New Ship Guide Discussion

[Darron Wraith]

@[member="Coryth Elaris"] I see what you're saying. Only issue is that when you judge a ship like this, it's the ship afterwards that can bite you in the rear. Because if it's armed more heavily, all the ships that are using what we have just implemented will want better ships too. Then you have just launched another arms race, and the factory is spammed like crazy with repaints of the same ship specs that everyone is ripping off the new "gen" of ships.

 

[Onrai]

Exactly. Goodbye arms races and power creep in unrealistic timeframes. That was on purpose.

In some manner or fashion, an "arms race" will still end up happening between the factions. It depends on IC reactions to events and OOC variance between faction leaders.

I'll refer you to Tef's statement where he mentioned that highly specialized ships can be negotiated with the RPJ in question. This was already addressed.

Very well.

That was on purpose. In those areas (freighters, non-combat ships, non-combative attachments) you have flexibility. You're seeing a design feature and an immense opportunity as a flaw.

So there's no guidelines for non-combat ships aside from the ones that existed previously? Alrighty then, settles that.

If it gets put in as a guideline, it then goes right back to status quo: People trying to one-up each other through ever-higher amounts of bargaining, tricky math, and dev threads, while taking up immense amounts of staff time. And you'll have even more 'how did HE fit that in when I couldn't?' angst. So, no. Putting this in as 'guidelines, more than actual rules' is not progress.

If the guideline is that, regardless as to how many people attempt to "one-up" one another, they can't go any higher than the guidelines. If I make a ship, 2km long with 850 heavy guns(turbolaser/ion cannon mix), and someone else makes a ship with 900(the limit for a "heavy" command shipp), is it really oneupsmanship if he and I are both following the rules, and he has more guns on his vessel than I do? I can choose to make a new ship, or edit the one I currently have, to the 900 guns, but it's going to remain there as an equal with his ship, not a superior. I don't see any reason why such a system wouldn't prevent oneupsmanship if people choose to not build ships with the max gun count for their type right away.

This is to simplify it, and make it to where we aren't constantly updating every ship out there. Each faction doesn't need 18 star destroyer types, and the turnover rate on technology was quite ridiculous.

I haven't seen much updating or turning-over of technology done in several factions... The Empire's still using first-generation technology in its fleets(the Anemoi-class Corvette and the occasional Invictus-class Star Destroyer are excellent examples. As for the part about multiple Star Destroyers - what's to stop someone from making 18 Star Destroyers with the new rules on ships?

Also in the end it helps staff and everyone - it opens the doors for the rest of the member base to enjoy the factory and isn't just limited to a few people. Lets face it not everyone is tech savvy. This allows simplification of the system for both ends (Staff and Member base).

I appreciate the thought staff went through in wishing to open the doors to other people, but with no offense, wouldn't an entire simplification of the system make it easier for everyone to make tech? You're talking about wanting to open the doors for the rest of the member base, but the only modifications made were to the ship template. Vehicles, droids, armor, and weapons have remained exactly the same. I like the idea of standardization via categorizing ships in classes that have an upper limit to what can be done with them, but mandating such things causes people to take, to quote @[member="Coryth Elaris"], the cookie-cutter approach.

@Coryth Elaris I see what you're saying. Only issue is that when you judge a ship like this, it's the ship afterwards that can bite you in the rear. Because if it's armed more heavily, all the ships that are using what we have just implemented will want better ships too. Then you have just launched another arms race, and the factory is spammed like crazy with repaints of the same ship specs that everyone is ripping off the new "gen" of ships.

Then use the table guidelines as a cap. Tell people "You can design your ships up to this line, but you can't design them any further." That will halt an arms race in its tracks. With regards to "repaints" of ship specs - considering the minimal amount of variation for each ship type, that's going to end up happening anyways, regardless of the results.

 

[Coryth Elaris]

@[member="Jacen Cavill"] While I concede that point a little. It's just to me, we are taking the arms races out completely. and they will move to other tech departments, guns, tanks .. and so on now that this is out of the way. You can't completely stop an arms race. And so many nations working against one another there has to be some edge, some line that makes it different. This is taking away from the stories and will bring other problems.

But it's the RPJ's that can keep it in check. It's one of the reasons that I applied for staff was to watch over the factory, to make sure things didn't get out of hand because I want to be there. I want to help in whatever way I can. This was where I felt I could be of MOST help. Because I'm here for the stories, the drive behind it, the tech. And this I feel is taking away from it. We/Staff have to know a certain line and not allow it to be crossed. Arms races are natural. Needed, they make great stories. They really do.

But It's just my opinion as a whole this is taking away from the story. Cookie cuttering it TOO much. Going a little too far. There needs to be room for customization. Really. Really does. The story is always my guide. That's what I am here for. It's what I love seeing about this board and the factory was so unique. I don't think I feel that same about it anymore. Will standardization on weapons be next?

 

[Darron Wraith]

@[member="Pandeima"] Let me ask you some questions then, and answer them for me.

• How many fleet battles have been on this board?
• How many times have gun ranges come up in fleet battles?
• Or number of guns?
• How many times have you had to fleet on this board?

There's a whole lot of arguing over documents that are rarely used. Truth about the factory is that most will only use what they create, and everyone wants to leave their stamp in there. This allows people to create, make their mark, and make fleet battles so easy to do and judging submissions easy. I shouldn't have to spend all day judging a submission, nor should any staffer. It's not a staff size issue, or a workload thing. It's simply the fact that the factory is a little secondary feature on the board that some people treat like the main event. This is SWRP, not SWFactory.

 

[Allyson Locke]

With the Arms race, if I stand corrected the "timeline" of what's going on is that the galaxy is emerging from a dark age, thus creation of techology would be slow and the way its being pumped out every other day its insane and again no one has addressed some of the stress on staff. How many times have we closed factory so that we could catch up?

This is a role-playing board and some people are constantly in the factory - please we want you to play the game along with our staff to play as well. Like I said before this helps both ends of the board - staff and members.

 

[Darron Wraith]

@[member="Coryth Elaris"] As far as tanks and weapons, we've pretty much decided to relax on those under the following criteria for judging.

• Does it fit in star wars?
• Is it feasible?

As long as it's not those, we are relaxing. I can tell someone to reduce their range on a gun, but it's never come up in an RP before. I've never once said I was 700 meters away from someone who's range on their gun was only 650 meters. So as long as it's not ridiculous it will get approved as well, unless it's a restricted item and requires a development thread before submission. If someone complains in an RP after trying to talk to the player, and they follow the proper process and file a report. Then the RPJ's will moderate and do their primary job, which is solve role-play disputes. Not check 18 sources to make sure someone didn't just break every ship that was submitted prior to this one.

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

Well count me out for using the factory from now on.

I will have no part of a system that punishes its users for wanting to be creative. This is staff shooting the board in its foot, so have fun with that.

 

[Coryth Elaris]

I know it's been mentioned before, but why not have staff that are FJ's Factory judges and that's ALL they manage? It would spread the load, give room for everything and such. Then RPJ's can manage roleplaying, factory judges factory? It would help a lot of these problems that I'm seeing. Making it easier on staff all around. If this is so much a burden on staff, then why not add someone to manage just this? Do a few entries a day go on with their lives and such and just deal in the factory.

 

[Allyson Locke]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"] Its not a punishment, like I've stated for four posts its there to allow OTHER members who aren't "techies" to enjoy the factory as well. Its there to help staff get submissions done in a timely manor and allowing people to focus their time and efforts in other directions.

@[member="Coryth Elaris"] - in a perfect world that sounds amazing. But you're loading the load on a small group of people and hate to say it people get burned out. Also there have been times where something gets approved and then someone else comes with another idea similar and it gets denied. With the standardization it prevents giving mixed signals from staff.

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

In some manner or fashion, an "arms race" will still end up happening between the factions. It depends on IC reactions to events and OOC variance between faction leaders.

Well of course factions will still try to better one another, but it shouldn't be as quick as it's been happening on the board. I've been here for seven months, and seen three generations of ship lines unveiled by the major factions, largely in an effort to keep up with each other. Furthermore, it wasn't a reaction to one fleet outgunning another but rather one guy noticing "Hey, that guy has better ships than me" OOC and going to fix it. IF there would be an arms race it should be reactive to IC events, not OOC events, which is what the previous system was promoting.

If the guideline is that, regardless as to how many people attempt to "one-up" one another, they can't go any higher than the guidelines. If I make a ship, 2km long with 850 heavy guns(turbolaser/ion cannon mix), and someone else makes a ship with 900(the limit for a "heavy" command shipp), is it really oneupsmanship if he and I are both following the rules, and he has more guns on his vessel than I do? I can choose to make a new ship, or edit the one I currently have, to the 900 guns, but it's going to remain there as an equal with his ship, not a superior. I don't see any reason why such a system wouldn't prevent oneupsmanship if people choose to not build ships with the max gun count for their type right away.

As someone who studies the factory like a hawk, and you should know this as well as much as you study it, everyone was trying to one-up each other with ships. With everyone wanting to be the best, no one is going to put out an 850 gun ship when they can put out a 900 gun ship instead.

I haven't seen much updating or turning-over of technology done in several factions... The Empire's still using first-generation technology in its fleets(the Anemoi-class Corvette and the occasional Invictus-class Star Destroyer are excellent examples.

Go look at how many ships of the same class we have in the Republic, Sith Empire, and Omega Protectorate, know that some ships were lost to the purge, and then tell me ships weren't being oversubmitted.

As for the part about multiple Star Destroyers - what's to stop someone from making 18 Star Destroyers with the new rules on ships?

Honestly, nothing is. However, for the most part, people aren't going to resubmit the same design when there's nothing to gain, and even if they do for RPJ's it a much easier to approve to deny by looking at the tables instead of leafing through tons of previous ships and seeing what precedents you have.

I appreciate the thought staff went through in wishing to open the doors to other people, but with no offense, wouldn't an entire simplification of the system make it easier for everyone to make tech? You're talking about wanting to open the doors for the rest of the member base, but the only modifications made were to the ship template. Vehicles, droids, armor, and weapons have remained exactly the same. I like the idea of standardization via categorizing ships in classes that have an upper limit to what can be done with them, but mandating such things causes people to take, to quote @[member="Coryth Elaris"], the cookie-cutter approach.

For the most part, weapons, droids, vehicles, armor etc aren't faction oriented, and thus there isn't a huge desire to get ahead of the curve so to speak. Most entries in such categories are simply unique entries for the "I want my gun to work this way" type of things, which are much easier to judge for the most part because most people can see the effects of something on the human body a lot quicker than they can a fictional ship.

Then use the table guidelines as a cap. Tell people "You can design your ships up to this line, but you can't design them any further." That will halt an arms race in its tracks. With regards to "repaints" of ship specs - considering the minimal amount of variation for each ship type, that's going to end up happening anyways, regardless of the results.

Then everyone does forced dev threads(Which are usually crappy) to meet the caps and nothing changes. If we're gonna put caps we might as well make people start at them, because we know they're gonna end at them after how much one-upmanship was done in the past.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Akio, you're the exception. The vocal exception, but the exception. This is in the interests of the vast majority.

Coryth, it's basically been tried. In truth, most RPJs have always spent the majority of their time in the Factory, simply because of the size of the workload. In essence, nearly every RPJ IS a Factory Judge, and always has been. Staff has been doing it like you suggest, basically, and it hasn't worked as hoped.

 

[Darron Wraith]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"] I don't see how it's punishing you. It's more of putting the factory in it's rightful spot, an accesory to roleplay. There are guides for all the tech featured in movies, and you may see a certain rifle used in a film for ten seconds. That's essentially what happens with most tech, and it doesn't need to be this monster that it was becoming.

@[member="Coryth Elaris"] it's not really the burden of factory. I've cleared the whole thing out in a day by myself before. It's just the fact that this will allow speedy approvals while implementing a system that I can pull up one document and make sure it fits the standard. This speeds the process for the submitter and the Judge, and makes the factory quick and painless.

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

@[member="Akio Kahoshi"] I don't see how it's punishing you. It's more of putting the factory in it's rightful spot, an accesory to roleplay. There are guides for all the tech featured in movies, and you may see a certain rifle used in a film for ten seconds. That's essentially what happens with most tech, and it doesn't need to be this monster that it was becoming.

@[member="Coryth Elaris"] it's not really the burden of factory. I've cleared the whole thing out in a day by myself before. It's just the fact that this will allow speedy approvals while implementing a system that I can pull up one document and make sure it fits the standard. This speeds the process for the submitter and the Judge, and makes the factory quick and painless.

Jacen, you just contradicted every other staff or staff member that's posted here so far who all said specifically that its the burden that is the problem. Which, frnakly, is crap. Because I've seen you and Ashin clear it in a day. Then watched the other 10 RPJs not touch a thing in the tech forum for 3-4 days, then the factory gets closed because there is "too much." I have never seen dedicated RPJs, I've seen RPJs that dedicated most of their time to factory. What has been mention before by MANY people is a new judge that ISN'T a RPJ. They have a different tag, and they have no authority AT ALL outside the factory. They do factory, and they have fun and RP.

This as a guideline to help people not tech savvy create is fine. This as they only way you can do a new tech is dumb. I like researching ships, trying to balance a ship to be perfect. So do others. This is what we find fun. And for those that don't, but still want to make something? Well, now they have a guideline. Standardization is useful for making everything... standard. And standard is never ever interesting. This is punishing those of us that want to create things. Don't bother trying to sugar coat it otherwise.

And I might be a minority, but its the minority that most enjoys using the factory. Which, I think, makes me part of the majority.

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

Also guys, another point I think y'all should think about.

I've been at SWRP for a while, not longer than everyone but longer than a lot of people. In that time I've seen the major factions turn out three generations of ships, where a generation means new SD's, frigates, corvettes, cruisers, heavy cruisers, interdictors, carriers, fighters, interceptors, bombers, etc. that usually takes 10 entries or more. On the other hand, I've seen two major fleeting threads, both event threads that were staff-run, not something the users themselves put together. From a staff perspective, how annoying do you think it is that, assuming Republic, OP, and Sith Empire are the only guys to make ships(Which they aren't), you'd have to approve 90 ships, at minumum for use in two threads?

 

[Tefka]

Your concern is noted, @[member="Akio Kahoshi"]. Thank you.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

@[member="Pandeima"] Let me ask you some questions then, and answer them for me.

• How many fleet battles have been on this board?
• How many times have gun ranges come up in fleet battles?
• Or number of guns?
• How many times have you had to fleet on this board?

There's a whole lot of arguing over documents that are rarely used. Truth about the factory is that most will only use what they create, and everyone wants to leave their stamp in there. This allows people to create, make their mark, and make fleet battles so easy to do and judging submissions easy. I shouldn't have to spend all day judging a submission, nor should any staffer. It's not a staff size issue, or a workload thing. It's simply the fact that the factory is a little secondary feature on the board that some people treat like the main event. This is SWRP, not SWFactory.

This is the main point which stands out.

At Roche and Dead Space I fleeted with the best and you know what? Whether I had 20 or 30 turbolasers did not matter one bit. Unless you implement a system where the number of cannons makes a speck of difference...why are you arguing? It makes utterly no difference whatsoever.

So this is our way of making the factory actually accessible to more than 5 people. While I indeed applaud people for their complex and lawyerish pushing of the boundaries of submissions...what does it matter? It still comes down to how YOU roleplay, not whether you have 18 or 20 fighters.

 

[Tefka]

This is punishing those of us that want to create things. Don't bother trying to sugar coat it otherwise.

Let's continue this line of thought. We want people to come to SWRP and stay, Akio.

Why would we punish you for creating stuff?

 

[Tefka]

But It's just my opinion as a whole this is taking away from the story. Cookie cuttering it TOO much. Going a little too far. There needs to be room for customization.

Please, @[member="Coryth Elaris"], would you mind pointing out exactly what is too "cookie cuttered" for you, and what parts of the ship cannot be customized that bother you? Be as specific as you can, as this will help us understand your plight with the new guide.

Also, if you would like to explain how this hinders the story, I would appreciate it.

 

[Tefka]

What has been mention before by MANY people is a new judge that ISN'T a RPJ. They have a different tag, and they have no authority AT ALL outside the factory.

A bigger Staff team is not the answer, our last generation made sure I understood that. I am looking at an answer along these lines, but it won't be an official Staff position as a Factory Judge.

 

[Akio Kahoshi]

Well from what all the staff (except Jacen) have said, because it takes up to much staff time. Because its to hard for staff to come to a consensus about how powerful a ship should be. So the only solution is to make it so that every submission is the same, so that there is no creativity in the work, so that staff can just look at the chart and go "yes" or "no" within a few seconds.

But, why bother having a factory then? With these guidelines staff would better serve their obvious goal of reducing their workload by creating a generic ship of each type and size and telling everyone "this is all you can use, forever" and then close the factory. If factions are creating to many ships, Jaxton's "three generations" thing, then deal with that issue. Do not punish new factions (and this is more pertinent to factions created after today than AE) by forcing them to be limited to this generic and uninteresting stuff when the older factions already have things that are interesting. Why go to the new faction when that old faction has all the cool toys? It also makes it hard for members to create that individual ship that is "theirs" when "theirs" just becomes everyone else's too.

The Factory is frankly part of what SWRP so fun and interesting. Yes, ships stats might not be super critical and yes there aren't many fleet battles, but I use AE's ships in AE threads and the threads change based off the capabilities of the ship. If my ship carries one legion versus two, I have fewer ground troops to work with. If I'm fighting a swarm of fighters (as we are at Csilla), I bring ships specialized for anti-fighter combat. If I want to load a ship with only heavy weapons so its better at anti-capital ship but gets mauled by fighters, well these new rules won't let me.

And if we need to discuss with an RPJ to get special things approved, then all the problem children will go right back to bargaining using these "special" considerations causing the problem of staff wanting to stop the "well why did he get that?" to get worse if anything. While cutting creativity for the normal people who don't want to try and get around the system to be cut off at the knees.