MBL change/update discussion 2020

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

The Military Buildup Limitations, like DRv3 and other essential systems has been a point of discussion for some time now off and on and has its patrons and cynics alike.

So i think its time we discuss the MBL in an official and professional capacity. And proposed changes to officially be made once and for all (or until next time~)


I for one am for keeping the MBL for reasons of continuity (Not having everyone that comes to the site make super 10,000 ship fleets and go overboard on unfair RP that frankly defies the suspension of disbelief), But am not opposed to changing or altering it to accommodate a more desirable system for the current community that doesnt revolve around PVP and having such a strict ruleset.

I also think the MBL should make sense and not break the suspension of disbelief. That even yamatai and nepleslia with their abundance of resources cant simply field tens of thousands of ships; Because RP should be focussed on the actions of the minority and their actions and we gain nothing from the OOC johnson-waving that comes with having so many ships and how people, even core and influential members of this community use numbers and OOC logic to act toxic or even put down other players and belittle other factions.

I also propose we change the MBL to instead of be based around the number of systems and active players (cause frankly the community is quite small because of this pandemic and the NDC would be able to crush us all with their active player count compared to yam/nep combined!!!!!) to instead be based around the number of ships a fleet can contain. This way there can still be plenty of room for players to make fleets for background RP and battles like nataria without the johnson waving coming into play, And it would be limited to a few hundred ships at most.

Finally, I also think there should be a soft-cap as well to the overall number of ships regardless of faction size to ensure a monopoly doesnt occur (such as just breaking up 70,000 ships into 70 different fleets). This doesnt have to be an official number to be enforced but an IC or even OOC thing we can decide on that should affect all factions for fairness sake.

Nataria and the final battle give us a chance to take this step as yamatai and nepleslia will have taken serious damage to their fleets numbers and simply building tens of thousands of ships again for any faction when instead some economic and industrial pressure forcing the giants to instead start small again when it comes to their navies is a good opportunity for new RP and a fresh start and put them on slightly even terms with smaller factions which would give more OOC and IC reasons for the factions to interact instead of the OOC johnson waving of why would we when we are clearly so strong it is below us?.

This way the suspension of disbelief is not broken, people can have their fleets to play around with, there are no super fleets to flex on people and be toxic about, you can focus your RP without needing to worry about such a big picture, both the hard/soft scifi community members can be content, battles are more fun when your fleet wins against great odds without needing 1,000 ships behind it, the next super war or event has more depth and gravity when you simply cant throw 10,000 ships at it every couple days and neither can the enemy so it relies more on RP and not background numbers, etc.

These are simply my proposed changes and not what i demand or seek to influence anyone into choosing as the thread creator.

PLEASE KEEP THIS THREAD CIVIL. PERSONAL ATTACKS AND TOXIC BEHAVIOR SHOULD IN NO WAY FIND A PLACE HERE FROM EITHER STAFF, COMMUNITY, ACTIVE OR LURKING BUT NON-POSTING COMMUNITY MEMBERS.

 

[Alex Hart]

I'm voting to change, because the system seems to be out of date and there's some bloat in there, but I'm not sure how to feel about some of your proposed changes, such as limiting fleet sizes to a few hundred ships. While it wouldn't really affect the NDC very much, I think that could have an adverse affect on some of the larger factions and would have no really affect beyond "Well, I bring 10 fleets of 500 ships to this fight" and not much changing.

I'm generally in favor of a soft reset of ship numbers because of ships lost at war, but given the existing MBL build times, even that wouldn't make much of a difference as Yamatai and Nepleslia can both rebuild at massively faster rates compared to the Neshaten and NDC. There would need to be some in-character reasoning that limits the amount of ships people can build, like some sort of space-washington-naval-treaty, or a change to ship build times.

A soft reset could perhaps allow smaller factions to feel like they're making meaningful contributions to multifaction battles such as Nataria and Glimmergold, but it would be difficult to pull off even providing that people agreed to it, for the reasons I mentioned. I feel like this is a noble goal (Reducing the amount of proverbial 'down-talking' between factions and allowing smaller (Big airquotes) factions to feel like they matter) but ultimately a lot of the stuff you're suggesting may perhaps be a bit too radical.

The only thing I'm absolutely adamant is that the rules, (or guidelines, if they become that) are applied equitably to all factions with no bias from staff and players with a vested interest in maintaining their personal fleet(s).

 

[Soban]

I'm ambivalent about it personally. I feel like as a Washington Naval Treaty type thing, it makes sense and lets us keep things smaller and more focused on what matters, the individuals.

While I didn't play with SARP during the time that it formed, I was involved in similar communities. There were people who in something like this would bring frankly huge overpowering army numbers of plot armored mary sues. So what happened is that everyone did. I still see it happening with people who are still trying to get a hang of roleplaying at the factional level. I feel like the MBL gives us a good approximate baseline. People who are power games or have an optimization monkey on their back like me, I feel kinda do need rules like this.

In favor of large fleets is that they make a really cool backdrop for players doing stuff.

So what do we do? I think we should explicitly identify in a table the number of systems each faction and cooperation under the table has. The table should be regularly updated if a number increases. Remember, the number can only increase and it increases based on how many people you have playing. You want a larger empire? Get more people playing here.

Once the number has been established, we should aggressively cull each faction's current strength to be within the limits. We have a great roleplay opportunity to do this, the Glimmergold battle where I think everyone has committed ships to. (Except for the Nateshen?)

For Yamatai, which is the faction I'm most active in, I think it also provides us with the opportunity to reduce the numbers to be in line with the MBL and with the end of the war, 'reorganize' the fleets. Perhaps deactivating some that aren't really being used. Then each fleet has in essence the MBL of it's Area of Operations.

I think using the Glimmergold battle as a sort of soft reset and 'checkpoint' where we are all on the same page makes sense as after it we are going to be into the next big era.

The only thing I'm absolutely adamant is that the rules, (or guidelines, if they become that) are applied equitably to all factions with no bias from staff and players with a vested interest in maintaining their personal fleet(s).

I agree.

 

[Alex Hart]

Remember, the number can only increase and it increases based on how many people you have playing. You want a larger empire? Get more people playing here.

This is one thing I really love from this iteration of the MBL and I really hope it stays.

 

[Whisper]

I'm in favor of an update along the lines of what others are sharing here. I also really like using the end of the war as a way to adjust course and get an in-character reasoning for why we might make changes.

I think smaller factions and smaller fleets open up more options for story that people can fit in their heads. Threats are more reasonably-sized, cooperation becomes more important, and it becomes more feasible for things like pirates, mercenaries, and other independents to be useful - and to get away with things without being caught!

I also think about all the best moments in anime, movies, books, etc, and rarely (except for LoGH) do they involve thousands of ships. It's usually one or two ships against a handful of other ships. The actions of the crew matter at that scale; their successes or failures have a big impact on the outcome of the battle or even the course of the war. Since most of our RP takes place at the single-ship scale, I feel like our fleet counts should put more emphasis on that scale of combat.

For the updated MBL numbers with these things in mind, I'd suggest (per system):

Item	Current Maximum	New Maximum
Huge Space Stations	1	1
Shipyards	10	5
System Defense Platforms	25	25
Super Capital Ships (T15)	n/a	1
Capital Ships	100	20
Other Warships	150	75
Military Support Ships	250	250
Additional Small Craft	25,000	15,000

It may be worth a small expansion to the above for 'home systems' - maybe they count twice? Each faction would only get one.

The above is a pretty substantial reduction of combat capabilities across the board, but it leaves things like defense platforms largely alone. Support ships (which are excellent targets for pirate plots) are left alone, as well. A new category for T15's are added, because I think it's reasonable that if we're making a distinction between 'capital' and 'other', that the really big stuff also have its own category so that we don't try to make 20 T15's per system.

I think some sort of limit on the number of systems a faction can have should be set and maintained. Potentially with a long culling period, like "if player count is below X for a year" or something like that. It makes defunct factions have a natural expiration date and keeps the sector somewhat in flux, which I think is good! I'm fine with there being some sort of absolute, reasonable minimum for the site's core factions that is reasonable, so that if smaller factions pull in lots of players it doesn't stir up too many problems for the core, long-term factions. (Maybe something simple like, "Yam and Nep each have 10 base systems which are in addition to the ones they get from player count, due to the length of time they've held them or something?)

It might also be worthwhile to have some sort of diminishing returns on systems earned from player count in play. I'm not sure what the 'ideal' amount of systems for any given faction is, but it probably makes sense to make it more challenging to grow system counts as you get more and more of them.

Fully agreed that whatever rules we put in place should be followed and respected by everyone involved. I'll think on this some more and add whatever else comes to mind, but I like the discussion and hope that it works out well for everyone involved!

 

[Andrew]

I feel this should be abolished.

While there should be an on-demand discussion about what is good for the site and the story, I think this old policy is more of a hindrance than an encouragement. I've seen the discussions on discord, had a few words in them and I will stick to my opinion on this one. If anything as @Wes stated, this is a loose guideline. The story should always outweigh technicality and guidelines. The discussion people should be having before they build ships or devote resources are more along the lines of - Is this a good story? Is this good for the community? Does this serve to promote fun on Star Army?

PvP on Star Army doesn't exist, so I believe the argument about smaller or less played factions being strong-armed is not really a valid discussion anymore. Does Yamatai have more ships now? Yes, but if you really dig into it a lot of the fleet is aging and some of the designs are past their prime. The story right now is war. A war Yamatai has had to fight alone for most of the global plot, help from other factions didn't happen till much later in the war. Plus what are these extra ships pulled from mothballs outside of cannon-fodder? The story here makes sense.

If there are going to be guidelines, I think they would be best centered around what is good for the site and story as a whole.

My vote was to abolish.

 

[Wes]

I think this discussion is kind of extra to be having right now and I'm very comfortable with the amount of ships the factions have right now. When I wrote the MBLs the main purpose was to keep people from instantly producing ships and to provide some guidelines so that new factions didn't explode in numbers and disrupt the status quo of the SARPiverse. They're a lot more important for new, growing factions who are building fleets, and they also provide a baseline for Yamatai although Yamatai made a lot extra ships for the war which are currently pushing it over the limits, which to be fair, almost no one cares about except for the thread OP.

That said, I'm listening to feedback and I'm open to the idea of revising these. I agree with Alex that one of the best parts I made in the original guidelines is that the count of active players is important to these and it might be useful if we could find ways to automate that player count, perhaps using the new struct database system (we could do something like add a "factions I'm in" to user profiles on the wiki and then total the checkboxes from the users and filter out anyone inactive. I also like the idea of new RP posts being counted - honestly it'd be worth considering some sort of "cash mod" for the forum where posting in the IC forums earns "SARPcoin" or some imaginary currency that's used to buy new starships or something, encouraging RPing on the forum and also limiting ship production based on activity.

 

[Soban]

Those are some good ideas Wes. One of the questions is how we would measure active players. One method would be to just check if someone made a post in the RP forums for a faction within a certain time period. But I'm curious what others might think.

Edit: If we award 'coins' perhaps wordcount might be a good metric?

 

[Alex Hart]

Struct may not work, because I know quite a few players don't have player pages. I think if we did a thorough "Walking people through making their player page" section it could work though. In regards to "sarpcoin" or anything like that, I'm opposed as I think it would encourage low quality or short posts being farmed out.

They're a lot more important for new, growing factions who are building fleets, and they also provide a baseline for Yamatai although Yamatai made a lot extra ships for the war which are currently pushing it over the limits, which to be fair, almost no one cares about except for the thread OP.

I don't quite agree with the "no one cares that Yamatai is over limits" statement though. In the core clique sure, but out of the whole site I think the number may be higher than you think, but that's kind of aside from the point.

If we don't do some sort of 'soft reset' as some people in this thread seem to find to be a good idea or (some of them longtime Yamatai players, to dispel the myth that this is just people hating on Yamatai) I feel like now might be a good time to discuss how to allow smaller factions (Again, big air quotes, since that's only addressing the IC side) such as the NDC to make a bigger impact in whole-site events.

Just sort of a "stream of consciousness" post.

Edit:

I did want to second this bit, if only to regulate the number of izanagi or other super-duper-capitalships thrown around, as they don't do much other than go "Yeah here's a big fucking ship that wins the fight" and having too many of those is narratively boring. One or two per system as suggested in the original post from Whisper seemed like a good idea

A new category for T15's are added, because I think it's reasonable that if we're making a distinction between 'capital' and 'other', that the really big stuff also have its own category so that we don't try to make 20 T15's per system.

 

[raz]

It's not really broke and doesn't need fixing. The reason it exists at all is sound, and the way it currently operates doesn't impede much. It's essentially at the discretion of the Setting Manager. No need to get too hung up on it and feel bad that Yamatai has the biggest non-NPC fleet on Star Army Dot Com