Suggestion Civilian Station Fielding Limits

[Alban Roble]

I've been thinking for a while about Civilian Stations, mainly along the lines of models that I hope to be able to produce. However, (and this is entirely my subjective opinion) I think that the production limits for Civilian Stations are very restricting. One would reason that to build a Star Destroyer, Battlecruiser, etc, that the shipyard to build so would have to be at least twice the size of the ship produced. Fact-checkers out there, vindicate me, or criticize me for that estimate. But at the board's current limits, any civilian station beyond 3 kilometers is required to be produced at a level of semi-unique, and that's bumped up again to full-on unique once a station passes 10 kilometers in diameter.

Now, I would like to outline why I think that, sure, one could argue that technically it's possible that stations large than ten kilometers would be hard or completely not feasible for a company or faction to produce. However, I would like to make several points. One, 'balancing' in the board is usually done in cases of PVP; this is why you can see examples in the Factory where the ratings of a mining laser might technically by unbalanced, but since the mining laser isn't going to be used (and can't be used) in a PVP setting, then it's passed on that. I've seen the same conventional thinking applied to how hyperdrive ratings on ships are generally unweighted, giving that in PVP they really wouldn't be relevant. So that's my first point -- in the current example of how balancing would be applied, large civilian stations would not be 'unbalanced' because they wouldn't contribute to PVP.

A second point that I think undermines the argument that large amounts of stations that big 'wouldn't be feasible' is the overall lack of production accountability and economy on the board. By production accountability, I'm talking about how many ships and stuff factions and companies are allowed to produce, which is effectively unlimited. There is no place where judges are required to ask whether a company or faction has enough access to resources, manpower, or technology. Technically, a company or faction could produce millions of 3 kilometer stations because the idea of Chaos isn't to be too overbearing or strict, at least from my impression. If a company or faction could by those rules produce millions of 3 kilometer stations, then they should be able to produce how many larger stations they would want to, too. A company or faction producing a million three-kilometer stations would consume roughly the same resources as it would take to produce 37,500 stations of 80 kilometers in size -- much more than the current 'unique' limit. Essentially my second argument is, by way of no real economy or limiting factors on the numbers of the ships produced, the argument that 'it would be logistically unfeasible to produce and maintain such a large station' doesn't really hold up. I want to highlight that I am arguing for civilian stations only, as military stations and ships are limited in production levels because of PVP balancing, of which I totally agree.

My third argument is that the limiting size of the civilian station would and does hamper the writing of those who would be interested in smuggling, trade, commerce, bounty hunting, industry, factory, economics, and almost every niche outside of PVP. It is already extremely time-consuming to make a space station, more so than in my opinion than any other technology or lore on the faction; this is due mainly to the fact that a space station requires both a factory submission and a codex submission, the latter to make it an actual location in the site's lore. Being able to make models that would not be unique in production would greatly reduce that amount of time spent, allowing for more time spent actually writing and as to not flood the Factory with almost copy/pastes of practically the same thing.

And now, let the discourse begin.

 

[Gir Quee]

Alban Roble , I guess I'll play devil's advocate.

I've been thinking for a while about Civilian Stations, mainly along the lines of models that I hope to be able to produce. However, (and this is entirely my subjective opinion) I think that the production limits for Civilian Stations are very restricting. One would reason that to build a Star Destroyer, Battlecruiser, etc, that the shipyard to build so would have to be at least twice the size of the ship produced. Fact-checkers out there, vindicate me, or criticize me for that estimate. But at the board's current limits, any civilian station beyond 3 kilometers is required to be produced at a level of semi-unique, and that's bumped up again to full-on unique once a station passes 10 kilometers in diameter.

Fact-checking here, station specifics are hard to come by, but the Telgorn shipyard and Type II Orbital Repair Yard suggest that this is not "at least twice the size" though it is vague. The Telgorn at ~1.6 kilometers can construct "star destroyers". There's a difference between a 900 meter Victory Star destroyer and larger ships, but again, it's not twice that ratio. The 1200 meter Type II is implied to have constructed the Imperial-class Star Destroyers used by the Yevetha, meaning that it has actually constructed ships larger than it. This also is nicely illustrated in the wookiee article, where the star destroyer is noticeably larger than the yard itself.

As another point to consider, what about multiple shipyards working together to make a larger ship? Either lined up across the length of the end vessel, or making separate pieces of the ship and then moving them to be assembled together.

Now, I would like to outline why I think that, sure, one could argue that technically it's possible that stations large than ten kilometers would be hard or completely not feasible for a company or faction to produce. However, I would like to make several points. One, 'balancing' in the board is usually done in cases of PVP; this is why you can see examples in the Factory where the ratings of a mining laser might technically by unbalanced, but since the mining laser isn't going to be used (and can't be used) in a PVP setting, then it's passed on that. I've seen the same conventional thinking applied to how hyperdrive ratings on ships are generally unweighted, giving that in PVP they really wouldn't be relevant. So that's my first point -- in the current example of how balancing would be applied, large civilian stations would not be 'unbalanced' because they wouldn't contribute to PVP.

Technically, canon companies controlled significantly larger shipyard stations than what's allowed on the board (the ringed shipyards at Kuat, for example). But the potential issue is that items not intended for PVP can be involved in PVP, whether the creator intends to or not. For example, if I see a shipyard that I want to attack (and maybe steal a ship), but it's going to be involved in PVP. The sheer size of such a station can become a defense against that attack, but there any number of features of a station that could turn it into a PVP asset (large numbers of onboard security forces, using it to shelter friendly capital ships, etc).

A second point that I think undermines the argument that large amounts of stations that big 'wouldn't be feasible' is the overall lack of production accountability and economy on the board. By production accountability, I'm talking about how many ships and stuff factions and companies are allowed to produce, which is effectively unlimited. There is no place where judges are required to ask whether a company or faction has enough access to resources, manpower, or technology. Technically, a company or faction could produce millions of 3 kilometer stations because the idea of Chaos isn't to be too overbearing or strict, at least from my impression. If a company or faction could by those rules produce millions of 3 kilometer stations, then they should be able to produce how many larger stations they would want to, too. A company or faction producing a million three-kilometer stations would consume roughly the same resources as it would take to produce 37,500 stations of 80 kilometers in size -- much more than the current 'unique' limit. Essentially my second argument is, by way of no real economy or limiting factors on the numbers of the ships produced, the argument that 'it would be logistically unfeasible to produce and maintain such a large station' doesn't really hold up. I want to highlight that I am arguing for civilian stations only, as military stations and ships are limited in production levels because of PVP balancing, of which I totally agree.

I have no particular opinion on this matter, but I think some further context might be helpful.

If you look in the factory rules, you will come across this: "Only a Major Faction has the resources necessary to role-play having a large fleet, army, etc.".

A large civilian station may fall under this, and thus could be subject to staff control.

While Chaos is pretty loose in exact limits these days (We used to regulate fleet lengths and capital ship/station possession numbers to the meter by corporate tier), there has long been an underlaying theme that significant, large assets require major factions.

The board has seen this come into being issue before, with people assembling corporate and minor faction fleets to take on major factions.

My third argument is that the limiting size of the civilian station would and does hamper the writing of those who would be interested in smuggling, trade, commerce, bounty hunting, industry, factory, economics, and almost every niche outside of PVP. It is already extremely time-consuming to make a space station, more so than in my opinion than any other technology or lore on the faction; this is due mainly to the fact that a space station requires both a factory submission and a codex submission, the latter to make it an actual location in the site's lore. Being able to make models that would not be unique in production would greatly reduce that amount of time spent, allowing for more time spent actually writing and as to not flood the Factory with almost copy/pastes of practically the same thing.

As a reminder, Factory and Codex are optional. It's entirely possible to simply start roleplaying on a generic or canon model shipyard on any planet. Staff typically aren't interested in this, unless you that station happens to be something like the Star Forge.

As a side note, I know that I'm not 100% up to date with the current factory happenings, but I can't ever say that during my time as a Factory Judge or other member of the Factory staff, that I've ever seen a flood of copy-and-paste shipyard subs.

 

[Alban Roble]

Fact-checking here, station specifics are hard to come by, but the Telgorn shipyard and Type II Orbital Repair Yard suggest that this is not "at least twice the size" though it is vague. The Telgorn at ~1.6 kilometers can construct "star destroyers". There's a difference between a 900 meter Victory Star destroyer and larger ships, but again, it's not twice that ratio. The 1200 meter Type II is implied to have constructed the Imperial-class Star Destroyers used by the Yevetha, meaning that it has actually constructed ships larger than it. This also is nicely illustrated in the wookiee article, where the star destroyer is noticeably larger than the yard itself.

As another point to consider, what about multiple shipyards working together to make a larger ship? Either lined up across the length of the end vessel, or making separate pieces of the ship and then moving them to be assembled together.

Yay! Someone did the fact-checking! I was basing my estimate off of the Fondor Shipyards, which I gauged to be about twice the size of a Star Destroyer, but I assume that there hasn't been any real canon or legends establishment of ship-to-station ration. And you do make a good point about using multiple shipyards -- I would leave that really to the preference of how someone wants to write corporately.

Technically, canon companies controlled significantly larger shipyard stations than what's allowed on the board (the ringed shipyards at Kuat, for example). But the potential issue is that items not intended for PVP can be involved in PVP, whether the creator intends to or not. For example, if I see a shipyard that I want to attack (and maybe steal a ship), but it's going to be involved in PVP. The sheer size of such a station can become a defense against that attack, but there any number of features of a station that could turn it into a PVP asset (large numbers of onboard security forces, using it to shelter friendly capital ships, etc).

I think to counter this possibility, although I believe it is a slim one there are two possible solutions -- A) the implementation of the 'you abuse it, you lose it' doctrine into this. If you try to hop a loophole with a massive shipyard, then the submission gets retroactively denied.

I have no particular opinion on this matter, but I think some further context might be helpful.

If you look in the factory rules, you will come across this: "Only a Major Faction has the resources necessary to role-play having a large fleet, army, etc.".

A large civilian station may fall under this, and thus could be subject to staff control.

While Chaos is pretty loose in exact limits these days (We used to regulate fleet lengths and capital ship/station possession numbers to the meter by corporate tier), there has long been an underlaying theme that significant, large assets require major factions.

The board has seen this come into being issue before, with people assembling corporate and minor faction fleets to take on major factions.

I'm aware of this rule and was why I suggested that the production level be applied only to civilian stations -- not to military ships, not to military stations, and not to civilian ships. I agree that it would be a problem for a minor faction to come out with a fleet of dreadnaughts or for a corporation to do the same. But my suggestion is only for civilian stations -- stations that are not allowed to host any offensive armaments, and as I suggested above, could be retroactively denied if abused via loophole.

As a reminder, Factory and Codex are optional. It's entirely possible to simply start roleplaying on a generic or canon model shipyard on any planet. Staff typically aren't interested in this, unless you that station happens to be something like the Star Forge.

As a side note, I know that I'm not 100% up to date with the current factory happenings, but I can't ever say that during my time as a Factory Judge or other member of the Factory staff, that I've ever seen a flood of copy-and-paste shipyard subs.

I think the specific issue here, although you are correct that canon stuff is allowed, is that sticking to only canon stations means that A) Writer companies cannot hold any of these assets, limiting somewhat their growth and B) Non-canon planets cannot also have these sorts of locations. I would like to point out that I'm not arguing for a size extension -- I'm perfectly fine with a cap at 80km. I just think that it should be allowed to be produced at a higher level.

 

[Gir Quee]

I think the specific issue here, although you are correct that canon stuff is allowed, is that sticking to only canon stations means that A) Writer companies cannot hold any of these assets, limiting somewhat their growth and B) Non-canon planets cannot also have these sorts of locations. I would like to point out that I'm not arguing for a size extension -- I'm perfectly fine with a cap at 80km. I just think that it should be allowed to be produced at a higher level.

You don't necessarily have to stick to canon stations or tech to use/own it. One of my companies (Lucerne Labs) has a set of orbital shipyards that I've never submitted to the Factory or Codex. They still exist in universe, naturally, and there's vague (if consistent) descriptions about what they look like from the inside and outside.

Similarly, you don't necessarily have to define the shipyards of non-canon planets either. They can just simply exist when you roleplay.

But I can understand the appeal of wanting to submit something to the Factory or Codex for reference, especially to other writers. The thing about that though is that it's not necessarily a barrier to other writers just wanting to stop by and use a facility (getting ship upgrades, repairs, etc), but it's rather a barrier to company who wants to explicitly describe having large amounts of production capacity at different locations.

 

[Lily Kuhn]

Devil's advocate to the devil's advocate:

If it's a civilian station, does it really matter? Restrictions in the factory and codex are primarily in place, when not arbitrary, as a means to mitigate overly powerful submissions in role-play. A civilian ship or station should, inherently, be entirely underwhelming and lack any combative or competitive edge. Taking these two things into consideration, shouldn't we be more relaxed on civilian stations, and starships in general?

 

[Tristan Evore]

Alban Roble

Not exactly. Yes, I agree it is kind of wierd but if you think about it, it makes sense. A civilan 10km Space Station would be easier to produce than a 5km Military Station. Why? Because a Military Station would need weapons, defensive weapons, shield (both), armor, specilized systems etc. A civilan station would only need half of that thus the company can easily finace them (Of course depending on the Companies Size)

However, using droid labor, it would be faster and quicker and cheaper. Quite feasible. of course it would still not make sense but wait...as I reread I saw you said it needs both a codex and factory submission. Nah, fam. The Codex sub to my knowledge is just to detail where it is and what it does. A lot of people make either or.

I mean, it's up to you how you want to make it. Be it a Codex or a Factory Sub.

 

[Alban Roble]

Not exactly. Yes, I agree it is kind of wierd but if you think about it, it makes sense. A civilan 10km Space Station would be easier to produce than a 5km Military Station. Why? Because a Military Station would need weapons, defensive weapons, shield (both), armor, specilized systems etc. A civilan station would only need half of that thus the company can easily finace them (Of course depending on the Companies Size)

Not sure what exactly you're trying to argue here - unless you're with agreeing me, in which sense that's great that we're on the same page.

but wait...as I reread I saw you said it needs both a codex and factory submission. Nah, fam. The Codex sub to my knowledge is just to detail where it is and what it does. A lot of people make either or.

I mean, it's up to you how you want to make it. Be it a Codex or a Factory Sub.

Codex rules to submit a station as a location require that it either be a canon model or use a model submitted to the Factory. You could make a model of station and not make a codex submission, but technically it's not codified in Chaos lore unless you make that location submission too.

 

[Alban Roble]

But I can understand the appeal of wanting to submit something to the Factory or Codex for reference, especially to other writers. The thing about that though is that it's not necessarily a barrier to other writers just wanting to stop by and use a facility (getting ship upgrades, repairs, etc), but it's rather a barrier to company who wants to explicitly describe having large amounts of production capacity at different locations.

I should've included that in my original post, as that is one the main reason that I want the production restrictions to be removed or altered -- I came across it in the process of trying to build shipyards/production facilities for several of my characters.

But another thing I would like to add is the canon examples, of which you hinted to. If in canon corporations/worlds are able to build orbital ringyards, then it shouldn't be that much of an effort to build a shipyard or orbital factory that's 80km in diameter. Not enough to warrant a unique rating, at least.

 

[Gir Quee]

Devil's advocate to the devil's advocate:

If it's a civilian station, does it really matter? Restrictions in the factory and codex are primarily in place, when not arbitrary, as a means to mitigate overly powerful submissions in role-play. A civilian ship or station should, inherently, be entirely underwhelming and lack any combative or competitive edge. Taking these two things into consideration, shouldn't we be more relaxed on civilian stations, and starships in general?

We both spent a good amount of time in the Factory. While most people are fairly reasonable and go with the spirit of intent of the rules, there's usually seems to be a subsection of the crowd that tries to exploit things. I've mentioned up two possibilities of how to exploit civilian stations already for military purposes (giving them large numbers of internal security personnel, which can then by deployed elsewhere; using them to shield military assets - something particularly easy to do when most civilian stations these days have the "extreme" defense rating). I can think of at least another half dozen ways to turn a 'civilian shipyard' into something of tactical, military value.

And I know that this idea has been discussed among writers in the past looking for ways to gain advantages in invasion (probably the 2nd year I was on the board).

I think it comes down to a dichotomy of philosophy between giving individual creators vast leeway in freedoms to create things, and keeping things structured in order to ensure a better overall community experience. Granted, I think that we will find most people's viewpoints falling somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, but that also means that at some point, most people have a limit of some sort in what they find to be acceptable.

I'll point out that the community had a pretty similar discussion before several years ago that greatly expanded civilian station size to 80 km, and it was far more passionate in terms of community input. I don't see that outflow of posts right now, which I would take to mean that the community is fairly satisfied with the way things are now.

I should've included that in my original post, as that is one the main reason that I want the production restrictions to be removed or altered -- I came across it in the process of trying to build shipyards/production facilities for several of my characters.

But another thing I would like to add is the canon examples, of which you hinted to. If in canon corporations/worlds are able to build orbital ringyards, then it shouldn't be that much of an effort to build a shipyard or orbital factory that's 80km in diameter. Not enough to warrant a unique rating, at least.

They're more of the exception to the rule than the norm, but I think it's also fair to point out that you could technically make those ring stations right now (or something close to it) by simply making a bunch of smaller, mass produced shipyard stations (like 2km long each) and then placing next to each other, possibly connecting them with cables or tractor beam projectors.

This is fully my personal opinion, but we very rarely see stations that are around 80 km in size in canon because of their sheer mass. Off the top of my head, I can think of only four: the two Death Stars (maybe the three if you include the prototype Death Star). the Star Forge, and Hosk Station. Some sources say that two death star frames were used to make orbital habitats around Coruscant. Seven stations in the galaxy that size over the years is really pretty rare when you think about all of the other structures and starships in space.

 

[Lily Kuhn]

Gir Quee Yes, and working together in the factory also showed us that ultimately staff has the ability to step in when someone reports something and correct its misuse. The biggest lesson we, collectively, drilled into factory judge's heads was that their job - and the factory's purpose - was not to police role-play, it is there to make sure that submissions are, on their own, aligned with the factory admin's idea of balance.

If someone wants to misuse or abuse a submission they will do it, it doesn't matter if the civilian sub has to be 800 meters long, they'll just use 10 of them to get their 8 kilometers of stations they need to get what they want. The factory can't prevent that.

The only thing that will curb abuse is self-policing by the community and proper responses by role-play judges when a post or submission is reported. That is the entire purpose of the report system, and it is exactly why precedence does not exist in the factory so that factory judges do not use past use in role-play and previous submissions in general as their basis for approval or denial.

I still side firmly with loosening restrictions on submissions that have zero use in competitive RP. We have a zero tolerance ban rule in the factory and codex for any attempt to exploit loopholes in the factory, and I am sure you recall that both of us have taken action to enforce that rule in the past when we were in the positions to do so. Put some trust in our site staff to be able to do their jobs correctly, and in the members of our community to report instances of abuse.

Regarding why people aren't posting here, that's because it was brought up before by key members of the community who were advertising the conversation in faction discords, something that isn't currently being done.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

I've love for a relaxing of restrictions on civilian stations.

 

[Gir Quee]

Lily Kuhn , I agree with something like 20-40% of what you said, but I think that's because I've had some other experiences that you have not had (and that's not necessarily a bad thing). I've been involved in Star Wars RP sites for almost 20 years now (I started before I was in high school), and while I think are a lot of positives in a free-form system, it is not without is problems, just like any other system. The last site I RPed at extensively before Chaos(The Rebel Faction) was entirely free-form (no templates, no approval process). This presented some issues of its own in where a minority of writers caused issues for the rest of the community. As an example from that site, consider this example with these technologies:

1) A powerful, faction wide communication network that allows the vast majority of citizens and organizations to almost instantly communicate (That's civilian infrastructure tech, right?)

2) The ability of using large numbers of nanites to create droid bodies almost instantaneously (That's civilian construction tech, right?)

A large subfaction of this faction "ascended" into a higher plane of being and essentially became AIs (there's canon precedence for that with Ssi-Ruuvi entechment tech). Their "soul" could then be transmitted across the communications web to the nanite assembly areas, where they immediately took new droid bodies. Essentially, they could teleport at will between any of their planets or ships.

This has obvious problems in times of conflict (Who wouldn't want to be able to instantaneously summon reinforcements that can essentially appear out of thin air?).

If this faction kept to themselves, it might not have been a problem (Live and let live, right?). But eventually, it got involved in a war (big surprise, I know) where a bunch of writers facing it were not thrilled to be facing this along with a whole bunch of semi-related nanotech based technology. At that point though, this tech was a fundamental part of the faction. Could it simply be denied then, and thus undue most of the faction's internal history/threads?

It's a messy situation with no clear-cut solution (The majority of the community simply suffered with it and went along, much to many people's great displeasure). Some members of that community at the Rebel Faction are active here (Reshmar, Zark, Kamon, and myself). You can ask any of us about the Black Dragon Empire and hear about some pretty out there tech that they used.

I think the solution to similar quandaries is that staff has a limited proactive role in helping to set expectations of what is and isn't acceptable. Other obvious examples of this in the board's rule set is the banned materials list or ensuring subs conform to the idea of Star Wars. While I think it's great that we largely have a lot of freedom in making submissions, I think that example I provided is also why staff also needs to consider and explore the possible secondary and tertiary effects in setting expectations.

Some things are easier to fix earlier rather than later on.

I won't be expanding on this any more simply because I think our discussion on philosophy is likely to take us further and further away from the thread's original topic: civilian space stations.

Alban Roble , I want to be clear that as a member of the community, I'm not whole-heartedly against this idea. But I think that your initial rationales for it are weak. There's nothing wrong simply wanting to have the ability to have more large, space stations. The Factory in general has been on a liberalization trend for several years now. The staff generally (and rightfully) wants to make the Chaos experience more enjoyable for everyone, and if your way of enjoying is having large space stations, that's great.

Consequently, I think that might you have a better chance of getting this accomplished not by providing reasons for why it should exist, but by thinking of ways to ensure that it doesn't become a future problem for other people. I understand that you think that civilian tech shouldn't be an issue in PVP situations, but it can be (see the example I was just talking about with Lily). If you can work this out to minimize these potential problems, and also show a large interest from the community in affecting this change, you have a better chance of getting this change.

 

[Lily Kuhn]

All of that anecdote is countered by a zero tolerance ban for exploiting rules in the factory or intentionally misleading judges - and is why we have an intent field in the submission.

Edit: And for absolute clarity, I am not saying deny the submissions involved the moment they are used in such a way in RP, the way it would be handled is the RPJ would tell the writer to change their posts so they are not abusing technology in a way that the submission was not stated as being intended to be used. If the submission's intent was clearly meant to be used in such a way, the submission would be pulled and re-evaluated while the posts in question would receive a request to edit once changes to the submission has been made.

Scenarios with the same timeline of events as you've stated have played out here, on Chaos, and have been handled by many current and former members of staff - including myself- in a way that worked best for all parties involved. People got to keep their tech, they didn't (always) get temporary bans from the factory, and the offending posts were changed so they weren't exploiting a bunch of implied uses that were never clearly stated as part of the intent of the submission.

Chaos staff is also reactionary, it is not proactive, the site has always had a firm stance against taking proactive measures.