Inconsistent Starship Speeds Documentation on Wiki

[raz]

Can the “Nepleslian Starship Speeds” article get deleted so that future submissions can’t use it as a crutch for breaking the speed standards every other faction is held to? It’s never been valid and likely was never approved but sometimes gets pointed to when Nepleslians want their ships to be better than Yamatai’s.

 

[Alex Hart]

Every other faction doesn't use these? Yamatai has its own, and there was at one point a WIP NDC one, though I never finished it and don't use it currently. Further, I don't see anywhere where Nepleslian ships are categorically faster than Yamatai's on that table.

In fact, broadly speaking they're slower in every respect, with a couple of small notes: Nepleslian scouts can match the FTL speeds of Yamatai fast gunships, and their cruisers are going .83 ly/m in Hyperspace. Yamatai's speed table doesn't have a defined cruiser category, and I believe that most of its cruisers are built to the "Standard Warship" speed on their table, so I chalk both of these up to a difference in how ships are classified between nations.

In every other case, as best I can tell, the Nepleslian Speed Standards exist mostly to keep Nepleslian ships a little bit SLOWER than their Yamataian counterparts, and the CDD and Hyperspace Fold speeds in this submission and in the NSS merely match Yamataian counterparts for ships similarly built for mobility. If the 1 ly/m HFD speed and the 2.5 ly/h speeds are rule-breaking, then the Plumeria is in violation as well.

 

[raz]

Haven’t got much to say other than I don’t believe Nepleslia should get to break the common starship speed standard.

It was just a question to those with the authority to do something, not an invitation for replies or a desire for debate from me. Since the question was broken off from where it was originally posted, I just wanted to put it out there that I don’t really have any investment here because it was only intended as a helpful idea to get rid of Nepleslia ignoring the common standard for future submissions. Because using the unapproved “Nepleslian Speed Standards” article slowed down the new ship’s approval and likely will again someday.

Cheers.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

Should maybe have made this voteable or a poll to gauge interest in such a suggestion? (I would have downvoted it btw~)

As for the standards themselves I am Nepleslias 99% wiki contributor for literal years so I can say as the nep-wiki-submission authority that comparatives between the two factions ships have never been a thing in the creation process (Ame, legix, and Alex have each made a ship over the years, I can only speak for myself!). And not once have I ever even compared that table that I have used to yamatais or anyone elses or used it as an excuse such as "Nepleslians want their ships to be better than Yamatai’s"

My ships are better because I made them, so naturally I like stuff I made more than other people's stuff because it came from my aesthetics and preferences! Not once have I ever so much as compared my ships to anything Yamatai has other than to be envious of some of the detailed deck plans that their ships have. So not once have I, the majority nep wiki contributor who has used that page for all the ships I have made ever once done so because I am trying to make something faster or better than yamatais stuff.

When I do I won't hide it and will state as much and compensate for its advantages as I always do.

Spoiler

Please can we stop the gatekeeping by non-nep players from other factions? It really shows a bad precedent to new players and increases the divide between the factions players like every I try to make something fun or neat for nep only for non-nep yamatai players to get mad because we arent allowed to be as good as you or have as much fun unless we play yamatai.

Instead of constant discord and forum gatekeeping why dont you show your dissatisfaction in RP by making some correspondence of some haughty YSE admiral demanding a nep ship be slower and try to justify it there with an actual reason or argument instead of using OOC rules to try to get your way? You dont even play nep, leave my stuff alone.

 

[Wes]

I'd like to have one article for ship speeds and removing the Star Army one (which was made to standardize stuff after the old speed reduction, particularly when some ships were phased off the wiki rather than spend the time formatting them but still needed a speed link because the wiki was still new at that point) but I'm open to updating the ship page to include the new higher values currently used by Yam/Nep ships and just saying that Nep and Yam have access to drives of that speed. Basically, I would like to unify the speed information into a single factionless page but no existing ships will be nerfed in speed, and all approved stuff will stay approved. There's no need for any drama about this. The reason for using one page is so the site can use that for an unlimited number of factions, future factions, and so on, rather than opening the door to an unlimited number of wiki pages that essentially do the same thing.

So basically,

1. Let's merge the charts and any info worth keeping from the Star Army and Nepleslia speed pages into the main speed guidelines page, updating the speed guidelines for those fast speeds Yam and Nep gained since 2007 (let's not exceed those though).
2. Survey current ships and speeds (optional)
3. Bring it back here and make sure everyone likes it.
4. Once we have our updated page that has current info, we can remove the old faction speed pages and redirect to the updated factionless one.

Does that work for everyone?

 

[Alex Hart]

I'm totally on board with merging all of this disparate information back into one place, and noting where exceptions are made.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

I'm not FM anymore so it isnt my call but I'm fine with whatever; One speed or nep/yam speeds/etc. and you wont get any complaining from me. Ship speeds don't really matter OOC too much since it really is just travel times and not the meat of the actual RP.

 

[Wes]

@Alex Hart If you want to take care of this merge I'll buy you a month of Discord Nitro as a thank you.

 

[Alex Hart]

I'll try and get started on this tomorrow, Nitro or no. Getting something like this done benefits everyone on the site.

 

[raz]

It’s mostly up to what you want, Wes, imo. Hence the suggestion for you to unilaterally decide about the unapproved Nepleslian standards page before it could muddle future submissions.

Though I do think it is important for each faction to maintain its flavor as was intended with the original speed standards page (only Yamatai was considered to be the highest tech level and capable of maxed out speeds). It’s an important setting element that such distinctions remain, especially because this isn’t about PvP capabilities but rather having a concrete image of what each faction offers and what elements define them from a technological theme standpoint.

 

[Alex Hart]

I think, broadly speaking, that shouldn't be an issue. Yamatai and Nepleslia only break the existing speed standards in a very few instances (Scouts/Escorts Fast Gunships in Yamatai and Scouts/Escorts and Cruisers in Nepleslia) and Nepleslian ships tend to be a decent bit slower in STL than Yamataian ones, and a tiny bit slower in FTL in general terms.

To be specific, Yamatai and Nepleslia exceed the standard hyperspace speed by 0.1 and 0.08 ly/h respectively in their Scout/Escort (Y) and Cruiser (N) categories, and ~900c in the CDD category for Yamatai, with Nepleslia's CDD speed for Cruisers being a negligible amount under the limit.

For Fast Gunships (Y) and Scouts/Escorts (N) they go over the limit by .25 ly/h and 3165c for both parties.

Aside from that, I do have some questions about how people want to do this: Namely do we want to include any kind of tables from these deprecated pages on the main page, or do we want to do away with the speed categories entirely and leave it up to creators how fast their ships go, so long as they're under the limit?

I personally see the value in the tables as they help standardize things within a faction, and give a bit of variety to starship speeds, but I'm curious what others think.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

Like in the aforementioned ship page I will differ to @SirSkully in that regards to nep despite me making all the ships. Not only is he FM but I doubt there is anyone with less of a grasp of numbers and speeds than myself.

Were it up to me tho I would propose doing away with the two pages and just adding a citation on the speeds part of the DRv3 page or starship speeds page or whatever its listed about nep and Yamatai ships sometimes being known to exceed the limits in certain or special occasions or classes but it not being the norm. Nep and Yam already are the sole Advanced category also so they can either both differ to that if nothing else.

 

[Wes]

I'm good with whatever you think works best, Alex. It might be useful to have a little faction subsection for the various factions that highlights any exceptions or unusual notes that are specific to that faction.

 

[Whisper]

Restricting anything to certain factions, whether it be speed or whatever else, is inherently gatekeep-y and feels bad for anyone not in those 'elite' factions.

"We're the best at everything" is a bad identity, imo, and one that should be avoided. Yamatai has lots of great stuff to define its identity without needing to rely on OOC gatekeeping.

As a player, I'd rather we have setting standards that apply to everyone (with no exclusions) and let the factions worry about what flavor or limits feel right. If we aren't concerned about PVP, it shouldn't matter.

If a faction wants to impose limits on themselves, I fully support that.

Just my two cents- thanks for reading.

 

[Ametheliana]

I mean, it gets said here and there and I think it's that time of year to say it again:

The site is named Star Army Role Play.

The star army is going to have some military secrets that OOC means they do better and go faster. I think that is balanced not in a "everyone gets everything" way but in a "the elite faction the site was built on, named after, and that gets the most RP does some pretty badass stuff sometimes, because narratively that just makes sense"... or in shorter terms, rule of cool. Because honestly, it's rule of cool that means Yamatai does half of what it does.

 

[Whisper]

That's a hard post to respond to.

There's an implicit "...and if you don't like it, you can leave" in some of that message that I think isn't intentional, but if that's the site's stance I think I may be in the wrong place. It just doesn't line up with the SARP I have in my mind and I'd rather not stir up problems if I'm that misaligned.

 

[SirSkully]

I like the idea of factional speeds all being folded into one page for ease of access, I've personally got a real hecking zoomy interceptor that breaks the speed rules a little but shares the speed of one of Nepleslia's latest fighters.

I'm not a fan of some of the underlying hostility in here, intended or not, but I do think there should always be a little bit of wiggle room for exceptions where they make sense and are balanced, just for the sake of things being fun.

I don't like the idea of Nepleslia being further neutered by this initial proposal the themread started with, granted I haven't set the best example of trying to counter it but lately I've been trying to do better.

 

[raz]

Traditionally, Yamatai's ships are the fastest while having an elegant and artistic design that combines said speed with superior weapons packages. Nepleslia has a slightly lower tech level and are generally slower and more blocky, but their ships make up for it by the sheer volume of firepower they possess and how they're literally blistering with guns.

If that differentiation is gone then what's the point? Might as well just have the stats of various ship classes in a table because every faction's vessels will be the same thing re-skinned with a different picture.

Can't wait to see what Alex does with an updated speed standard. It'll be nice to see what factional differentiators make it in.

 

[Whisper]

Does Nepleslia have an exemption to the weapon limits that I missed? I'm all for the different factions having their own ways to bend the rules in small ways, if we're looking for rules-centric ways to enforce/reinforce identity.

 

[Alex Hart]

It'll be nice to see what factional differentiators make it in.

My general thought right now, to make what's sure to be much more wordy on the wiki into a short version for here, is that even since DRv2 and certainly into the modern era the "damage rules" acted as a sort of level playing field in terms of how much damage a ship is able to deal at any one time (Limited today by how many guns you have, limited back then by 2x your SDR value, meaning that in theory a Yamatai ship and Nepleslian ship of identical SDR would be able to deal the same damage) rather than trade speed for guns, modern Nepleslian ships (with the exception of scouts/escorts and ???maybe??? cruisers, which will match Yamataian speeds probably still) will trade speed for toughness, with a note that Nepleslian ships are slower with some general figures that I'll do the math for, based on existing precedent.

The idea being that in most cases, if you take a ship from each faction built for the same role (for example a battleship or whatever) the Yamataian ship will be faster but the Nepleslian ship will be tougher, because of redundancy or something like that. Obviously, you'd have some exceptions like if Yamatai built a ship with a ton of redundancy or Nepleslia built a ship to go especially fast, but in general I think that'd be a good way to balance things out while having one set of rules.

In terms of the cases where Yamatai and Nepleslia break the existing speed limits, I'll be creating a "restricted" speed tier for each tech level, with the idea being that it's the Special Military Secret speed for that tech level, and is usually only accessible to a few ships types in each military, since that's the case right now, where most of Yamatai and Nepleslia's ships don't break the rules