much as I love the escapades of slow_beef and TildeATH, I don't think roleplaying should overshadow the actual game in here. Slow_beef's story is great, because it has repercussions in the game world and more importantly, it is brief, limited to his posts and doesn't steal spotlight. TildeATH and his independent colony are fine as well, again because they will have actual repercussions for the game world. If I could change anything, I probably wouldn't have launched this detour so soon after the LP has spent several weeks, if not months, in slow motion because of the war, but instead waited an in-game year or two until the LP needed to break the monotony again. And second: the whole conference roleplaying has basically devoured the whole "let's play Aurora" aspect from this LP. What I don't understand at all, though, are roleplaying activities like the Sahara terraforming project, because I don't see how this is relevant unless we want to change the whole "cold war in space" theme into "geopolitics of minor factions on Earth". It seems like pointless fan-fiction. It would be fine if it was just a minor side project to provide some colour (akin to Jimmies amazing newsposts), but it seems to be occupying most of the attention of one UNEC councilor and recently has diverted attention of others as well, all the while the actual playing of Aurora keeps getting forgotten. Ehhh... , I know. Sorry.To summarise: this is an amazing LP, but lately it's been losing focus and it hasn't been that much fun to read as before, really. It's still great, I'd just hate for it to slowly crumble, and that's why I'm posting this. Also, the UNEC seriously needs to actually start doing its duties, play the game, keep long term plans in mind and try to accomplish them (I'm not the first one saying this). Because at this time it's like a brainless child chasing butterflies. It has no long-term memory, it's trying to address one thing and then abandoning it completely because something else comes up. Let's explore other systems! Oh no, there's war! Let's forget about exploring and design ships instead! No, we won't support an independent colony, thank you very much, we have a majority vote saing NO. Wait, people in the thread are playing spy games, let's play them too! Oooo, an independent colony, neat! Let's support it, even though we've said NO like two seconds ago, even though we'll be directing our resources from our other long-term projects (which we've already forgotten about), even though there's absolutely nothing to gain from getting involved in a minor third-party colony in the middle of nowhere with no strategic importance at all.  E: proofread now, sorry E: Also, add me to the waiting list of naval officers, please 
markus_cz fucked around with this message at 20:48 on May 24, 2013 |
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May 24, 2013 20:34
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FROM: Commander Kal-L, UNS Boomtown TO: UNIN RE: Something to do, please! I know we should keep the valiant tradition of just staying quietly at our current position, hoping that one of the superior officers remember us for a new mission, but the monotony here has forced my hand. I had the crew conduct drills, make simulations of planetary scanning of objects as large as Jupiter to small as a comet, clean the ship in the inside AND the outside (ensign McAllister surely didn't like being hit by all those micrometeorites while giving the ship a second hand of polish, but the mirror sheen is totally worth it). I'm just curious as to when my ship and crew will see some new assignments since we'd need to go to a new solar system to be of any use. How are the plans for that coming along? Last I heard from UNSA, the science is all done, when are we going to go practical with it?
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May 24, 2013 21:28
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To be perfectly fair, I think the going back on the 'no to independent colonies' decision was pretty accurate of 'actual' politics at work. I was one of those who emphatically voted 'no', but as a second in command, my position was temporary thing and I somewhat opportunistic to ask for a vote while I had a vote, especially as I suspect the actual department head, Saros, would have yea'd on it. That elements within (and without) of the UNEC should seek to bypass and/or subvert such a decision would be a part of the makeup of the game; if we dislike it we can always boot the relevant UNEC overseers from their positions for being so... so... politician-like. There is some 'whoops, forgot about that' elements, as you say, but I feel that's to be expected in a thread of this longevity and with a game of this complexity. While UNEC members could perhaps be more active in-thread, this is a Let's Play and people can only contribute as they are able. If they don't post in response to relevant inquiries or things necessary for the game's progression, UNEC overseers -do- get booted and their replacement come to the fore (such as with Ynkling). I also believe there -is- a jump-capable ship and shipyard available (or, if not, then certainly on the way), so you must've crossed your eyes at some point as to that. As for ZEUS... I think it's been postponed until we can get an off-system place for it? Can't remember what the last I heard on that was. (And as a side note to those who may still be interested, Grey Cell is not dead. RL has been getting in the way some, but I have been preparing a briefing of sorts to explain and showcase how this sidestory shindig is going to work out. Hopefully it can make those interested in writing and role-playing in the BGverse get a valid alternative to lobbying BGreman/UNEC councilors. I'll try getting up this weekend.)
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May 24, 2013 23:12
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Welcome to the fold, glad you've been enjoying the thread so far. You made some very cogent points and observations (indeed having someone marathon through and report on stuff we might have missed, or trends is a good thing, this has been going on for almost a year and a half now, so we might have forgotten some stuff). I would like to address some of them though. First and foremost your concern over jump ships. Admittedly, there has been a lot of distraction with Mars and the Indy colony, but I think you'll be pleased to note, we're right on course for exploring another starsystem by early next year. As head of industry, I took the liberty of having enough parts for an initial run of four Turing Jump Tenders prefabricated. So we have the parts for the ship already assembled. As for the shipyard, we have the B.C voidyard slated for the construction of Turings, but it needs to grow by another 200 tons before we can start building them. Rest assured, we already have the yard earmarked for this and have already prepared (that's why we have 6 El Dorodos). Next, colonizing and settling other star systems and Zeus. Both are still on the table, however, when those ideas were initially proposed (in those faster early days), most of us didn't have as firm of an understanding of technologies and settlement as we do now and when we initially decided on those, we didn't realize that there would be several roadblocks. For Zeus the main problem is the colonization cost of Callisto and the fact that we're reliant heavily on our commercial fleet. While we had a lot of contracts for moving supplies to Callisto, for our shipping firms, it was far more lucrative to move stuff to Tranquility and Mars, so very little infrastructure was making its way to Callisto to support the massive population required. In addition, by basically allowing our void interests to be scattered on three locations, we had slower overall colonial growth, which hampered our commercial sector growth. After we lost Mars, we had a sit down and learned some more of the mechanics, and we discovered it was far more efficient and profitable to let the free market in game run it's course, with Mars out of the way, all our shipping interests could focus on building up the Moon. Because of this, they can grow their fleet at a huge rate, and once they deliver enough infrastructure to house 25 million people on Tranquility (a goal that's almost complete), they then focus on delivering to Callisto. So we decided to slow down Zeus to allow for a stronger colonial and commercial growth, which will allow us to move and settle more stuff on Callisto than if we had tried to baby it. Other starsystems are a bit more complicated. First we have to explore the JPs and figure out whats out there that might be worth taking, so that will eat up some time (especially Geo surveys and grav surveys of other solar systems). The main issue is, how are we going to colonize and defend our interests. Right now, we're still trying to figure out how we'e going to accomplish this. We have 2 possible methods, Jump Gates and Jump drives, both have advantages and disadvantages. Gate allow our civilian commercial vessels to come back and forth as they please and settle another starsystem much in the way they've done so here. It would be more cost efficient and faster, but the problem is twofold. First a Jump Gate would alert the Federation to jump tech and what were up to, and Jump Gates allow any ship thorough, in addition to highlighting where our jump point is. A big jump tender would allow us to keep it secret, but we'd be stuck using state commercial ships, which we have a fewer number of, plus we couldn't transport our larger military vessels though like we could with a gate. so we're still figuring this one out, but we have several more steps to go through before we're really there. This is actually why we're focusing on the military right now, Mars showed us our fleet is currently not equipped to handle a fight with Fred at this point. For us, we're realized that there is little point to dumping so much research into civilian techs if we can't protect them, hence why we're moving to develop monitors, Cape Towns and SWACS. All three can work well together to allow us to defend our assets and locations, especially jump points, but it will take time to develop, which in the meantime' we using that time to explore and get a better understanding. So we still plan on colonizing other star systems ASAP, its just that we need to take several more steps to do it effectively, and they will take time: 1. Exploration 2.Creating a Method 3. Being able to defend the location 4. Deal with the geo political consequences 5. Really start settling and developing. Mars....I won't lie, Mars was a cascade of problems on our part (bad fleet placement, diplomatic inconsistency, poor instruction and communication, certain actors taking liberties, etc), but even though its a can of worms and we didn't help, it was going to happen. BG has mentioned a couple times that one way or another, fighting was going to happen regardless of who we supported, it was his way of waking us up to the fact we weren't doing ship design and other things correctly. So while we made errors, the thing was going to be inevitable, so we don't dwell as much on it. Other side stuff. Admittedly, the non councilor stuff has been adding more to the game, with more and more people contributing stuff and doing things. While the spy stuff might seem frustrating, please bear in mind that for a lot of people, this will be as much interaction and input they can get with the game. How it's structured currently, the Councilors are permanent (or at least until 60 in game years are up, though I'm looking into life extension), while fleet, civilian, and research personnel don't really get to do too much to impact the game apart from having a named character. While that was fine at first when we had like 10-12 people at the start, as this has become more popular, its not really fair to the people who might have missed the initial drive to basically be excluded from the game world entirely and just have a small click of people doing everything. While we're obviously avoiding traditional goon politics, the slow shift of more stuff people are doing is just kind of a natural extension of letting small things come in without really slowing the political decision making of the game, at least in theory anyways. The reason also for all this role playing stuff and slow down, from what I understand is to make the early game more interesting. Early game Aurora is boring, its literally just research and build, and settle a couple of world in Sol. For anywhere from 12-18 in games years that all you do, even with rivals in system, until you can really make an effective push out through jump points. Obviously, just watching and waiting for stuff to build would stink, so that's why we have some of these crisis and slow downs, to spice up the early game and make it interesting before we get out into the bigger and more interesting world. Since BG went on a couple week vacation, the RP stuff he allows us to do basically allows us to keep the game going in a way, even while he's gone. The Sahara project can actually have a small in game effect. If we can get nations to join us, we can get a small industrial and mineral boost to represent them joining IIRC. However, you are right in that sometimes we can get distracted and loose sight of long term ideas, that's happened a few times already, and you are right to be concerned about that. But we usually will pull through and figure stuff out, and having extra observers to point stuff out is key as well (many non-councilors have been crucial to helping us figure out ship designs, or other good ideas for what to do), so if you have more ideas and suggestions, let us know. Fresh input is always good, especially for us since being here for so long can sometimes make us forget other things. I hope I was able to hit on all your points, if your still worried about something, or have more questions, let us know, we more than happy to answer them 
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May 24, 2013 23:15
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Just a quick disclaimer before I leave for the weekend: my above mentioned rant wasn't meant negatively or angry. It just seems I got invested in the LP/game/narrative too much, and wanted to share my ideas while they were fresh. I look forward for coming back from the weekend and being able to contribute more constructively.
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May 25, 2013 00:35
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Regarding the Sahara project, as said the goal is to get more people/money on Earth as a bonus. Note that I've moved on to the moon, but with time frozen right now I can't really announce advancements. I try to keep things on a somewhat realistic time match with the time passed in the updates. As pointed out, the Mars Crisis was intended to be a mess by OP fiat. Granted, we didn't help by mucking about. Yes, someone start building jump ships dammit. 
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May 25, 2013 01:24
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Added Space posted:Yes, someone start building jump ships dammit. FROM: The Desk of Lt. General berryjon, Acting UNIN TO: ADDED SPACE, et al RE: Those ships. Once the shipyard is big enough! Then we'll build them!
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May 25, 2013 01:56
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berryjon posted:FROM: The Desk of Lt. General berryjon, Acting UNIN You're gonna need a bigger shipyard. Proposed Flagship. Please if anything doesnt make sense, its probably because I'm running 6.21 instead of 5.xx quote:Firestarter class Flagship 33 350 tons 735 Crew 5516.6 BP TCS 667 TH 2100 EM 300 ========= So what is the decision. Are we funding Cornucopia or not?
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May 25, 2013 14:36
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markus_cz posted:Good stuff To be honest I have pretty much given up at the voting stuff so far, there is no reason to even discuss or try to plan because people just reverse the decision about 2 days later. I hope someone somewhere is planning things on IRC, but I have no idea really. Best I can do is try to manage my own departments affairs, because last few times I tried to get people behind my ideas nobody was willing to co-sponsor them. Maybe I should also just try doing whatever I like. Also I feel we really could need to advance time somewhat, I don't even want to read about the conference, sorry guys who have put alot of time in it, because we are just getting screwed again somehow. Especially now that "we" decided that we want to help them anyway, you know without a vote or anything, just like last time.
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May 25, 2013 14:45
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DagPenge posted:To be honest I have pretty much given up at the voting stuff so far, there is no reason to even discuss or try to plan because people just reverse the decision about 2 days later. I hope someone somewhere is planning things on IRC, but I have no idea really. Best I can do is try to manage my own departments affairs, because last few times I tried to get people behind my ideas nobody was willing to co-sponsor them. Maybe I should also just try doing whatever I like. Sounds to me like someone ought to be arguing vehemently against supporting what is going on presently, then! (c'mon, do eeet) At any rate, I disagree with the 'we're only getting screwed here' sentiment, since hey, it's not like this is without potential benefits; it's just that the entire situation of helping establishing and maintaining control over an 'independent' colony is (in this player's humble opinion) a minefield full of pit traps with punji sticks in them and if we get through entirely un-buggered it'll be a small miracle. Quite how well we do will come as a result of the efforts of the UNEC and our diplomatic envoys, who, I will remind, is supposed to take cues from you (so hey, that's an option for ya). Doing whatever you like as a UNEC overseers IS an option to you, seriously it is, and by withdrawing from the decision-making process you're already doing something along those lines. The others can't promise anything from the UNDOT without your say-so, after all. It doesn't mean anything you do on your solely will come entirely without consequence or note, however. See also: Added Space and UNEC speech gag. I think you could take an altogether healthier approach to the situation by being more accepting towards the fact that UNEC overseers are sometimes going to want things counter to what other UNEC overseers want, and if the overseers are unable to express themselves about it or come to agreement on it, then what happened vis-a-vis supporting the Independent colony will take place. Sure, we voted no on it, but new information came up, a big ruckus was made, and then, well, then people decided to get in on it despite the earlier policy decision, 'because it is happening anyway'. These things happen in real life as well. Perhaps folks saw the benefits, perhaps popular opinion had changed. Perhaps TildeATH had successfully lobbied some people. Either way the conference happened, we sent some folks to it, and... that shouldn't have to be the end of the world... or the discussion. Honestly, for the purposes of this thread, despite whatever goes on, whether I support it or not, all I really want are overseers who care about what's going on, and what you're saying is the exact opposite of that, so my humble advice to you is that you don't let thread fatigue bring you down, DagPenge! Either that, or you consider retiring or addressing your issue in a more productive manner than just saying 'gently caress that, I'm out', which is sort of what you've done here, isn't it? I can sort of see where you're coming from; I'm one of the guys who pushed for not supporting the independent colony the hardest, after all, but what happened wasn't really a big 'gently caress you' to everyone who said 'no we're not going to do that'. It was a reversal of fortunes. Politics are happening! Politics happened! Are we really just going to take them lying down going 'welp, I tried'? The only reason I'm not in an absolute In Character bloody hissyfit about the current situation (I.e. going back on a policy decision) is because I wanted someone else to take to the stage here (that, and my in-game persona is sort of in hospital for REASONS). Nobody is really doing so anymore, though. You're all pulling back, shuffling your feet going 'it's so unfair the earlier vote didn't make things turn out the way I wanted it to'. Step up lively, goddammit! All you've -really- lost here is your initiative! And, DagPenge? I do want to know what exactly you proposed that got ignored? I find it more likely that your proposals and ideas have gotten lost in time and/or thread transition rather than going deliberately without comment or support. That stuff happens y'know! Another thing to keep in mind is that if things aren't going your way, then that's part of the Let's Play; if you're not getting support, perhaps it's because you're not doing a good enough job rallying it, or perhaps the other guys are better at rallying support for their ideas. So your contribution might be overwritten or bypassed, but that doesn't mean it's any less of a contribution! It sets the scene and represents the opinion of a subset of the UN. All of us are equals in that regard, vote or no. For those who think nothing is going on or kept control over, in line with the 'stuff keeps getting forgot' thing, I am myself reminded that we do have a WIKI with, among other things, a somewhat complete list of PROJECTS, CURRENT DECISIONS/TOPICS and DESIGNS. Utilizing these better (and helping keeping them up-to-date) would probably be useful if you're interested in the goings-on and decisions of the UNEC. Perhaps we should have someone assigned to update these things on a more regular basis with the thread's contributions? Someone that bites the proverbial bullet, so to speak, perhaps in exchange for a title of some sort. 'Secretary of the UNEC' does have a certain ring to it, doesn't it? edit: spelling errrorrrrs Scribbleykins fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 18:30
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DagPenge posted:To be honest I have pretty much given up at the voting stuff so far, there is no reason to even discuss or try to plan because people just reverse the decision about 2 days later. I hope someone somewhere is planning things on IRC, but I have no idea really. Best I can do is try to manage my own departments affairs, because last few times I tried to get people behind my ideas nobody was willing to co-sponsor them. Maybe I should also just try doing whatever I like. Honestly, IRC has been a bit of a mixed bag with planing, we've gotten some good consensus there in the past, but sometimes things get lost in the shuffle, and sometimes stuff doesn't get posted back to the thread. As I stated before, we do have a long term plan going on, it's just in the background right now since so much focus is being heaped on the Indy colony thing. You are right though, your proposal to send messages to the Fed Freighter lines and our own got lost in the shuffle (that stupid mining charge nonsense (sorry Triggerhappypilot that happened out in Wodan pushed it back). I will concede that was a very good example of thread goofy stuff pushing back a very real and potentially beneficial policy arraignment and I think that's something we all have to be aware of, if we're going to make proposals, or do goofy things, we all need to be aware of whats being posted and what ideas are being presented.
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May 25, 2013 19:18
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I don't even really see the change in attitude toward the neutral colony as a change in course so much as a change in circumstances. The initial idea I put forward was "let's be in the absolute lead on this", which had a bunch of potential liabilities and other problems that a corporate-led charge doesn't have. The development of the Federation's probable designs on the colony were also not at all in consideration when the initial vote went through. In essence, the question we were being asked fundamentally changed. Initially, the question was, do we want to buy a new tool that's being advertised on the Home Shopping Network, what does it actually do, we're not sure yet, but we have a pretty drat good idea it does something cool. Then, the question became, this new tool is up at auction, it's going to be bought by someone, it does X, Y, and Z, and maybe A, B, and C. Also, one of the chief bidders is someone we hate, and we'd really prefer he not be able to do X, Y, and Z. It's not flip-flopping to give two different answers to two different questions.
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May 26, 2013 21:10
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Well im excited and want to join the thread.
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May 26, 2013 22:28
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"I proposed poo poo and nobody listened. I didn't follow up and it got ignored." -Every civil servant in the history of the universe.
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May 27, 2013 13:54
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Well, only two votes changed (I think it was two), and one of them was over scientists, not fear of the Federation supporting it (not sure why the second one changed). It bothers me more that we're trusting a future governor who tried to scare us into this, more than whether we tipped over into aye over fear or not. There's something else though, upon closer examination this resolution never overthrew the initial vote: UN Resolution posted:If yes (Editor: If we want to approach BFM scientists), do we want to buy them from Tildo? Yes/no It just sort of snowballed with purchasing those scientists. It would have been better if there was a vote, but it's not a big deal as this implicit change must have reflected a good amount of actual change. Readingaccount fucked around with this message at 17:37 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 16:55
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That vote never had anything to do with the neutral colony directly - it had everything to do with it indirectly because we knew it was Tilde's big ambition, but that vote was just 'do we want to use our checkbooks to recruit some of the most rare and valuable officers in existence from the bones of the BFM'
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May 27, 2013 18:03
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Diplomaticus posted:"I proposed poo poo and nobody listened. I didn't follow up and it got ignored." Honestly, the best way I've found to make sure something you want done is followed up on is basically bringing it up every time that it seems like it's going to get ignored. When I wanted WALLSTREET to go through I basically kept bugging the UNEC about it until they decided to vote on it, and even then I made sure to keep bringing it up when it seemed like it was going to languish in limbo. My advice to anyone posting, from the highest levels to the bottom rung: never give up if you have an idea you think is worth being listened to. This LP has a ton of poo poo going on, so unless we get reminded of your ideas, we are going to lose a few through the cracks. If you think your idea is being ignored for whatever reason, please bring it up again! Odds are something else came up and we had to focus on that instead.
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May 27, 2013 18:41
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It also helps to prey upon the fears of fellow participants.
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May 27, 2013 18:59
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As long as we're talking about the independent colony... what do we stand to gain from our involvement? Can someone please explain? Best case scenario, we'll have the good will of an utterly unremarkable and useless colony. Worst case scenario, we get dragged into another war with Feredation over a random piece of worthless rock. In contrast, if we don't get involved, the best case scenario is there will be an independent colony, and the worst scenario is that the colony gets gobbled up by Federation - which I don't see as a problem at all, since I can't see how another asteroid would help the Federation in any fashion when it already has colonies on Saturn and Mars. Really, I think we're all overestimating the benefit that an independent colony can have for us, while there's a very real danger of starting another conflict with Federation. If we have any stake in the colony at all, we basically become responsible of granting its independence. If the Feredation then makes any aggressive moves, we will again be forced to intervene, we won't have the luxury of saying "this is not our problem." Tildo basically wants us as cheap bodyguards. Tread very carefully, UNEC.
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May 27, 2013 20:38
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I have no idea what the endgame here is. Near as I can tell this whole project spawned out of someone saying 'well we need a port of plausible deniability for the pirate raider we're building' and then just span rapidly out of control until it's somehow become a big deal. That, and it's an attempt to replicate the exact same crisis that hosed us over so hard in Mars.
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May 27, 2013 21:42
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Well, in all sincerity, I don't think any of us actually have an endgame. Right now, we've been hyped up over the fact that this could let Fred get a colony for free. Although I suspect this whole endeavor is Tilde taking one of our offhand suggestions a bit too far. You're our strategist, what should our endgame be? Got any ideas as to how we can get this to work out for us? I do see this ending up like Mars as well; is there any way we can avoid it?
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May 27, 2013 22:10
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markus_cz posted:As long as we're talking about the independent colony... what do we stand to gain from our involvement? Can someone please explain? Benefits we are getting from Cornucopia: 1) Logistics and resupply. 2 Pallas is arranged pretty nicely as a refuel and service spot for passing ships. The Federation will also be able to take advantage of this to a limited extent, but their access is likely to decrease as the political process in Cornucopia goes forward as it probably will. This also goes for ships that are technically disavowed from UN service, such as Raw_Beef's ship. 2) Off-world media mouthpiece. We will be providing media outlets, and the internet will be fair and free since the ansibiles will be on our side of the Great Firewall. This is essentially a culture bonus that the Federation cannot easily reproduce. 3) Research partner. Their priorities for research are completely different from ours since they are not trying to be the biggest and baddest in space. They essentially want to have the most opulent and comfortable place they can get, outside of the political grinder of UN vs Fed. Therefore, our 'nice to haves' are their 'must haves', since then they can sell them to us while we're working on our own 'must haves'. I have already gotten a soft offer of a preferred research partner position from Tilde. This would essentially mean that after they research a tech, they can offer it to us at whatever price. They are then barred from offering said deal to the Fed for X months (which we would define later). This allows us to use cash (which is abundant right now) to whittle away and eventually reverse the edge that the Federation has in electronics research, which we know for a fact that they have. 4) A political no-lose game that David Xanatos himself would be proud of. The constitution of Cornucopia won't be perfect, but that's fine since we're not the only writer. In the meantime, we get Good Guy points for helping foster the colony. When revolutions eventually happen, our influence will allow us a lot of room to influence things for a normalized republican government that likes us ideologically and politically, probably reasonably bloodlessly - again, major Good Guy points, and solidified benefits for the above 3. The Federation will be in a much worse situation of having to make risky plays to affect the processes, since their normal diplomatic channels won't be as strong as ours. If the Federation does nothing, we win - we get Cornucopia's benefits all to ourselves. If the Federation makes a big play, we win - they've committed a lot of resources and taken major risks at a very minimal cost to us. To get all this, the price we are paying is loving bargain basement: 1) 2 Pallas, a body we are never going to use because we have plenty of Uridium and it's easy to get more from elsewhere. 2) 4 electronics techs we know for a fact Fred already has. We are not 'broadcasting our capabilities' because we're not shouting on a pedestal that we're giving them these things, we're giving them to Cornucopian researchers in private. The chance for betrayal of the information from them is almost non-existent because the information we're giving them is not interesting by itself, and the price of betrayal is too high. Even for an amoral douchebag, it makes no sense to sell someone out for a quick buck when you can instead ride a gravy train for 50 years. 3) A handful of mines we bought from BP a long time ago and have never used. 4) Short-term economic development aid. Compare this to what goes in to one of our own colonies: 1) A heavenly body we agree is going to be good for the foreseeable future (we don't have any right now). 2) A ton of infrastructure (at 2 duranium a pop), a lot of industry/mines/spaceports/etc (at a lot more), and some orbital structures (at even more than that probably), to provide jobs and logistics to the area. 3) A LOT of freighter capacity, which is currently at capacity and will be so for at least 6 months, probably 12+. 4) A LOT of colony ship capacity, which again is currently at capacity and will be so for the foreseeable future. And even after we commit all that, we still don't get all the benefits that Cornucopia can give us. As a final note: quote:Tildo basically wants us as cheap bodyguards.
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May 27, 2013 22:16
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Dr. Snark posted:Well, in all sincerity, I don't think any of us actually have an endgame. Right now, we've been hyped up over the fact that this could let Fred get a colony for free. Although I suspect this whole endeavor is Tilde taking one of our offhand suggestions a bit too far. Longterm surely our aim should be to have gained a significant foothold outside our system and not be tied down to the solar system. Lets leave the Feds behind!
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May 27, 2013 22:27
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Coolguye, sorry, but I still think your ideas of possible benefits are quite dreamy. To be more precise: a refueling point sounds nice, but we don't need any - we have bases all around the solar system and our ships have huge fuel tanks. Not once in the 8 years of the game have we had any trouble refueling or resupplying. Having a safe heaven for slow_beef is great, but that would happen either way even without us. Thinking they will help us with any research at all is very unreal. A single research lab requires 1 million population to operate. I don't know what portion of population would be available for working in labs on an asteroid base, but I doubt it'll be much. I also don't know how big you suppose the independent colony will be, and to what extend will it be devoted to research as opposed to e.g. mining or manufacture, but I again doubt it'll be big enough to operate more than just a couple of labs. Any research coming from it will be so slow we can basically ignore it. And even if they manage to somehow research something we don't have, we can still buy it even if we aren't directly involved with the colony, right? Your other points are fine, but they also apply no matter what. But realistically, it doesn't matter at all if the colony is friendly or unfriendly to us, because it's importance in space matters will be negligible I'm not advocating completely forgetting about the colony, I'm just warning against unnecessary involvement because the potential benefits are extremely small, and the dangers very real, namely that: 1) Somehow we devote too much attention to this matter and forget about more important business (which has already happened) 2) We get bogged down with matters of internal politics of the colony and start a spy war against the Federation because of a worthless rock. (very probable) I'm saying it again: TildeATH's colony is a very minor matter of almost no consequence. Let's not dwell on it too much. If we want them to like us, throw some money their way, perhaps even give them out asteroid, and wish them good luck. But please under no circumstances get involved in their internal politics, don't write their constitution and don't try to outmaneuvre the Federation corporations. Just don't. It's a hornet nest. Now can we please get back to actually running a space empire? markus_cz fucked around with this message at 23:44 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 23:39
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markus_cz posted:
Indeed, as we've said there is some risk to this, and it's good we're hammering out some of the potentials. markus_cz posted:
This kind of ties into your earlier comments. We have been running the space empire, part of the reason we're been doting so much focus on this is because BG is on vacation for a bit, we we're really not going to be getting game play updates. Since we already have most of the long term stuff figured out (parts for jump ships have been built, we know which yard we will be using, we have the monitor design and research queued up and open for discussion if anyone wants to chime in), we're doting our attention on this ancillary thing to pass the time until we get back to the serious space stuff (or at least that's what I've been thinking is the case anyways). Side note, as semi-official explorer of the dark depths of deviant art to find cool images for this game, what do you guys think of these two potential designs for those courier boats we use to move stuff around (but don't actually exist in the game world). http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Space-ship-civil-ship-185038948 http://smirnovartem.deviantart.com/art/Transport-dock-147152565 http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Izanagi-Spaceship-3D-Commission-340459603 Jimmy4400nav fucked around with this message at 00:16 on May 28, 2013 |
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May 28, 2013 00:13
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markus_cz posted:Coolguye, sorry, but I still think your ideas of possible benefits are quite dreamy. To be more precise: a refueling point sounds nice, but we don't need any - we have bases all around the solar system and our ships have huge fuel tanks. Not once in the 8 years of the game have we had any trouble refueling or resupplying. Having a safe heaven for slow_beef is great, but that would happen either way even without us. quote:Thinking they will help us with any research at all is very unreal. A single research lab requires 1 million population to operate. I don't know what portion of population would be available for working in labs on an asteroid base, but I doubt it'll be much. I also don't know how big you suppose the independent colony will be, and to what extend will it be devoted to research as opposed to e.g. mining or manufacture, but I again doubt it'll be big enough to operate more than just a couple of labs. Any research coming from it will be so slow we can basically ignore it. And even if they manage to somehow research something we don't have, we can still buy it even if we aren't directly involved with the colony, right? Also, not necessarily, regarding your question. If the Federation gives them the same 4 technologies - which, again, we know they have - then they'll net the same deal. So we'd be on the short end of that stick, and Fred would be able to farm out research goals while safely keeping us in the dark. Again, the question has fundamentally shifted from when I presented it initially. You say no to me then, the things just sort of go into the ether and that's fine. You say no to them now, the things will go to Fred and we end up doubling down on the downsides to passing. The only way what you say would be true is if nobody gave them the tech, they developed everything with backward work, and then came out with something interesting, which I agree is very unlikely. But again, considering the fact that there is no conceivable cost to sharing this data, I find it extremely unlikely that the Federation will fail to take advantage of it. In calling this 'dreamy' you're presuming things that are further from reality than we've seen right in front of our eyes so far. quote:But realistically, it doesn't matter at all if the colony is friendly or unfriendly to us, because it's importance in space matters will be negligible quote:I'm not advocating completely forgetting about the colony, I'm just warning against unnecessary involvement because the potential benefits are extremely small, and the dangers very real, namely that: I will say, though, that the first one is pretty much insane on its face, and I don't get what 'more important business' has happened in the like 3-4 in game days we've been doing this conference for. I've pretty much specifically engineered my proposed deal to involve us as little as possible after the initial set-up period. Cornucopians don't want us in their business, and we don't want to be in theirs. We do, however, want soft power that we can use to influence the motions of this so we can keep Fred from using the logistics point sneakily/getting a bigger research lead/compounding their prestige victory after Mars/etc, etc, etc. The beautiful thing about soft power is that it's just there, it's not supposed to do anything at all until you need it to do something. And regarding the second one, I agree that Snark is altogether too excited to waste valuable spy time on Cornucopia, but that again is a minor thing. He's got the ability to move absent orders from the UNEC, but if the UNEC says 'hey don't waste your time on Corny', then he's still bound to follow that order. quote:Now can we please get back to actually running a space empire?
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May 28, 2013 00:19
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markus_cz posted:Now can we please get back to actually running a space empire? Can you fault people for being interested and invested in more direct details and human perspectives and conspiracies beyond the space empire thing that is the core of this game? It's certainly clear that people, including BGreman, are willing to devote a fair amount of time to it, and for something of a parallel/opposite argument to the one you're using: that we're in a boring period and could use something to liven the thread up. If BGreman had -wanted- to speed us onwards to the 'exciting' part of Aurora, I'm sure he could have done so, but I don't believe that was his intentions. I'm sure he'll take your feedback into consideration, though keep in mind there are others who've invested time and energy into doing what's currently happening and they have just as much a right to an opinion as you. Perhaps you should try re-assessing your own perspective on the pacing of the thread? To not be interested in the things going on right now and wanting to improve matters, I can understand that, but I don't quite agree with it. Seems like we'd lose out on an interesting element in this thread if we disallowed or trimmed down stuff like this too much. That said, BGreman has intimated that these things do need his go-ahead or tacit approval, so it's not like we're going to get too swamped or involved with random goon's Fun Time Missile Misfire every other update. No offense, Slowbeef. Jimmy4400nav posted:http://browse.deviantart.com/art/Space-ship-civil-ship-185038948 Transport dock, definitely.
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May 28, 2013 00:25
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Coolguye posted:4) A political no-lose game that David Xanatos himself would be proud of. I'm sorry, did you refer to a character from a children's cartoon as the height of intrigue here? All of my fears are now confirmed.
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May 28, 2013 00:48
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Coolguye posted:I feel like I've explained this a billion times and only gotten peoples' favorite pulp fiction analysis in return, but here I go again. As pointed out, redundant. quote:2) Off-world media mouthpiece. We will be providing media outlets, and the internet will be fair and free since the ansibiles will be on our side of the Great Firewall. This is essentially a culture bonus that the Federation cannot easily reproduce. Unsure what the actual benefit is. Especially as recent events demonstrate that the Feds can play the media much better than we can. quote:3) Research partner. Their priorities for research are completely different from ours since they are not trying to be the biggest and baddest in space. They essentially want to have the most opulent and comfortable place they can get, outside of the political grinder of UN vs Fed. Therefore, our 'nice to haves' are their 'must haves', since then they can sell them to us while we're working on our own 'must haves'. I have already gotten a soft offer of a preferred research partner position from Tilde. This would essentially mean that after they research a tech, they can offer it to us at whatever price. They are then barred from offering said deal to the Fed for X months (which we would define later). This allows us to use cash (which is abundant right now) to whittle away and eventually reverse the edge that the Federation has in electronics research, which we know for a fact that they have. We're probably better off just pumping resources into expanding our own labs. Also safer, because that way we don't give state secrets to an entity that will be full of Federation agents. quote:4) A political no-lose game that David Xanatos himself would be proud of. The constitution of Cornucopia won't be perfect, but that's fine since we're not the only writer. In the meantime, we get Good Guy points for helping foster the colony. When revolutions eventually happen, our influence will allow us a lot of room to influence things for a normalized republican government that likes us ideologically and politically, probably reasonably bloodlessly - again, major Good Guy points, and solidified benefits for the above 3. The Federation will be in a much worse situation of having to make risky plays to affect the processes, since their normal diplomatic channels won't be as strong as ours. If the Federation does nothing, we win - we get Cornucopia's benefits all to ourselves. If the Federation makes a big play, we win - they've committed a lot of resources and taken major risks at a very minimal cost to us. Yeah because it's not like the Federation have a history of making risky plays to effect political processes in off-world bodies that play out in it's favour bec- OH WAIT I don't see the payoff but I do see a world of opportunity for Fed super-spy Anton Korbalev. e: we are also never ever getting an agreement to use this place as a port of call for warships during a conflict. That's not how neutrality works.
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May 28, 2013 01:03
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Alchenar posted:I have no idea what the endgame here is. Weren't we chasing project ZEUS? As such, shouldnt we be investing nominally in offworld colonies but focusing on establishing our own, some nice Goldilocks planet through a wormhole? We're two months away from launching our first jump drive ship to explore the rabbit hole. Can we delay the Cornucopia decision till after we jump through? Negative Entropy fucked around with this message at 01:54 on May 28, 2013 |
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May 28, 2013 01:42
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Like the saying goes "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer". That's what we're doing with Cornucopia: It's a place where unaligned nations/corporations can develop for their space interests. It's not a matter if it was feasible without TildeATH, it was bound to happen. So, it's in our best interest that we have our fingers in the pie from the get-go. Like Coolguye said, the whole sharing tech would be done in a way that doesn't spill all of our top secret research. In any case, I'd guess that's up for a UNEC vote/Councilor Saros decision. Let's say the Feds try and muscle their way to get the colony into their hands. That would not only piss off many unaligned nations, but some of their own corporations. Meanwhile, the loss to us would be minimal: technology they already have, a mineral source that we have tons already, some surplus mines that weren't being used anyway. I think we're being too paranoid with the whole technology thing. It's not like the shared technology would be a game changer, and the Feds most probably already have better tech in those areas. But again, I would like to hear what Councilor Saros, head of UNSA, says about it.
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May 28, 2013 02:31
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