Wheres the tech? AND.... Can i?

[Wv_Hawk_vW]

Hello. considering the fact that im new, i have a few questions.

First, where is the tech section (ie, do the ships have shields? FTL capability? etc)

Second, can i create my own unique race? (if not, i will make a freespacer and discard the below, though it is interesting)

In case the answer to second question is yes (if no discard this): the character im thinking is different in every aspect of the word. firstly, despite that the character (George treet shall be his name) can appear humanoid, he is not. he is just a brain. if you meet him in person, he is wearing a biological suit designed not to look completely and totally ugly (though he does have a battle suit not designed for looks, but for other, obvious purposes). he has two other main suits: his cruiser and his fighter.

second, he can learn to communicate in any language in seconds, given the ability to hack into a computer. in this case, he ended up emerging from an artificial wormhole right in the middle of a mission (the opening of the wormhole involved, causing the ship it appears near to experience the effects of EMP). as soon as the ship nearby gets back up and runnning, it starts firing at the newcomer (Treet of course!) who came from the artificial (before he can close it). he closes it, and scans the vessel. the shots bounce right off of his armor. then George hacks into the ship's computer, turns off the weapons, figures out the language, and introduces himself.

third, george treet's race, the biomancers, are extremely technologically advanced. the reason that george treet is discovered is that he uses an artificial wormhole to get away from a supernova, made by a terrorist who uses too much antimatter and ends up destroying the entire galaxy (which is far, far away, so far that treet ended up here thanks to not calculating where the other end of his AW would be). in addition, every biomancer specialises in something (or at least, they did). treet specialises in electronics warfare (though he did pick up a few presents from fighting pirates); his parents specialised in different ways to procreate (and excuse my language, but in other words, they specialised in biomancer sex); there were only 2 ways to procreate, after all.

fourth, part of the reason the biomancers weren't attempting to solve the problem of procreation is that they live so damn long! Treet is 300 years old and says he hasn't matured yet (humans normally mature at 17-22); he also says the average biomancer lives to be 100 cycles old. he is 4 cycles old himself.

 

[MissingNo]

Welcome to the Star Army RolePlay! I'm MissingNo, the Faction Manager of the Freespacers.

The SARP universe is huge in terms of detail, so we tend to want players to get used to the place and setting before bringing their own races in. It is highly recommended to start with one of the two main factions (Nepleslia or Yamatai), since they are likely to be more familiar than most of the other races in terms of culture, unless you are willing to put in the research time to learn about the others. For example, the Freespacers have a rather unusual culture and world view that affects everything from their biology to their speech and worldview.

As far as the technology, this is the Star Wiki's main page. You will be best served by reading the New Players' Guide (linked at the upper left part of the site, just under the "Star Army" banner). That will start you off with everything you need to know, and is also an article in the SARP's wiki. The Star Wiki includes a search box in the upper right that you can use to search for any key terms you wish to find more about. The setting section (which gives links to tech, ships, factions, etc.), is here, near the bottom of the Star Wiki home page.

Concerning your character: the SARP is currently being run as its own closed-system RP universe, meaning that importing characters that already exist in other roleplay scenarios (universes) is not generally accepted. (Here is a comic take on why, though there are a few other reasons.) Also, computer systems and weapons are likely more powerful here than you think they are. For example, the Yamataian PANTHEON system (of which MEGAMI is just a part of) is touted to be hack-proof, with good reason.

HOWEVER...even though you may not be able to bring your race into the RP, you can make a character with the same personality. I had to do that when I joined up, and if you need help with coming up with a backstory, I'd be happy to help, as would most members of the administration and site ^_^

I hope you enjoy your time here!

EDIT: Almost forgot! ALWAYS read the rules, for the site and places like the Character and Tech Submission forums, there are important things in there that you may wish to know later and will make the processes easier! (because the mods won't have to tell you what you should have already read : D )

 

[Wv_Hawk_vW]

actually, the reason i wanted this race to join the rp is A, it's unique, B, it solves the problem of getting a ship (in fact, it also adds another problem that requires a bit of looking at to see), and C, it guarentees that im as new to this rp as george treet is to this galaxy. insofar as being hack proof is concerned, i just figured that sinse george treet is 90% computer he would know almost all possible computer systems inside out, upside down, backwards, chewed up, crapped, re-eaten, and spat back out. in addition, i might point out that he got his weapons and defences from pirates-- who's computers got wiped because of him-- so perhaps, in that area, we can say that he hacked into


you know what? SCREW that. im going to make me a FREESPACER!

 

[Kyle]

Freespacer oppertunities to RP are very limited right now, in fact, I don't think I've seen any RP's right now that have them (and only people who are GM's can RP them)

This is why MissingNo suggested that you go with the two currently active factions, they are intended to be easy to get into and also newbie friendly. It's also why Freespacers is listed as being recommended for Veteran Players.

If you still want to go that route, that's entirely up to you. Just that since you are new, it's more recommended that you create either a Nep or Yam, until you've gotten used to the RP's setting.

 

[Wes]

Freespacers are able to join any Nepleslian, Iromakuanhe, or independent plot so there should be some opportunities for that. When in doubt, consult the plot's game master for advice.

 

[Wv_Hawk_vW]

here are the reasons im choosing a freespacer:

1: i want a nomad-type character. seriously, he will be as new to society as i am to, well, star-army, and therefore, local society.

2: i want that character to have a self-sustaining high-tech ship (high tech as in can power every single toaster in the galaxy all at once for nearly a year, assuming his ship stops PRODUCING that power).

3: i also want to be able to have an excuse for suddenly disappearing. for example, if i suddenly disappear, it will be because, say, he got lost in the ship due to his being un-used to using maps and being un-used to being in a cruiser-sized battleship that has more than 4 or 5 rooms in it... or, instead, experiencing lethargy because he has been out of his ship too long.

4: i want him to be able to learn, say, a language in 30 seconds, because of the fact that his brain is interfaced with a computer (though i dont want him to ALWAYS be interfaced with that computer!

I have even come up with him, however im not going to submit his bio to the wiki until he is, well, acceptable under my tastes.


May i present...


Nomad! AKA War breaker!

Ship: the battle finder.
Looks kinda like a hawk, but without the talons or spotted feathers.
Powerplant: micro-black hole; gravity.
speed capability: unknown; the fastest it has ever traveled is 3 megalight, where he realized he was outrunning his radiation and had to slow down.
Engine: nomad's personally made engine.
anything else that's important:
Nomad built the battle finder himself. he built it to be fast, so fast that it would grant him the ability to go anywhere he wanted to, anytime.
It is a cruiser capable of greatly exceeding the speed of light. this is because the ship has so much power that it can synthesize whatever particle is needed. hence, uses chronotons to keep the black hole from distorting time, and to reduce the time dilation of going FTL by over 95%. also, he uses gravity engines to take the ship above light speed, and sinse your ship becomes denser as it goes faster, these are one of the few engines that dont croak out and stall when they get to 90% light speed. in fact, they have even allowed the ship to get to 3 megalight (and if it were piloted by anyone but a freespacer, it could probably go faster).

Nomad can also use antimatter as a weapon. he extracts it from a black hole and uses a magnet to fire it. the only downside to this is that he cant use it at superlight speed, similar reasons to why you cant use bullets whilst at the same time flying at supersonic speed in atmospheres, as antimatter cannot under any circumstance exceed the speed of light.
it is also armed with lasers, proton cannons and the like.

Part of the reason nomad left was that, after building his super-ship, he found himself in a world where the most advanced thing was hundreds of years ahead of everything else, that the second fastest ship was barely able to get to 60%(i think thats the fastest any ship has ever gone in this rp) light speed, and the fastest being capable of over 3 million times the speed of light, that the second most potent power source was barely capable of generating a few gigawatts, had risk of melt down (and therefore mass irradiation), and was hardly portable while the most potent was half as big and could produce entire terawatts of energy.

he has been completely isolated for almost 10 years and certain unique types of radiation have made him appear half his age-- and possibly doubled his lifespan, if he lives a boring life.

EDIT: oh s*** i just realized i was wrong when i thought no ship could exceed light speed.
EDIT2: aww f*** i just realized that ships around here actually have shields. i need to redo this. later...

 

[MissingNo]

Um...long posts...

Okay, give me a while to read through and consider what was written since I last posted. I'll have a reply for you hopefully in an hour or so. Meanwhile, I'm dealing with some stuff IRL that needs done first.

Thank you for your patience : )

 

[Wv_Hawk_vW]

i should be thanking you for that patience, considering it took me like 2 hours to write that and there wasnt a single unseen reply to this thread sinse then.

 

[MissingNo]

Hawk, you have both imagination and enthusiasm. I'll give you that much. And possibly your character's personality.

What I cannot give you is your character's ship, technology, or background.

If you're still reading, let me give you a personal story:

I joined up when this RP was just getting started. I did what you are trying to do: insert a character of a type that I had used in other roleplays, gave him a ship, gave him extraordinary abilities, and made him a wanderer. I got in because, back at the start, this RP was still open to that sort of thing.

I did have that first sense of "I don't know anything about this place, so I don't want to leave what I know", which made me want to start with that character because I knew him. But back then we didn't have the StarWiki, which is an absolutely fantastic resource that I really could have used to avoid that "stranger in a strange land" feel. After studying the race I was interested in, I would have been able to make a proper character.

And the character I had brought in could have gotten by just fine without all of that extra overpowered stuff. I didn't use my ship (in fact, it blew up almost right away), my character was conscripted into the military (which took away "wanderer" status), and his abilities were actually a hindrance.

Basically, all that extra stuff I had in my character to make him feel "unique" mostly got in the way. Even now, I still have two high-powered characters (you'll gain that privilege later -- and it is a privilege, not a right), and I know this for sure: If you have a character that can hack any computer, withstand most attacks, and hold its own against the elites of the world, it will diminish most stories you might have had, because your Game Master (the one in charge of the plot you're a part of) will have to do his or her best to create challenges for you, and many times this will cause problems for the rest of the players in the plot you join. In the end, no one is happy.

And, in this world or any other, overcoming challenges make the best stories!

===

Getting back to what you need to do, here is the breakdown.

None of the technologies mentioned either exist or perform the way you have described. No Freespacer has a ship that functions like you have described. And every Freespacer has access to the Polysentience, which would nullify your claim to need a character that doesn't known anything about the setting. But there may not be as much a need for that excuse as you think; the setting on a character's-eye-view is not as complicated as you think until you get into the higher ranks of the military for any one faction. In addition, all new players start out on the bottom rank for that reason: Letting them get used to the setting. And...

It is easier to get used to the main factions than you think. The Nepleslians are essentially American in culture, but turned Up To Eleven, so to speak. They are stereotyped as "gun-obsessed, rough-around-the-edges, adventure-seeking, and patriotic", but can be literally any American or immigrant to America you can find on the street today. In fact, you could make yourself as a character here, with a few modifications. Check these character pages for examples:

Stovaa Drakon
Adrian Decane
Autumn Wilde

These bios can also give you hints on what we're looking for in character sheet content and format. As for the Yamatians, most of their culture is derived from Japanese culture, and a quick StarWiki search will pull up some examples there.

However, if you are still set on creating a Freespacer, please try again when you have read the Freespacer wiki articles. If you need help finding them, the main ones are here:

The Free State (government and ideologies)
Freespacers (history summary, biology and caste overviews)
"Creating a Freespacer" Guide. (Read this after you have read the previous two, and before making another attempt at creating a character.)

And, because you seem so keen on having your own ship (which, I must note, is completely unnecessary. This is not Knights of the Old Republic or Mass Effect, each character does not own their own ship), these are the Guidelines for Freespacer Starship Creation.

====

So, there are more options than you might think. Meanwhile, be patient, start out with your basic character, do the research you need to (and make full use of the wiki! Feel free to ask if you're lost!), and you'll do just fine ^_^

Happy Roleplaying : )

 

[Sigma]

Not sure about what plots he's thinking of joining but 4th Fleet is only open to characters serving as Nepleslian Marines or Sailors. And the latter requires a long talk with me.

Also, I really must echo others' sentiments and urge the OP to go with a Nepleslian or Yamataian character as the starting one. There's so much detail about the F'spacers that even i'm daunted in my attempts to understand them.

 

[Wv_Hawk_vW]

how about a techno-designer amerslian, er, Nepleslian? would that be acceptable?

I have a few touches that i can add if one is willing to forego the price for one single almost completely overpowered ship that could, quite literally, take on entire war fleets of ships all by itself, and win.

edit@the below: i understand your reasoning. its just i figured you would see how hard, or not, it is to counter: one well placed bomb, for example. another: a ship that powerful HAS to be big, and anything that big is easily eaten alive by any uncontrolled black hole. three: powerplant disaster. four: you cant win their game if you dont play; build a dreadnought of your own to counter his. five: one well placed hack can permanenty disable any ship that big because of all the computer needed.

 

[Doshii Jun]

how about a techno-designer amerslian, er, Nepleslian? would that be acceptable?

I have a few touches that i can add if one is willing to forego the price for one single almost completely overpowered ship that could, quite literally, take on entire war fleets of ships all by itself, and win.

To be blunt? We're not willing to forgo the price or the power. Something so massively OP would never pass muster on this site.

Why not work on your character first, and then work on your submissions after you've become acquainted with our tech level?

 

[MissingNo]

Hold on a minute, Doshii. I think there was a misunderstanding of his statement there.

He is asking if he can add some touches to the basic starting-level Nepleslian character if he is going to be required to give up the ship he wants.

Hawk, I can't promise anything, especially since I am not a Nep FM or a character approval mod, but I am curious: what additions are you wanting?

But Doshii is right, and he is repeating what I have already said: Do research to find out what you have to work with here. Seriously. Do it. Every question you have about the setting is very likely going to already have an answer in the wiki. Work with us here, and we'll work with you as much as we can.

 

[Doshii Jun]

Ohhh, I see. Sorry about that, Hawk.

 

[Wv_Hawk_vW]

ok, can i go bang my head against the wall in here? the walls over there are soft and mushy, and frankly, dont serve the purpose.

*bang bang bang*

that's better.

let me explain it to you what im thinking.

im thinking a character that goes up in the world and starts making money. lots of money. then when hes gathered enough, being the ship-builder (NOT to be mistaken for designer) he ends up discovering a material that, when you pass charged protons (or whatever particle you want it to be) through it, it's stronger than diamonds. its also easy to synthesize, cheap (considering that its just a unique form of glass, kinda like how apple cider is a unique form of apple juice), relatively lightweight (ok, its heavier than steel, but most strong materials are heavy anyway, and this is light compared to those), and as long as you keep passing the charged protons through, it will also constantly redistribute itself around the frame so that it temporerily fixes, say, bullet holes (though it cant fix massive, moon-sized holes, but what repair technique can?). then he searches his database (which by now has tons and tons of different things, from what shield generator A does and how armor B works to how come engine C, which has low thrust, is capable of FTL while engine D, with high thrust, isnt. then he finds a powerplant design that gives the ship nearly infinite energy: a compressed black hole held and made portable by hugely powerful shield generators, and its massive gravitational power being extracted. this power gets used to produce chronotons, and the time dilations get reduced massively. next, this engineer comes up with a plan to use massive gravitational engines (not those puny weight-reducers) in combination with the micro-singularity to push itself at FTL speed. in fact, because of the power extracted from this singularity, the first test ends up going extremely fast (whether it reaches the megalight barrier then is to be determined THEN, not now). and all this ends up. long story short, engineer soon becomes a millionaire and ends up with a cult following him around, then a completly new faction forms.

but before any of this is possible... i need a mechgineer! not a crappy car mechanic, not a weird engineer, a mechgineer!

 

[Doshii Jun]

I'm sorry, Hawk. That's way too OP for a brand new character, not to mention it relies on submissions you can't submit until you have a character passed.

Some of the tech you cite involves things we already have: Durandium and Yamataium, for instance, as well as aether. Overlapping tech is something we try to discourage here, unless it's faction-specific.

The best advice I can give you, Hawk, is to go through the character creation generator and start off in a plot. There are a lot of things that are in progress around the SARP, as we're constantly evolving, but one thing we know works well is our CCG and learning the ropes via plot involvement.

 

[MissingNo]

I am beginning to doubt that you are looking for what we offer, Hawk. If you are only interested in having a powerful, uber-character and not in a load-of-fun story to play in with a character that actually belongs in this roleplay setting, then you may find your time better spent looking around the Internet a bit more instead of cramming a square peg into a round hole.

However, you are making small steps toward a reasonable character, so I'll keep with you if you want. But what Doshii wrote is also true.

Use the character creation guide and the generator tools.

(And two things can happen when you cram a square peg into a round hole:

You sheer the corners off the peg, resulting in a sort-of-round peg that doesn't properly perform its role and looks out-of-place, or you break the material the hole was in.

Translated: you break your character or you break the setting and _no one_ is happy.)

 

[Wv_Hawk_vW]

you misunderstood me.

in neverwinter nights, you cant just create a level 1 character and start using powerful spells right off the bat. you gotta get to level 10 before you can even use a level FOUR spell, and theres 12 spell levels.

in this case, i want to build up a character to where he EVENTUALLY makes that semi-overpowered cruiser. sure, it might take 10 years for me to get it there, but i need a new chahracter rbefore that can happen.

now does that make sense? sorry i had to put it that way, my head plopped onto the keyboard before i could finish editing what i had said last night.

 

[Kyle]

The problem Hawk is that you'll have to deal with Tech Mods such as myself when you eventually put that ship together. Looking at what you've written, even if you spent the next few years putting it together, eventually it'll fall under the eyes of the tech mods and when we start to notice things about the ship that make no sense- or things that make it more powerful than current ships of the line, we'll start to ask questions on 'how' it was able to get the components for that.

One thing that we would prefer to avoid is overpowered ships, as no indivisual should have such a ship - SARP deals with everyone, every player, every character, no one character should be more powerful than another (in general terms that is)

Not to mention the technology you've mentioned isn't really possible for a singular character to achieve, without assistance that level of technology is really only possible for factions. Also, a Singularity Drive? I think you'll find yourself having issues getting that passed, at least by yourself anyway.

Your idea's are interesting, but they will really only work on a factional level, since what your talking about is - in my book - very high tech.

In short, based off what I'm seeing and interpreting, your designing a ship that is essentially more powerful than any other ship currently in the setting. And on a more personal level, anything that alters time is going to be a royal PITA to deal with.

 

[Wes]

I am not opposed to new characters starting with a ship, but it should ideally be one already in the setting or reasonably similar to (but not more powerful than) one in our setting. However, the question is what for? Being on your own ship means being away from other player characters and the plot GMs. The reason we suggest starting as a character in an existing plot is so new players do not find themselves bored and isolated. RPGs are about interaction and if you are on your own ship the opportunites for interaction can be uncertain.