Improvements Board Concern

[Wes]

If I approve something, that's saying "This article is ready to be published."

Star Army has a reputation for quality to uphold and defend; I won't approve/publish articles that aren't grammatically up to standard.

I see the tech "cliques" as a natural evolution of the submission process, as a way for tech writers to avoid flame wars in the tech forum.

Things that irritate me with submissions:

1) Receiving a tech submission or tech question in my Private Messages. These are things we have forums for, and things that should be discussed with the entire community, not just me. I'll never approve a new tech submission via PM. Tech questions should go in the Questions forum - it lets everyone comment. Asking "Does Concept X sound feasible?" is fine, but don't go trying to shove a stat sheet through my Yahoo.

2) When I hear talk about a submission that hasn't been posted. Example: Andrew and the Norians. They were being designed in some off-site commitee or something, and I only got little bits and pieces. I mean, this is something that could be a major new part of the RPG I run and I couldn't even take part in its development? And then after getting my hopes up, they decided not to submit. Post the god damn articles, people!

3) Grammar failure, and excessive typos. You guys already know this. Your work is representative of you and representative of the RP in general. Would you rather look polished and be easily read, or look like a fool and have people stop reading in the middle of your paragraph to try and figure out what you're trying to say?

4) Lack of detail. When one writes a tech submission, please remember that there's a good chance that player characters are going to come into contact with it, and you might not be around at the time. If you want your submission (or indeed, your character) to be protrayed with maximum faithfulness to the concept, you should include every detail about that object or person. For characters this could mean an extra sentence or two for the hairstyle (artists will want this!). For starships, this could be the color of the seats or the location of various items in the engine room. Give your fellow players something to work with!

5) Authors failing to use common formats, or to read and abide by the submission rules. Submissions should be in the right format - this makes them easy to read. For starships, that new format is on the wiki for copy/paste. Section 4 is Roleplay Stats and Cost now (and the old 4. Performance) goes in section three now. If I can easily read your submission this will make me a happier person and get your submission approved more easily. As for the rules, they're pretty self-explanatory.

6) Bombastic language in new tech, and trying to make the universe's best stuff second best. Okay, there's no need for slipping a bunch of words into your submission like "virtually immune," "nearly indestructable," "insanely powerful," "horrible effects," "best" (unless it's really true). Making a new power armor does not require you to diss the Mindy. Just tell us its stats.

7) Timeline abuse. Nations with previously limited tech abilities shouldn't be developing Yamatai-style weapons in IC periods of a week or two; it just makes no sense. Furthermore, it makes little sense to create new designs when the old ones are still usable (via upgrades, etc). What I mean is KFY or other ship makers shouldn't come out with a new gunship or cruiser every week (not if its mass produced, anyway). Upgrade! Add age and flavor! We've got stuff designed in 2003 still happily functioning here (Ayame class) that could be improved upon. The other part of timeline abuse is player characters "designing" stuff when there is absolutely zero evidence of it IC, especially when the character has little or no time to do so.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[Fian]

No, most tech submission are even longer, Wes.

Good to know this.

 

[Cora]

7) Timeline abuse. Nations with previously limited tech abilities shouldn't be developing Yamatai-style weapons in IC periods of a week or two; it just makes no sense. Furthermore, it makes little sense to create new designs when the old ones are still usable (via upgrades, etc). What I mean is KFY or other ship makers shouldn't come out with a new gunship or cruiser every week (not if its mass produced, anyway). Upgrade! Add age and flavor! We've got stuff designed in 2003 still happily functioning here (Ayame class) that could be improved upon. The other part of timeline abuse is player characters "designing" stuff when there is absolutely zero evidence of it IC, especially when the character has little or no time to do so.

As of now, I am dubbing this the Wazu effect.

 

[Zack]

Perhaps ironically Wazu is being both that problem and that problem's solution.

 

[Cora]

No mainly the problem.

In one mission he's designed two power armor, five ships and a compleately theoretical based multipurpose system that encompasses Flight, defense, offense, communications, sensors and computation.

 

[Zack]

The RP for that has been left out in favor of letting me handle plot-related stuff. I try and infer that Wazu is always working on something when not being used in RP.

He is also the one putting in the modifications on the DD4, and Wes did say that modifications to older ships is what he would prefer.

 

[Doshii Jun]

Bingo.

Wes, this is exactly what is needed, in one clear, concise list. We'd had this in a piecemeal fashion before, and insinuated, but now we can use this list to our advantage. These things are not always obvious to everyone, and now they will be.

I'm adding these to the Wiki.

This doesn't solve the issue of pre-approval by clique or the fear of posting something without it being perfect, however.

But one of Wes' main points seems to be the clincher -- trying to outdo Yamatai. That seems to be the ultimate motivator for tech submission. After all, Leutre's stuff was perfectly acceptable, but Zack/Uso's rarely is.

How can we solve that problem?

 

[Zack]

Having all Yamatai tech be approved in the contribution forums would be a start. Having to compete with things that would otherwise be nerfed in the approval forums is a lot of the reason why people feel they have to beef up their own submissions in order to make them useful in RP.

 

[Vesper]

As much as it pains me to do so, I must agree with Uso here. Stuff like teleporting mindy packs and ships that hurtle planets around would never make it through the approval process because they could never be explained adequately.

 

[Strangelove]

Ah, yes. The ye olden "Yamatai is waaaay too advanced" argument. But just because its old, that does make it any less true given SARP's "no retroactive tweaking allowed" policy.

But there's really nothing you can do. Despite being brought up over and over, the general consensus has been to keep Yamatai's high end technology. Unless the popular vote has swung the other way in recent months, or a plotline changes things (the Mishhu ravages the Yamatai to the point they lose much of their almost ridiculously advanced tech), it seems everyone will just sit down, shut up, and accept the fact that Yamatai can and will beat you up if they don't like you.

That was actually one of the factors that drove me to making both the Freespacers and CSEIA pacifist (well, if you count the indirect hiring of pirate mercenaries to be pacifist on CSEIA's part). I've seen others' submissions dragged down for weeks, and even months due to constant back-and-forth arguing about power and technology balance.

 

[Fred]

Yo, look at the map and consider the Mishhu's apparent scorched earth policy.

Look at the implementation of the SRP system.

Look at the resource evaluation for the Himiko escort - it's only as fast as it needs to be.

 

[Cora]

Doesn't change the fact Yamataian technology, per Wes being the primary creator, bypasses all approval proceses. I mean the Teleportation technology was originally brought in via RP. You were there Fred, and Wes even had the nerve to ask if he should bother posting a snippit about it in the C&D section after he added it to the mindy specs.

 

[Doshii Jun]

That's a fair question. Most of Yamatai's tech in recent months has been posted for approval, but if that is still a sore spot, then it should be addressed in some capacity.

However, there is a problem with this -- Wes is essentially always on the defensive here, right? He's the Avatar of Yamatai, and he's the owner of this site. He has to deal with this to a certain degree, but it does not seem fair to lance him constantly because his planet is best.

That said, perhaps this question should be answered with some level of finality (and in a looooooong post, because we like them!): How can we address the issue of game balance and make everyone happy?

I don't expect we can answer this question fully. We might not be able to answer it at all. But we should address it, head on, with some admissions:

1. Yamatai's best. Hands down.

2. Everyone wants to be the best, somehow. The Lorath, the Neps, the Elysians -- everyone wants to stick it to Yamatai one way or another and show off how cool their shit is. That's not bad or good -- it's human.

3. The only ones who can compete with Yamatai is the SMX. It should be noted that before Fred essentially took over the SMX, they were not considered a great threat by anyone. Now they are not so much a threat to PCs, but a threat to the SARP in general. Fred is very clear that he wants to make Yamatai hurt, and hurt a lot, because that's how Fred perceives progress will be made in the SARP. I hope I'm not mucking that up.

4. As always, this is Wes' sandbox, and he wants to get pleasure out of it too. It is foolish for us to imagine that, despite some of the things he says, he enjoys seeing his creations having the shit kicked out of them.

5. A certain element of PvP is built into the SARP, yet it is rarely exploited because it is (relatively) new and is very awkward to deal with. This isn't one author writing a story; it's players going at other players without a judge necessarily present. I believe this is actually of primary importance, but I'm not sure.

These are some places to start. I know this can topic can raise drama like no other, but please, people, let's keep it civil. We're doing this to benefit the community and ourselves.

 

[Wes]

Sometimes plot GMs will need to slip something in by surprise for that "whoa" factor, though. For actual plot ship GMs, I am willing to occasionally make exceptions to the normall approval process. Plus, anything found in common modern day use (like basic furniture or bottle water) can bypass the approval process.

 

[Vesper]

My issue is more so when potentially game changing items are shoved in for 'plot purposes'. The above two examples (teleportation devices as standard for mindys and the SMX gigantic teleporter) are the two that come out to me without much though. Neither of them where absolutely critical to the plots they where put into (after the fact yes, because they had such a large impact, but they where not necessary to begin with), but where they actually used to full potential both of them would drastically change the balance of the entire setting (seriously, starships that can move entire solar systems?!?).

The fact that they have not has more to do with the restraint on the behalf of the GMs controlling the two groups in question then the items in question. This (as a gm of D&D and other games for near a decade now) is not something that should be good. In any game the balance of a new item (tech, class, feat, whatever) should not rely on how a specific player behaves. I have seen such balancing methods spiral into chaos many times (I my self having been the culprit on a number of occasions of making said class/race/etc.). Before people say "oh, but that hasn't happened here, it won't" or similar (as with my comments on how the tech level was too high in Febuary of last year) this is due to the small number of people controlling them (Wes & Fred respectivly), not the balance of the devices themselves.

 

[Le Blue Dude]

The best way to "best" Yamatai is to do things in a completely different direction. Lets face it, take a couple thousand planets, and odds are some are going to start whole new tech-trees. So you have, say, elysian Bio-tech (I usually use bio tech myself, but not always...) or perhaps you have the Nepplesian cybernetics. Or the Yggdrasil.

I don't want my stuff to be the "best" or "Most powerful" or even "most often". I just like submiting things that are different, using tricks people havn't thought of yet. Like how I'm going to turn the Zelacoorians from their old setting into the new, do you know how much I've slash and burned? The culture is similar, but a lot of my ideas had to be completely re-thought out to fit the setting, and I am still doing so.

And look at their tech. They use ceramic composites, and plastics. The swimmers have the most "normal" tech, and everything of theirs is aquatic in nature!

It's really fun just going in a new direction.

 

[Zack]

Lets also not forget the 10ly range super weapons that made it into use without need for approval.

There is also no reason why we should just have to shut up and accept things because that is just the way it is. I think that the GMs should have to get approval as much as anyone else. The ‘Whoa' moments bit shouldn't be an excuse for why they can avoid this. I can still get good Whoa moments even with already approved tech like when the crew of the Alliance found out that Ally had a physical body.

 

[Fred]

(seriously, starships that can move entire solar systems?!?)

No starships can move entire star systems. The Lorath are the ones whom came out with the ludicrous idea; no one can do it, not even that ass frickin' big Mishhu flagship.

 

[Wes]

Exception: Hoshi no Iori can theorectically move itself; it is both a space station AND a solar system. It has never been tested.

 

[Doshii Jun]

The "whoa" technique is mostly Wes'. Fred has used it twice -- the huge battleship for the Mishhu, and the phasing tech. Both of those were for the Mishhu, and were legitimately excluded -- showing them off would have defeated the purpose of seeing them for the first time ICly.

This isn't about what GMs can and can't do. This is about balancing the game somehow so people aren't caught up in an arms race that produces drama ad nauseum and sours our community on tech submission in general. Not to mention creates the tech cliques Wes mentioned.