An SDNW Proposal

[Akhlut]

Or just let the mods have them and let them decide when things get out of hand. That's what led to a more than a bit of my disinterest in SDNW3, and now I'm playing more because I'm in a situation where my military is rendered fairly useless and therefore I can just sit around and play diplomacy.

If I'm actually going to use my military in this game, I'd rather not play Spreadsheets of Iron, since I already have HoI installed on my computer and I don't feel bad about letting that sit untouched for weeks/months, unlike an RPG with other people playing. I don't want to spend hours a week trying to min/max my cash for pew pew spaceships.

[Steve]

Looks okay to me, although my first thought is that the space fleet is a bit top-heavy (intentional?).

People look through what he's ordering, check his GDP, realize he's spending a third or even half of his GDP on military expenditures.

Hmm, how exactly are those GDP figures working? It looks to me like GDP is actual GDP (ie not tax revenues etc), and then players have a "military production tax" of that figure (because 30% is excessive when not in war... let's say 10% using the above example). So your weekly / monthly expenditure is £56,000 * 0.1 = £5,600, which is enough to lay down a lot of keels per month in peacetime (in what was it... 4 years? I can have 9 Ultraheavies coming off the line every month, before population & GDP growth, and trade income).

In addition, as I understand it now, income from trade agreements will be up to players. Let's say I can bring in an extra £10,000 in "GDP" from that... another £1,000 per month to spend on more warships.

In short, I'm still wondering about some sort of framework / rules for trade agreements & shipyards as a cap on ship production.

It'd be so much per year, not month or week. Every year you'd post what you were building in terms of new troops or new ships and the associated costs. If you get past 10% of your GDP figure you're in a state of heightened military spending. If you go past 20% you'd be putting your economy at risk for your buildup.

It's meant to be a guideline to provide some break in-game from people just building a shitload of stuff; if you try to go to far we smack you down for it.

At the same time, though, your number crunching is limited to basically "I'm buying this this and this for Year X, it costs X much which is 9% of my GDP. I'm good."

[Steve]

Oh, that reminds me; what percentage of our GDP is avaliable for our expenditure? I mean, realistically, what is the absolute maximum that a government could command without imploding the economy? Obviously, consuming 90% or more of it would probably be very bad, but I've no idea how to determine a rule for this myself with any sort of certainty...

I think once you start hitting 30% for military spending you're going to put a crimp on your economy, because you're implying taxation rates in excess of 50% since your government has to pay for more than just the military.

[PeZook]

no government remotely like today's could support 30% military spending, unless it's all done on deficit.

Okay, you couldn't support it on deficit, either.

[Steve]

I believe Imperial Japan hit 30%.

Of course, their economy was in terminal meltdown before Pearl Harbor, so.....

[Shroom Man 777]

How about North Korea or the Soviet Union (during Stalin's time)? I am using those as models for my country.

[Shroom Man 777]

I mean more like this.

Player A posts massive military expenditures in Year 2. People look through what he's ordering, check his GDP, realize he's spending a third or even half of his GDP on military expenditures. He's not at war, so this is pointed out as excessive. Player A is being a munchkin and doesn't care, he wants his bigass military. Mods bring mod hammer down with post about stock market crash and forced cancellation of military orders by the legislature slashing the budget.

Without the number figures, Player A could whine "but I'm not building that much!" With the figures, mods can point to it and say "Quit your bitching or you get another smack with the hammer".

What if the player is a robotocracy and the robots don't care about stock market whatsits since they are Von Neumann probes designed to build giant guns in space?

What if this is Space (North) Korea we are talking about?

[Setzer]

I can't find any figures for North Korea, but some estimates I've seen are ten percent. Oman peaks at 11.4%

https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... 4rank.html

Maybe the mods could permit 30-40% spending for a while, but at the cost of economic ruin later in the game.

[Akhlut]

I mean more like this.

Player A posts massive military expenditures in Year 2. People look through what he's ordering, check his GDP, realize he's spending a third or even half of his GDP on military expenditures. He's not at war, so this is pointed out as excessive. Player A is being a munchkin and doesn't care, he wants his bigass military. Mods bring mod hammer down with post about stock market crash and forced cancellation of military orders by the legislature slashing the budget.

Without the number figures, Player A could whine "but I'm not building that much!" With the figures, mods can point to it and say "Quit your bitching or you get another smack with the hammer".

What if the player is a robotocracy and the robots don't care about stock market whatsits since they are Von Neumann probes designed to build giant guns in space?

What if this is Space (North) Korea we are talking about?

I'd imagine that the robotocracy doing that is abusing the 'don't be a douchecock' rule and thus gets infected by a horrific virus causing all the robots to meltdown due to a dick-stabbing error.

The Space North Koreans find their economy collapsing because they haven't built enough space tractor parts and their space fields can't be harvested, leading to space starvation of their citizens.

[Ryan Thunder]

Treat it like mobilization from the previous game. You can sustain it for X years before your economy collapses into utter ruin.

That should be done with a simple one-size-fits all rule, though, IMHO, just to minimize the complication of it.

[Steve]

Treat it like mobilization from the previous game. You can sustain it for X years before your economy collapses into utter ruin.

That should be done with a simple one-size-fits all rule, though, IMHO, just to minimize the complication of it.

Yeah, it would.

[PeZook]

I believe Imperial Japan hit 30%.

Of course, their economy was in terminal meltdown before Pearl Harbor, so.....

Poland hit 50% several times in the 1930s, with similar effects.

Hence the "remotely like today". If you want to avoid economic collapse and maintain this kind of spending, you pretty much need to go to war and pillage someone.

[Steve]

I believe Imperial Japan hit 30%.

Of course, their economy was in terminal meltdown before Pearl Harbor, so.....

Poland hit 50% several times in the 1930s, with similar effects.

Hence the "remotely like today". If you want to avoid economic collapse and maintain this kind of spending, you pretty much need to go to war and pillage someone.

IIRC the Soviets were spending about a third or more of their GDP in military spending for most of the Cold War, though it's hard to get an exact figure because of how their procurement system was set up in their economy and such.

[PeZook]

It's hard to even get an accurate GDP statistic for the USSR.

[Simon_Jester]

If anyone is going to suggest an elaborate ruleset, let him write up the spreadsheet/program/whatever and then distribute it out. Otherwise, don't bother suggesting one because not everyone has the damn time to write his/her own spreadsheet.

Nothing I have in mind would really require a spreadsheet. At least, I don't think so. The point is just to have a publically available set of rules the moderators use as a rough guideline, so that they have something to point to when calling bullshit on the fact that you're trying to support a million dollars of battleships on an economy with a 50000$ GDP... all of which you're funneling into new construction.

Of course, they could just say "dude, that's too many battleships, this is wrong" and hit you with the Modhammer. I just feel happier knowing what kind of actions are likely to invoke the Wrath of Mod, so that I can avoid them.

[Steve]

It's hard to even get an accurate GDP statistic for the USSR.

Point.

Anyway, I was hoping to avoid adding rule mechanics if only because it's clearly not desired by most potential players. Rather it'd be a guideline; you can spend about a tenth of your GDP annually for new military units, for either expansion or replacement, and as a rule of thumb the overall value of your military will require upkeep costs of, say, 5% (Therefore your starting military will have an upkeep cost of about 5%). If these combined costs (upkeep for existing units and new unit production) approach 20% we'll consider your economy starting to struggle; if they go over you see consequences. Mostly guidelines, again, but you know the figures we'll be looking for.

I would expect some of you to go toward 20% anyway simply to emulate a specific nation-type, like Shroom's Bragulans.

[Setzer]

Here's an idea for full mobilization. The idea is, total GDP is multiplied by 1.5 for as long as you're mobilized, then by 0.5 for twice as long after that. So if you have a $50k GDP and you're at full mobilization for two years, it would be $75k then 25k for four years.

[Steve]

Okay, Warp Gate system. Conceived to ensure PC interactions by government characters and such. Two ways to do it:

A) Warp Gates only lead to one other. As in, Warp Gates A and C connect as do B and D, but you cannot take A to B or D to C.

B) They function like a Stargate, and you can pick destinations.

[RogueIce]

Okay, Warp Gate system. Conceived to ensure PC interactions by government characters and such. Two ways to do it:

A) Warp Gates only lead to one other. As in, Warp Gates A and C connect as do B and D, but you cannot take A to B or D to C.

B) They function like a Stargate, and you can pick destinations.

I prefer B, as it is more flexible. While A can lead to...interesting...situations I think it'd be too much of a pain to play the Warpgate linking game. Since we're already going to have to outline our hyperspace highways on the map anyway.

Can I have an iris on my Warp Gates?

[Ryan Thunder]

Being pessimistic because I can always add more later; 21 NCP.

Interstellar Union of Worlds
Population: 190B
GDP: $43 500

Sectors
Capitol Sector
Type: Home sector
Population: 60B
GDP: $12 000
Warp Gates: 1
Hyperspace Junction: 1
Assigned forces:

• 85M troops (conscripts, Tier III equipment)
• 5 × ISV-200 Escort ($15)
• 5 × ISV-100 Dreadnought ($100)

Namora
Type: Core sector
Population: 50B
GDP: $10 500
Warp Gates: 1
Assigned forces:

• 70M troops (conscripts, Tier II equipment)
• 6 × ISV-200 Escort ($15)
• 6 × ISV-100 Dreadnought ($100)

Turuba
Type: Mid-range sector
Population: 30B
GDP: $8 500
Warp Gates: 1
Assigned forces:

• 42M troops (conscripts, Tier II equipment)
• 5 × ISV-200 Escort ($15)
• 5 × ISV-100 Dreadnought ($100)

Wazira
Type: Mid-range sector
Population: 30B
GDP: $8 500
Warp Gates: 1
Assigned forces:

• 42M troops (conscripts, Tier II equipment)
• 5 × ISV-200 Escort ($15)
• 5 × ISV-100 Dreadnought ($100)

Rumani Type: Colonial sector
Population: 10B
GDP: $2 000
Assigned forces:

• 15M troops (conscripts, Tier II equipment)
• 1 × SV-300 Guardian ($75)

Sigiri Type: Colonial sector
Population: 10B
GDP: $2 000
Assigned forces:

• 15M troops (conscripts, Tier II equipment)
• 1 × SV-300 Guardian ($75)

Military
Military branches: Union Planet Guard, Union System Guard
Military Service Age and Obligation: 18 years of age for compulsory military service; both sexes are obligated to military service; conscript service obligation - 36 months for enlisted, 48 months for officers
Manpower available for military service: persons age 16-49: 88.1B
Manpower fit for military service: persons age 16-49: 75.6B
Manpower reaching militarily significant age annually: persons age 16-49: 5.81B
Military expenditures: 10.0% of GDP

[Lonestar]

Ryan! It's going to be in July! Fucking July! Why don't you wait awhile?

[KroLazuxy_87]

Okay, Warp Gate system. Conceived to ensure PC interactions by government characters and such. Two ways to do it:

A) Warp Gates only lead to one other. As in, Warp Gates A and C connect as do B and D, but you cannot take A to B or D to C.

B) They function like a Stargate, and you can pick destinations.

I prefer B, as it is more flexible. While A can lead to...interesting...situations I think it'd be too much of a pain to play the Warpgate linking game. Since we're already going to have to outline our hyperspace highways on the map anyway.

Can I have an iris on my Warp Gates?

If he gets an iris, I want a sphincter on mine.

Seriously though, if we go with a stargate approach we DO need something like an iris and possibly even the ability to destroy them. (or a way to disable them for an extended period like burying)

[Setzer]

How about the Stargates are natural phenomena but need something like the Kerenos wormhole station from Conquest to stabilize it enough for use. If you want to neutralize the wormhole, destroy the ring structure, but it can always be rebuilt later.

[Darkevilme]

I vote stargate as the things are kinda fiddly otherwise.

Also this is mainly a matter of personal taste but i proposition we replace sectors with individual starsystems.

The STGOD 2k?? series used individual planets...But yeah i just feel that otherwise conquering part of someone's industrial base is either gonna be a slog or something you gloss over if its a dozen star systems.

[Dave]

First, the heaviest thing you can put through it is an ultralight cruiser, so it's not like it's going to damage much if one gets lose in your main system. However, it could be used for information gathering purposes.
So, to disable the gate, I presume you could put a roughly gate-sized plug in the center of the gate that would prevent the wormhole from forming.

So, for my solution, I'd mount the gate to an arm of one of my space stations, and have an assembly that has a giant steel cylinder (filled with rocks) that just fits inside the inner diameter of the gate on the end.
When you want the gate off, you push the plug in. When you want to open the gate, you swing the plug up and away.