SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread V

[RogueIce]

*nudges PeZook* You ever gonna respond to my latest PM on the Kamila story?

Are you going to do anything in Canissia, or just eats my ice cream and gawk at my wimmins?

I dunno. Did you have any ideas?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I dunno. Did you have any ideas?

You passed through Byzantium without saying "hi"...

[CmdrWilkens]

*nudges PeZook* You ever gonna respond to my latest PM on the Kamila story?

Dude he's too busy trying to keep drug addicted Shrommians from crashing his entire moon program.

Total aside but Coyote is essentially speaking for the MSA (of which his national agency is a member agency) and all projects have long been predicated on the idea of docking in space though nothing in the current generation is designed for it once we get to consistent non spaceplane orbital flight that will change...which should be in another year when we are at the 26 tonnes to LEO, 11 tonnes to GTO/TLI.

[Ryan Thunder]

Meh... I beat you to a 100KW solid state one a year ago... It should be out for testing in 2 days real time.

I'm about this far away from calling it a turbolaser and developing a tibanna gas mine out of spite...

Just a note: It takes quite a few years to work on it from scratch, and you just started. Which means you just reverse engineered a chemical laser, not a solid state one.

It's a 20 kW chemical laser that fits in an area the size of a city bus, and cost me a $2 billion to develop. It's perhaps suitable as a towed-interceptor, but with a paltry 700 m effective range, it's a lot of money for a system that can (individually) be easily overwhelmed by cheap munition spam and eats through fuel like a motherfucker.

As it is, I'm probably going to have to put the program on hold, anyways. Cost overruns, etc.

[Coyote]

*nudges PeZook* You ever gonna respond to my latest PM on the Kamila story?

Are you going to do anything in Canissia, or just eats my ice cream and gawk at my wimmins?

I dunno. Did you have any ideas?

Well... considering your situation with Kamila, and how some people seem to be having "deja vu", maybe you want to see how much of that I've noticed. There's a tiny handful of people on this planet that you can actually speak freely with, and, there's an even tinier number of "natives" who have been let in on the truth of the matter.

Kamila rebooted with a whole new history... husband, different past, etc. My character and family pretty much picked up right where we left off, even the kids' age. Odd?

[Ryan Thunder]

For reference, Gero and that lot are most decidedly natives. He will think you're batshit insane if you bring whatever that is up with him, from the sounds of it.

[CmdrWilkens]

[Just a note: It takes quite a few years to work on it from scratch, and you just started. Which means you just reverse engineered a chemical laser, not a solid state one.

It's a 20 kW chemical laser that fits in an area the size of a city bus, and cost me a $2 billion to develop. It's perhaps suitable as a towed-interceptor, but with a paltry 700 m effective range, it's a lot of money for very a system that can (individually) be easily overwhelmed by cheap munition spam and eats through fuel like a motherfucker.

As it is, I'm probably going to have to put the program on hold, anyways. Cost overruns, etc.

You know given the size of your nation $2Bn should be about your entire R&D budget for a couple years...and a decent mortar would kill it.

[Ryan Thunder]

[Just a note: It takes quite a few years to work on it from scratch, and you just started. Which means you just reverse engineered a chemical laser, not a solid state one.

It's a 20 kW chemical laser that fits in an area the size of a city bus, and cost me a $2 billion to develop. It's perhaps suitable as a towed-interceptor, but with a paltry 700 m effective range, it's a lot of money for very a system that can (individually) be easily overwhelmed by cheap munition spam and eats through fuel like a motherfucker.

As it is, I'm probably going to have to put the program on hold, anyways. Cost overruns, etc.

You know given the size of your nation $2Bn should be about your entire R&D budget for a couple years...and a decent mortar would kill it.

Well, why do you think I'm shelving it?

More seriously, I thought I had more to work with. What would you suggest I use for a government budget?

[Coyote]

Total aside but Coyote is essentially speaking for the MSA (of which his national agency is a member agency) and all projects have long been predicated on the idea of docking in space though nothing in the current generation is designed for it once we get to consistent non spaceplane orbital flight that will change...which should be in another year when we are at the 26 tonnes to LEO, 11 tonnes to GTO/TLI.

Chances are, the Eagle system is the most developed airlock system. If that is the case, then Canissia will share that tech in the interests of safety.

[PeZook]

*nudges PeZook* You ever gonna respond to my latest PM on the Kamila story?

Sure, I'm just having a hectic week. It took me three days to type up the last post

[RogueIce]

Well... considering your situation with Kamila, and how some people seem to be having "deja vu", maybe you want to see how much of that I've noticed. There's a tiny handful of people on this planet that you can actually speak freely with, and, there's an even tinier number of "natives" who have been let in on the truth of the matter.

Kamila rebooted with a whole new history... husband, different past, etc. My character and family pretty much picked up right where we left off, even the kids' age. Odd?

That works, though we'd have to be cagey on the whole Kamila thing. Even I don't know how that's going to turn out (we need at least one more coin flip).

I dunno. Did you have any ideas?

You passed through Byzantium without saying "hi"...

Um, I waved out the window as I drove by the Imperial Palace?

Or better yet, what we discussed was classified. Above Top Secret.

If you want we can do a PM thing and then backdate it. Same with Coyote I guess. Since in the game's flow of time I'm probably back home by now anyway.

[Lonestar]

Annnnnnd San Dorado's LIBERTARIAN MADNESS is about to come back and bite it in the ass.

[Siege]

Huh. I guess we'll see, although the gas cannot have come from San Dorado: we're not manufacturing it, you can ask BIOCOM.

[CmdrWilkens]

Huh. I guess we'll see, although the gas cannot have come from San Dorado: we're not manufacturing it, you can ask BIOCOM.

Well it could have come from any number of folks scavenging amongst the corpses recently generated...but yes BIOCOM has cleared you of stockpiling anything.

[CmdrWilkens]

You know given the size of your nation $2Bn should be about your entire R&D budget for a couple years...and a decent mortar would kill it.

Well, why do you think I'm shelving it?

More seriously, I thought I had more to work with. What would you suggest I use for a government budget?

Well unless I'm off here you have either a Duchy or Principality which means a GDP between $400 and $750 Bn (in currency adjusted dollars). As a nice comparison lets go with South Africa which has a 2007 GDP of roughly $470 Bn. The total government expenditure was about 534 Bn Rand which equates to roughly $53 Bn. Of that approximately 5% was used for all military expendiutres or about $2.5 Bn. Comparatively the US had a federal budget of $2.9 Tr of which $626 Bn was for military costs or about 21% of the budget.

If we look at federal budget as a percent of GDP then the US budget was about 20% of GDP and the South African budget was about 11% of GDP. This means US Military spending was about %5 of GDP while the South African expenditure was .5% of GDP. I would look on those numbers as a good set of bookends. If we look at highs and lows you would have a high end budget of $37.5Bn for ALL costs (including maintenance) and a low end budget of $2Bn.

Last game we obviously got a bit more into these numbers but if we look at the maintenance/aquisition total you spend roughly 2/3rds on keeping what you've got and 1/3 on new stuff including research. If we take the high end your aquisition/R&D budget would be about $12.5 Bn and the low end $600mil. Figure the vast majority will be for actual physical aqusition so basic and applied R&D money would not exceed a quarter of that budget... or about $3 Bn per year as a maximum.

[Lonestar]

Huh. I guess we'll see, although the gas cannot have come from San Dorado: we're not manufacturing it, you can ask BIOCOM.

Came from the corpses, the team was using an isolated survivor community to create more infected blood.

[TimothyC]

Once the Pan-Pacific confrence gets started, I'll announce a new competition for the Next-Generation Alaskan Fighter Program.

Bids People.

[Ryan Thunder]

Thanks, Wilkens, that's exactly what I need. Well, that's it for the year then, I suppose. Last year, anyways...

And then, I should take it easy on that stuff for a while. Invest in some more infrastructure and what not.

[Karmic Knight]

Wow, I just noticed that it is almost 2013, I believe.

[CmdrWilkens]

Wow, I just noticed that it is almost 2013, I believe.

Yup, for those who might need a handy reference, here is everything from start through game year 2020

Aug 15th = 1 Jan 2008
Sep 15th = 1 Jan 2009
Oct 15th = 1 Jan 2010
Nov 15th = 1 Jan 2011
Dec 15th = 1 Jan 2012
Jan 15th = 1 Jan 2013
Feb 14th = 1 Jan 2014**
Mar 15th = 1 Jan 2015
Apr 15th = 1 Jan 2016
May 15th = 1 Jan 2017
June 15th = 1 Jan 2018
July 15th = 1 Jan 2019
Aug 15th = 1 Jan 2020

So handy reference for all, especially the hyper nerds like me that are spreadsheeting out the next 7 years of warship production and the next 9 years of spacecraft production...I already have a tenative 2030 project line.

[Siege]

Came from the corpses, the team was using an isolated survivor community to create more infected blood.

Err, isolated where? Because we hermetically sealed the affected neighborhoods, went door to door to root out all suspicious activity, burnt all the corpses we found, and dumped the ashes in a volcano. Moreover, San Dorado isn't exactly the sort of place where you can easily isolate lots of people- far too densely populated.

EDIT: Also, if my citizens start doing things that could get my nation bombed flat I'd like to have some, you know, input in that. I don't mind one or two members on this 'team' coming from San Dorado-- so much is to be expected. However if this has any more to do with me than that, I really do want to have some kind of a say in it.

[Lonestar]

Err, isolated where? Because we hermetically sealed the affected neighborhoods, went door to door to root out all suspicious activity, burnt all the corpses we found, and dumped the ashes in a volcano. Moreover, San Dorado isn't exactly the sort of place where you can easily isolate lots of people- far too densely populated.

Just be clear, you're saying that it would be possible it "Hermatically seal" someplace like, say, Harlem? Forgetting for the moment that they were rampaging around for a bit before your security forces managed to cordon off the infected areas?

[Siege]

Just be clear, you're saying that it would be possible it "Hermatically seal" someplace like, say, Harlem? Forgetting for the moment that they were rampaging around for a bit before your security forces managed to cordon off the infected areas?

Obviously it's possible that something slipped the net, and someone bagged some infected and whisked them off to do lord-knows-what to them. It's just that they can't do that in the initially affected neighborhoods, because they were searched house by house. Moreover it'd be rather stupid to hide a biolab with live zombies in San Dorado, one of the most heavily urbanized areas in the world. It'd inevitably end up attracting attention. Almost any place would be better suited for that sort of thing than San Dorado.

[Beowulf]

Just be clear, you're saying that it would be possible it "Hermatically seal" someplace like, say, Harlem? Forgetting for the moment that they were rampaging around for a bit before your security forces managed to cordon off the infected areas?

Obviously it's possible that something slipped the net, and someone bagged some infected and whisked them off to do lord-knows-what to them. It's just that they can't do that in the initially affected neighborhoods, because they were searched house by house. Moreover it'd be rather stupid to hide a biolab with live zombies in San Dorado, one of the most heavily urbanized areas in the world. It'd inevitably end up attracting attention. Almost any place would be better suited for that sort of thing than San Dorado.

I think the incubation lab itself was in Shepistan.

[Siege]

I think the incubation lab itself was in Shepistan.

Oh, okay. That kind of makes sense, assuming that they found a Sheppo weapons lab that Mess forces somehow missed or something.