2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[madd0ct0r]

most nations have a gdp much larger then is typical in real world. I'm in the lowest teir, and could go up to $4 trillion. (I've chosen to 'limit' myself to $300 Billion, since I didn't want to be richer and didn't want a popualtion the size of India either)

People are also allocating a higher % of GDP to mil budgets, 1) cos they know who they're playing with and 2) without nukes, being too tough to attack becomes expensive.

[The Romulan Republic]

Do we have a deadline for OrBats yet?

[Siege]

What gives you the impression there would be a deadline for something that isn't mandatory?

[The Romulan Republic]

Something Steve posted earlier in this thread I think. Sorry if I misunderstood.

Anyway, my OrBat has quite a lot of information but I haven't fully proof read it so I can't promise its free of errors, and their is some stuff missing. I will be working on fixing that. Hopefully its close enough that it'll give people an idea of what Corona is capable of.

[RogueIce]

If it's giving you trouble, put in raw numbers and worry about specific units and bases or what have you later.

Can you give me an estimate for how long that will be? Are we talking "next two days" or "next two weeks?"

Or alternatively forget about the orbat and just play the game.

Do we have a deadline for OrBats yet?

What gives you the impression there would be a deadline for something that isn't mandatory?

Ok, if I may and the mods are amenable to this suggestion, let's make it simple for people.

The "deadline" for OrBats, such as it is, is not a 'post or GTFO' deadline, but a 'no take-backs, what you post in here can only be modified by in-game means' deadline. Which means...you don't need to feel rushed or pressured to get something out there, just play the game and as Steve said, if nothing else just a bare-bones raw numbers outline. And even then only "important" stuff like you have x destroyers, y fighter jets, z tanks or whatever. Who cares about specifying because I'm sure, if it comes down to it, how big your tank cannon is or the precise missile/gun load-out of your destroyers doesn't matter and the mods - as a last resort only - will make a fair ruling on any kind of intractable combat-related arguments.

If you're really worried about whether your numbers are "too big" or "too little" just post the raw numbers in here and ask for some constructive feedback before making them 'official' in the OrBat thread. You can leave out the fluff, though, as that'll make it easier for everyone else to read and evaluate. And hopefully everybody will be mature about giving you constructive feedback and not be all "you power-gaming n00b RAEG" - unless you act like a dick in which case you totally deserve it.

Does that (hopefully) put people's minds at ease? TL;DR: concentrate on the story thread, we can deal with OrBats later, it's not something worth worrying about.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I'm just putting some last touches on my plotting before I post. Hopefully I'll have something in the story thread within the next couple days

[RogueIce]

So are we in January 2014 or July 2014? Just asking, because if we're in January Orion should be having their summer in the Southern Hemisphere, not winter, and we can all make fun of Eternal_Freedom.

[Thanas]

I'd suggest January because it fits in nicely with budgets and such.

[Eternal_Freedom]

So are we in January 2014 or July 2014? Just asking, because if we're in January Orion should be having their summer in the Southern Hemisphere, not winter, and we can all make fun of Eternal_Freedom.

Silence! Ah, if necessary, I'll go back and adjust that.

EDIT: Fixed. Happy now?

[That_Guy]

Odd... weatherman said it was going to be cold and rainy in Underwood today... instead its rather warm and sunny...

[Thanas]

Introductory post up, more to come tomorrow.

[Simon_Jester]

Or alternatively forget about the orbat and just play the game.

I am totally on board with this.

There will probably be a rough order of battle sooner or later, but I'd much rather be able to do what I want than to have ONE WEEK OR ELSE. Maybe we should rule that anyone who wants to claim "oh yeah, I have a world-class force of carriers/F-22s/submarines/whatever" will have to make an announcement to that effect within the next... week? Two weeks?

Past that point, it's fine if you don't have a published order of battle, as long as you don't make any 'unreasonable' claims like "Oh yeah, I had unusually numerous high-end weapons and a huge land army all along, I just didn't say anything about it."

The real reason to want ORBATs is so nobody can just pull massive military forces out of their ass to screw with people, and that's easy enough to deal with without requiring spreadsheetery.

...
The "deadline" for OrBats, such as it is, is not a 'post or GTFO' deadline, but a 'no take-backs, what you post in here can only be modified by in-game means' deadline. Which means...you don't need to feel rushed or pressured to get something out there, just play the game and as Steve said, if nothing else just a bare-bones raw numbers outline...

Well, honestly what I want to do is say:

I have X numbers of big nasty warships (i.e. ships above ten thousand tons). I have a whole mess of smaller ships but I can't be bothered to do a breakdown right this instant. I have a pretty good number of submarines but most of them are old, though some of them are big nasty SSGNs.

I have an air force equipped with thus-and-such, most of which I already posted. I don't know exactly how many planes, I'll talk to my friend and get numbers on the really scary aircraft. I know there are exactly four of the Tu-160/B-1 analogs, and I don't know exactly how many there would be of the stealth strike fighter. Not lots and lots, but enough to be a serious problem for someone who gets nasty with us... but not enough to comically blitz anyone's whole country, the things only carry like two tons of munitions a pop and I can't imagine there'd be more than about 100-200 of them.

I have an army that is numerous but mostly not very well equipped, a lot of the weapons are individually out of date. As individual wages rise with Umeria's increasing development the generals are nervously realizing that they're going to have to downsize the army's manpower to stay within budget.

The only part of the army that is particularly impressive the (very well funded and prestigious) artillery force, which has pretty darn modernish artillery guns and uses them very well. They also have a variety of theater and intermediate-range ballistic missile units, even though this is a no-nukes setting. The Umerians classify ballistic missiles as a kind of artillery, which is probably why they bother to fund them.

However, in the event of war I'm not going to be all like "and my BALLISTIC MISSILE REGIMENT will LAY WASTE TO YOUR LAND" because obviously it's impossible to do more than seriously inconvenience a large country that way. Think Iraqi Scuds during the First Gulf War, longer-ranged and more accurate but not much deadlier. Anybody with a decent air defense system probably has something capable of at least credibly threatening to shoot them down.

...

There. I don't have numbers, but that's a rough summary of what my armed forces look like. How big are they? Well, they're scaled appropriately to the size and GDP of my country, which has a GDP of roughly 5.5 trillion a year or so as I recall. Defense spending is not up around 10% but may be up around 6-7%. Not sure. Maybe 5%.

Giving you an actual force composition would take a lot more work and time. I'd rather run around in circles trying to think of a story post to make.

[Steve]

Nobody is getting kicked out for not having an OrBat before X date, it's simply to consider when OrBats are in stone and no take-backs.

[Skywalker_T-65]

The only things really left on mine are hard numbers, and the smaller ships. Neither of which are that much of a priority at the moment...I'm focusing on getting the first post together. Hopefully tomorrow.

[The Romulan Republic]

Nobody is getting kicked out for not having an OrBat before X date, it's simply to consider when OrBats are in stone and no take-backs.

What is the date? Sorry if this was already stated and I missed it.

[Steve]

I would say.... sometime after next weekend. Maybe the 9th or 10th.

And maddoc.... a crisis already?

[RogueIce]

Well, I wanted my first post to be something else, but geez, you're wasting no time, are you? And in my backyard-ish, as well.

Well, needless to say, an emergency response team from the Shinra Electric Power Company can be dispatched post-haste, as well as whatever aid may be required.

And we don't need to fly as far as the Cascadians.

[madd0ct0r]

I would say.... sometime after next weekend. Maybe the 9th or 10th.

And maddoc.... a crisis already?

what's the point of an STGOD if you can't blow something up in the opening post
"You all start in a tavern. In belfast."
When you wrote " The NERT team will fly to Chuuk and depoy as soon as authorization is granted."
Where is Chuuk?


Also, thanks for the tags Thanas!

[Steve]

Chuuk is east-south-east of Fuso, it's essentially Truk from our world and is still a Cascadian air and naval base.

And I see someone's up late....

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I suppose I could fly a few An-225 aircraft carrying special vehicles meant to operate in an NBC environment to help...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Erm. I have a question. Judging by a very brief cursory read of the wiki, the biggest potential issues with Thorium Molten Salt reactors (and the like) are leaks and possibly a fire. But how on earth would a "meltdown" happen?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Just chalk it up to characters not understanding the technology, or that in this world "meltdown" is a term used for the plant burning to the ground.

[madd0ct0r]

Erm. I have a question. Judging by a very brief cursory read of the wiki, the biggest potential issues with Thorium Molten Salt reactors (and the like) are leaks and possibly a fire. But how on earth would a "meltdown" happen?

It's not molten salt, it's an old phw (thorium ones have been built, champs is poor and the molten salt ddesign itself is a reaction to previous design failures in this world). It's also worth looking at the list of fuckups needed to bringabout Chernobyl.

[Simon_Jester]

So, as per my story post, the Umerians are sending in the engineers. In a crisis, some people call the Marines, some people call for air support. Umerians... call for the engineers. Or the artillery, but hopefully this isn't an artillery problem.

In the words of Foghorn Leghorn, "Fortunately, ah keep mah feathers numbered fo' just such an emergency." The 83rd Guards Engineering Regiment is trained in nuclear disaster operations. The Technocracy has a goodly number of reactors themselves, and had one nuclear accident of their own a few decades ago, so they keep the equipment ready... and Umeria's own north coast is downwind of the Champan reactor site.

Some of the personnel from the 83rd will be arriving at the nearest available airstrip by some time in the afternoon, local time, on the 2nd (the day of the accident), assuming the Champans don't do anything to slow them down. However, that's just a preliminary force to make a survey and get into contact with the Champans. Transporting them to the site may be tricky because most (not all, but most) of the regiment's trucks and heavy equipment are on trains that won't arrive until... probably some time before dawn on the 4th, quite possibly later than that, even given that the supply trains get priority routing. I'm not sure what the rail routes from Umeria to Champa look like but I doubt they're very straight, so we could easily be looking at two thousand or more rail kilometers to travel.

Another engineering regiment may be coming along. The third one might be coming after that, but they're only recently raised.

Also, the Umerians' air transport fleet has seen better decades.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Erm. I have a question. Judging by a very brief cursory read of the wiki, the biggest potential issues with Thorium Molten Salt reactors (and the like) are leaks and possibly a fire. But how on earth would a "meltdown" happen?

It's not molten salt, it's an old phw (thorium ones have been built, champs is poor and the molten salt ddesign itself is a reaction to previous design failures in this world). It's also worth looking at the list of fuckups needed to bringabout Chernobyl.

What kind of reactor is this again? Thorium takes a lot of effort go critical, so I'm really curious as to how that might happen.