[OOC] Proposal War System v.5 - Discussion

Vayinaod

Hey guys! It's been quite awhile since the last war system update, about 5 or so years now I think, and that one was not rather functionally different from v.3. I have quite a few ideas for a new system, and @Duxburian-Union asked me to make a thread to showcase them for record keeping and to get public discussion going. I want to stress that the goal of my changes is to streamline the system as a whole, make military sizes more feasible. Total realism is not the goal, and unfairly nerfing specific sized nations is also not the goal.

The basic war system concept that has existed for years remains, purchasing units through industrial credits, the key difference here is that there will be a new equation.

[{(Euro GDP/275,000,000)x3}+250] x Econ Multiplier x Defense Multiplier = Total Industrial Credits

The key difference here is that the reliance on nation-states population is directly removed from the system. The system would not rely on the size of a nations Euro GDP. I'm inclined to support the idea that a the larger the economy, the bigger and more advanced the military could be rather than population.

The current Econ and Defense Multipliers fit perfectly fine enough, if people would like to see this included in any update I would prefer to focus on how the GDP is divided in beta testing potentially as well as how many "starting" credits. Beginning with 250 credits is placeholder from the previous system, but I am curious to see if people are interested in changing it at all.

The way that this new equation is designed necessitates total changes to the pricing and sizes of purchasable units. The major things I'd like to highlight are that aircraft are not longer purchased in groups of thirty, and are instead single set purchases, except with helicopters which are purchased in groups of five. Also, various ground units are now different personnel sizes instead of the previous uniform 5,000. Upkeep is no longer uniform across all units and varies considerably depending on the unit. Naval units also received price changes.

To account for real world maintenance requirements and logistic support, new 'Support' units have been introduced in order to maintain a properly equipment and readied armed force. These support units are automatically purchased on the automatic sheet.

The total personnel size of your military under proposal would be .75% of your total population in peace, and up to 5% in a total war economy. This no longer just applies to ground forces but applies to every branch.

The reserve system has been removed for the time being; the system was not used previously by most people, and since there are varying definitions of reserves from inactive reserves seen in mainly conscription nations to active reserves which resembles the US model closely. Either there is two layers of reserves introduced, which I believe adds complexity or they removed as 'functional' parts of the system and simply remain as an aesthetic RP item for the time being. I'm open to hear ideas on the subject.

The last final major change is the Producer system. To start with, there will be tiered producers, right now the system treats the United States and Sweden as equals in terms of cost to obtain, so there will be four main tiers of listed producers with new inclusions. Producer eligibility would be determined by the amount of Arms Manufacturing a nation has on NS.

I would like to also introduce Local Variants, so if Producer A has a product from Producer but it is built for example on license or illegally in Producer A it counts as a new independent product from Producer A. The prime example for this is the F-15J, while the stock F-15 was designed in the US, the F-15J has components designed in and then mostly built in Japan thus making it a product of the Japanese producer slot. This allows for less competing production items especially among European producers eyes the Eurofighter .

I would like to also make it so that companies who produced these items are associated with their RP producer as well, so Boeing would be based in the Duxburian Union for example. However, I do not think this has to be applied but I think it would definitely be a good rule of thumb.

I think I've gone over the vast majority of my changes, I wished to avoid completely doing word vomit with number specific changes here...I have a nifty google docs file located here! That file contains all my changes to the system, as well as descriptions for a variety of new units.

@Duxburian-Union and I both discussed adding changes to unit descriptions and other aesthetic changes to make it easier to digest but I don't think those changes are rather pressing and would probably be a small aesthetic update if anything.

What I would appreciate now is thoughts, comments, people filling out my proposed automatic sheets so I can see if any balance and stuff would be needed. or hey maybe no one wants to change it, but I thought I could at least present my mostly finalized ideas over to all.

TL:DR
War system needs an major update, I have quite a few ideas to put in place. You can read them here;
War System v.5.
If you can please fill this out and send it to me! If something was not mentioned but appears to be changed let me know I probably forgot to include it or accidentally deleted it. Unless otherwise noted all things are unchanged.
War Sheet v.5. Beta

Inquista

Wow, thank you for putting in this work! The war system is a behemoth and I deeply appreciate anyone who is willing to put the work into bettering it.

I'll take a look at the beta war sheet and plug my data in to see how things go.

In the mean time, I have this to say...

One long-standing gripe I've had with the war system is the producer system. I feel like the producer system has never worked as it was intended. Consequently, I feel like everyone has totally ignored the whole system altogether (guilty of that myself) and arms trading between countries is literally non-existent. I feel like the system also needs to be changed, but mostly just simplified.

I like the Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta classifications. What I'm thinking is that we simplify the system and only attach a very generalized correlation to each of these manufacturer classifications (i.e. being an Alpha producer means you can make military technology generally comparable to US, China, Russia military tech; if you're a Bravo producer you can make military tech generally comparable to France, UK, India, Japan/South Korea, e&.). Each of these classifications are assigned their respective arms manufacturing requirements, and under whichever category your country falls, you're automatically an arms producer of that type. So in theory there could be as many producers per classification as there are relevant countries which fall under that type.

I suggest this for three reasons. One: most countries (and role players) want to produce their own weapons anyway regardless of how good or bad the quality of weapons are, and we should let them if they meet at least the basic Delta-level requirement . Two: Having a fixed amount of producer spots means there's a potential waiting list (that doesn't seem to be a problem now, but it was for a long time) or you have to settle for a producer spot for which you over-qualify (Angleter falls into that category, and in theory, Inquista could also be an Alpha producer too; the only reason Inquista isn't a producer at all is because the list was pretty much full when we re-hauled the last war system and I didn't bother ever joining it later because all the free spots that opened up were pretty low-grade countries). Lastly: this allows for more roleplay room to truly tailor arms manufacturing to your own country rather than blankly copy/pasting real-life countries' weapons (of course, you could still do that as you wished).

If we did this, I would also suggest that we added the producer system to the official war list spreadsheets. I.e. you enter in your own arms manufacturing score and it will spit out your arms producing classification. If you country isn't able to meet the requirement to at least be a Delta-level arms producer, then, to be honest, it should be realistic - you need to buy those weapons and make an arms deal with a country in order to then bring your military to life. The primary reason we have no arm deals is because there is no punishment for having a totally non-existent arm manufacturing sector in the first place, a country could on one hand produce literally zero weapons and yet still conjure up a fleet of 115,000 fighter jets on their war list.

This is just one idea I have about fixing the producer system. I'm open to other recommendations and I'm generally just very interested in what others have to say about it.

Vayinaod

I have similar gripes regarding the producer system, and was tempted at some point to just scrape it all altogether as I view it as more an aesthetic part of the war system rather than functional which makes it frustrating since it has potentially functional ramifications.

Something I personally wanted to see clarified is not that different tiered producers mean higher quality products but more along the lines of diverse products. The United States has the one of the most, if not the most, diverse military in the world. It has things from ballistic missile submarines, all the way over to nimble small fighters such as the F-16.

An idea I toyed with, with some remnants of it remaining buried in my notes on the producer system, is that assuming you have the arms manufacturing you can produce anything still. For example, while Inquista is not a producer, if it had the arms manufacturing level to be an Alpha producing nation it surely should be able to make its own 5th generation stealth fighters. However if it did not hold a producer slot, or purchase lets say the F-22 from the Duxburian Union it just can not make a F-22 copy.

One of the main reasons I support the producer system is for the most part people will just copy wholesale from real life. Let that be the MIG-29 or the F-15. Saying in the roleplay universe these RL-associated items such as companies or people (that is not the best example given the time we had David Camerons but w/e) belong to certain people we avoid OOC disputes about things.

I am all for nations coming up with their own equipment, however, I think that having base line producer nations is still a vital role to ensure that no long term disputes come up.

Taking your statement and ideas into account, what we could do is add in that classification tool to the spreadsheet as you suggested. If someone reaches lets say Bravo Tier, they are able to produce units and equipment equivalent to other producers in that tier even if all the RL-Counterparts are taken. They couldn't use the actual product itself, so for example if Inquista was bravo tier it could not make another Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier, but it would make a Juan Bernardo Fernández-Velásquez class aircraft carrier that has similar specs and /quality/.

That would help I think to one simplify the Custom Units/Classes/Whatever and the producer system altogether.

Appreciate your comments @Inquista just send me the sheet whenever you get a chance too o/

EDIT::
I should note that I want to encourage people not to rip off RL names of at least military equipment as much. For example, the Duxburian Union probably sells the F-16 in RP but it should not really be called the F-16 or anything. Just a bonus thought of mine.

Inquista

Hmm, I see what you mean. What you're saying is probably the best course of action.

Part of the reason why I made the suggestion that I made is because, as you pointed out, you can still produce weapons anyway if you have a certain producer threshold. Due to that fact alone, the actual difference between what it means to have a producer spot and what it means not to have a producer spot still seems mostly semantic as long as you have an actual arms manufacturing sector. Even without a producer spot, I could also sell weapons too. I guess the only real benefit, as you say, is that you get to copy/paste RL versions of things wholesale and other people can't copy exact replicas of your weapons, vehicles, etc. Yet, still, I could loosely base things off real life and then also loosely base my things off weapons made by actual producer nations.

It's definitely very much limited to the aesthetic side of things as you explained. I guess that's fine, but that's also why I suggested a more simplified and streamlined system. But I getchu fam.

Tbh I deffo trust you more on this since you have actual experience in this type of field while my only knowledge on the matter stems from getting triple collaterals while pwning noobs.

I'll get around to the spreadsheet soon, I promise. Also, please try to contain the fear you might have of the Juan-Bernardo Fernández-Velásquez class aircraft carrier which is set to be produced starting later in 2020.

Vayinaod

First off, I know for a fact the Duxburian Union is already scared of that WMD.

Secondly, yeah that's kinda the crap thing about the producer system it's pretty aethestic but has functional ramifications...I guess that makes the most /roleplay/ orientated part of the war system. I'm open to other ideas and, I do not think this is the best system but I think it would be a good starting point. I might advocate changing the requirements for producer capabilities to account for potentially anyone being able to producer weapons. I don't think we should be scared to try things out and change it if it ain't working. #WarSystemUpdate2030

As with the sheets no rush and that is for everyone. My personal goal is hopefully to get some sort of long term discussion on the war system. I know some people feel we should not even be talking about it because of forum issues. But I feel as a community we can multitask, especially when the ability to fix the forums is the power of a small group of people.

Here are some example war sheets, and I would be more than willing to help anyone out design a military to fit their needs since my proposals make designing a military slightly more strategic.

EXAMPLES:
Vayinaod
Icholasen (Ew)

Vayinaod

How would people feel about increasing producer requirements for the Delta tier to 7,500 and the Charlie tier to 12,500? This is to support the concept of everyone being capable of producing units if they meet certain requirements.

I'm also looking into creating application forms for custom units and stuff for space. I do not think every nation is for example capable of setting up an ISS style project on its own, but I do not think putting in a whole new system for just space is necessary at this time. The Custom Units stuff is mainly for projects that haven't yet been done on a production scale in real life; since Drone Carriers or Airborne Carriers, but are practically feasibly/plausible.

Just some continuing ideas of mine I wanted to jot down before forgetting.

Vayinaod

Some specific notes I want to put out real quick that I've noticed at least for myself for the war sheets and notes people have personally sent to me thus far:

Air Maintenance Units: Their manpower looks to be a little too low at 2500; with the limited pool of sheets to play around with I think 3250 might be a good place. Another way in addition and I think to help simplify the system as well is to make the base total for AMUs is to support every 20 aircraft instead of every 23.

Shore Support units for the navy have similar issue as above, though increasing these to 1750 may be all that's necessary if needed.

Ground Forces: Overall I've noticed ground forces continue to dominate in overall size more so than I'm comfortable with personally, making Mechanized and Motorized Infantry 4000 manpower alleviates it pretty good, though I'm not too sure yet if that is a necessary change.

Right now to verify the changes I'm looking at right now data from the following would be appreciated.
These represent major powers that I need to balance one end of the spectrum right now;

Inquista
Duxburian Union
Angleter

Followed by more small/medium sized countries such as:

Spain
Reitzmag
Ireland
Malborya

I should stress this is not a homework assignment, and its only a request if you happen to have some free time or something. I've already found technical issues with the war sheet I posted that are now fixed thanks to the people who have submitted sheets to thank you to those so far who participated.

Final note is that I am still working on a more cohesive presentation on the producer system, but for the most part the thoughts previously outlined in the thread with my conversation with Inquista is where it is definitely headed. But again this entire thing is just a suggestion to the community, and if not comes from it but conversation that is still more than okay with me!

Kingdom of Reitzmag

I agree to the idea of having requirements for custom space vehicles, this would support the European Space Exploration Act of 2020. Though, I have some issues when I tested the proposed automatic war sheet. My IC became much limited unlike the previous ones.
I suggest that the war system be updated for more opportunities in establishing a strong national force that would be able to protect a nation from foreign invasion. Also, addition of new producer slots with names of RL countries could have issues. For example, I have already claimed RL companies from Japan and Brazil, and making these RL nations as producer slots will strip me off of my control over my claims that I declared even before these updates could exist. The only way that no conflict between my claims (maybe other countries would also have) and the proposed war system v.5 is to either not make producer slots of these names or give me control over the producer slots I claimed already (which I believe no one is in favor of).

The United Kingdom

@Reitzmag said in [OOC] Proposal War System v.5 - Discussion:

I agree to the idea of having requirements for custom space vehicles, this would support the European Space Exploration Act of 2020. Though, I have some issues when I tested the proposed automatic war sheet. My IC became much limited unlike the previous ones.
I suggest that the war system be updated for more opportunities in establishing a strong national force that would be able to protect a nation from foreign invasion. Also, addition of new producer slots with names of RL countries could have issues. For example, I have already claimed RL companies from Japan and Brazil, and making these RL nations as producer slots will strip me off of my control over my claims that I declared even before these updates could exist. The only way that no conflict between my claims (maybe other countries would also have) and the proposed war system v.5 is to either not make producer slots of these names or give me control over the producer slots I claimed already (which I believe no one is in favor of).

The thing is, this entire RP is based on rules. You can't just claim things because you want it. Your complaint about not being able to claim things is moot. I have personally said several times you can have a force but they just can't make specifically the products of the producer nations.

You claiming things doesn't matter if it's not officially made through the systems we have. Your false choice between either just giving you producer slots or having no producer slots is something I strongly disagree with. There is a third option, which is you just follow the rules as they are written like how you are supposed to accept our rules when you begin role playing with us.

Kingdom of Reitzmag

@Ireland Addition of Japan/Korea and Brazil as producer slots would really conflict against my initial declaration. The claim was publicized in a news article last March 3 2020 GMT+8. I understand the rules but this significant portion of this war system update proposal would definitely be against something that already existed before this would be applied.

The United Kingdom

@Reitzmag said in [OOC] Proposal War System v.5 - Discussion:

@Ireland Addition of Japan/Korea and Brazil as producer slots would really conflict against my initial declaration. The claim was publicized in a news article last March 3 2020 GMT+8. I understand the rules but this significant portion of this war system update proposal would definitely be against something that already existed before this would be applied.

You have to understand that these rules are in place for EVERYONE involved. Take the Duxburian Union or Angleter...if they behaved the way you are, there would be nothing stopping them from turning the sky black with the amount of airplanes they could amass or the amount of nukes they could stockpile and use against a nation like mine or yours.

You have to be willing to compromise what your vision for your nation is and the realities that is a RP where there are rules of the road that everyone must follow.

Kingdom of Reitzmag

@Ireland it's only these parts of the proposed war systems v.5 update would have issues against me. I have agreed to some other parts nonetheless.

Kingdom of Reitzmag

@Ireland By the way, thanks for helping me out so far on these RP things. I'd like to learn more if you please...

Vayinaod

@Reitzmag said in [OOC] Proposal War System v.5 - Discussion:

My IC became much limited unlike the previous ones.

Covering this point, the entire war system equation was redone to avoid constant re-balances with pop growth changes. I'm more inclined to believe and support the notion that /typically/ a nation's military might and quality is based on its economy's size and quality rather than the size of its population. Obviously extreme examples exist with countries like North Korea, but those are outside the norm and should be disregarded for the sack of balance.

Without this context it looks like your IC's get unfairly hit but really everyone is going to take what /looks/ to be a massive hit but the changes to pricing and upkeep help to reflect this. Please send me your sheet so I can take a proper look to see if its fair or not that's the whole point of me gathering data. I need proof that its too low.

@Reitzmag said in [OOC] Proposal War System v.5 - Discussion:

I suggest that the war system be updated for more opportunities in establishing a strong national force that would be able to protect a nation from foreign invasion.

What exactly would that entail? Not every nation has a strong national force, nor should they. They should have a military reflective of their true size. Growing your economy and defense spending through NS can result in a bigger military. I should note that what you're asking for just cause an endless circles of updates since if I work out a way to let armed forces be bigger than impacts everyone. Not just small nations. So even if you grow 5%, the Duxburian Union is likely to grow by 15% by the virtue of his stats. As Ireland mentioned, some air forces can already literally BLOT OUT THE SUN, and have bigger air forces than the entire world already possesses in real life.

Really foreign invasion is such a terrible reason to redesign the war system to what is specifically meant to not do. If you get invaded for a wrong reason or illegally people will help you, now if you brought it on yourself its more open to what's it called. Interesting RP. If you can provide specific ideas or improvements I would be glad to hear them out but I make no promises on my or others support for them.

@Reitzmag said in [OOC] Proposal War System v.5 - Discussion:

Also, addition of new producer slots with names of RL countries could have issues. For example, I have already claimed RL companies from Japan and Brazil, and making these RL nations as producer slots will strip me off of my control over my claims that I declared even before these updates could exist. The only way that no conflict between my claims (maybe other countries would also have) and the proposed war system v.5 is to either not make producer slots of these names or give me control over the producer slots I claimed already (which I believe no one is in favor of).

I noticed this the other day and this is my personal stance:

Claims in the war system are never permanent due to a revolving door of joining and leaving EU members. The current system even says if you are not able to support being a producer nation you will lose your slot. That said, I believe there is not some binary solution. My belief is that even though you are well below my proposed standards, you can be grandfathered in as the Brazil producer and receive the same one year grace period as the others. If that occurs you will not receive the Japan/SK companies. My other option is that you do not receive the Brazil producer slot, but you retain a certain level of guarantee from whoever does take those producer slots to receive some level of support and production of their products. Either one of these I believe is fair to you, future producers taking those slots. I honestly prefer the former for yourself, but the latter as a person making the system so that can be used to cover other people.

I want to make it clear I will not support trapping a producer nation into nothing. Their companies/products are theirs and that should be final.

That is only my personal stance, the admin team and the current war system Admin might have a different solution from mine they wish to propose and I leave that to them but that is how I envision fixing the issue.

Kingdom of Reitzmag

@Vayinaod Please never mind the IC things, in fact, my IC actually was larger in this new one. I input the wrong info in one of the cells.

Kingdom of Reitzmag

I suggest these for the updates regarding the unit strength/amount for the air fleet:
Fighter, Superiority - 30
Fighter, Multirole - 20
Fighter, Strike -10
Attack - 10
Helicopter, Transport -10
Helicopter, Multi-use - 5
Helicopter, Attack - 5
AWACS/EW/RECON - 1
Tanker - 1
Drone, Attack * - 2
Drone, Recon * - 2
Transport -5
Bomber - 3
Bomber, Heavy - 2
Strategic bomber* - 1
Maintenance/Logistic Unit - 2,500

Vayinaod

Unfortunately, the entire system is designed around single purchases for aircraft. Helicopters are different since they are generally cheaper, this could be expanded to drones however. I've seen no issue so far with aircraft numbers in the war sheets I've received so far. Those nations are reflective of a real life nation of a similar size/scale. One of the main issues for years in the war system is air force size.

Aircraft are really really really expensive to even consider purchase in real life. Really we should switch to a system of buying tanks in single purchases, but I do not believe that is necessary at the moment. Back to the matter at hand, I get what you are trying to do, preserve your air force size. Right now most of the major powers in the European Union have air forces having tens of thousands of planes. The US Military itself only has like 13,000 and that is across all branches and including helicopters. China and Russia do not even come close, they have like 3,000ish a piece. Most of this I attribute to Fighters / Fighter-Bombers being so cheap to buy.

For the sack of balance and realism, aircraft outside of helicopters and potentially drones should remain single-use purchases in any war system update.

QUICK EDIT: I should note for everyone, smaller air forces benefit everyone. You're about to do more practical thinking about how to use your aircraft without just throwing dozens of entire squadrons at your enemy.

Vayinaod

After a rather thought provoking discussion with @Gallorum , I was inspired to adjust the producer tiers to introduce Omega Tier that would house the US and Russia. There was also other movements of the producers to accommodate the newly adjusted tiers. Alpha Tier was adjusted to a price tag of 17,500 Arms Manufacturing. I believe a one year grandfather period for all current producers not meeting their requirements is more than fair.

I thought about adjusting defense multipliers but for the moment those are fine pending possible a future update (I think the overall effect would honestly be negligible for most people in terms of the total amount of ICs they own).

I also finalized all my thoughts on the producer system, and reached a rather pretty end result for the War Sheet. You can view these and example war sheets covering multiple nations here:

I honestly think its ready to be put to a vote from everyone and there has been more than enough time I think for people to put forward their thoughts. I would like to hear more if people have qualms, but I believe we should vote on it.

War System v5 Changes
War Sheet v5
Nation Tests

Kingdom of Reitzmag

My question is what would happen to the old units when this is implemented. If I had 450 planes on the old one, and 94 on the new one...

Vayinaod

Only units accounted for on the new system would exist, whether the admins want to consider this a sort of retcon or something is on them. But for war system purposes only things accounted for/supported would be allowed for gameplay purposes.