Lately it's been noted that TRF has some new members. Not just that, but the galaxy's bumpy detour into large-scale war has underlined that TRF has become a little rusty on the conflict front. Roleplaying is good - great, even - but it's easy to play by yourself or with a friend. What's much harder but just as important is knowing how to play against someone.
I know that to some of the older members, who can say "Corellia" and make me blush, me writing a book on military procedure makes about as much sense as Simon Kaine writing Care Bear episodes. This would usually be true, but through sheer osmosis and time even the dimmest military strategists (yours truly) absorbs some facts and useful knacks about waging war in the galaxy. Many of the following points I've learnt from personal mistakes, some even very recently, so I hope the personal touch will help.
So, in the interest of provoking discussion, suggestions, and maybe providing a little guidance, here's Dolash's Art of War.
1) Know thy enemy, and his writer. What's more important than having an enemy is having that enemy's writer. If you intend to fight evil/good/the nearest person, for justice/power/to kill time, then checking the status of your opponant's actual roleplayers is a must. Not only does it ensure the actual threads will have participation, but it'll save you time and planning too. Do you need to destroy an evil empire when no body's home? Why not focus on the bad guys who're still kicking?
2) Know thyself, and thy motivation. War is mostly about winning, but you also have to have something to win. In fact, the only thing more frustrating than defeat is to be defeated then watch your victorious enemy sit around and not really accomplish anything with their victory. If you're going to take to the field and use up both your and someone else's time, try and make it for more than Mom's Homemade Apple Pie. If you want to do something that they don't want to happen (besides attacking them, although you should probably do that too), then suddenly there's a mutual interest in getting the war underway.
3) A cruiser in orbit is worth two Jedi on the surface. We all love Jedi and Sith and all that - shooting lightning from your fingers is pimp, no argument there. However, finding someone to train your force-user up to rank, developing the in-game connections and powers necessary to make a difference, and implementing a plot that can change the galaxy with only a few people on your side can take years. On the other hand, a guy with a Star Destroyer can glass a planet in basic training. Jedi and Sith have their place, but know that without a few thousand NPCs and their expensive equipment to back 'em up, it's going to take some time to dislodge your enemies.
4) Watch your step. I'm fairly sure everyone in the galaxy but Daemun Hyfe would like to kill Daemun Hyfe - being the Emperor of the Galaxy is basically the top job. Nevertheless, there are reasons why roleplayers who are much more experienced, powerful, and knoweldgable than the first-timers haven't done so yet. Consider that even if you do not know these reasons, they may be good enough that your initial engagements probably shouldn't be against the 256th, or the White Knights, or the Daemuns. If you really need a safe starter target, consider literally shooting Kraken's Stormtroopers in the ass. It's entirely possible they won't complain or even think it's out of the ordinary, and it'll give you vital battle experience. No matter the army, technology, or motivation, experience always builds from the ground up and can take time for your character to aquire.
5) You break it, you buy it. Those ships come from somewhere, are built of something, and theoretically someone eventually pays the bill for it. The same goes for armies - unless you happen to have full cloning facilities (Union boys, I'm looking at you) then you'll have to aknowledge that there's only so many adult males (and possibly females, depending on how progressive your RPs are) to draw your armed forces from in your quadrant. Unless you like to wait years between wars and don't mind systemetically wiping out your own population, you should do your best to lower casualties and avoid sending everyone on the same ship. People can and will call you on this if you keep sending unlimited legions of soldiers into deep space.
6) With rare exceptions, this is not the eighteenth century. There was a time where ships would pull up next to each other and launch salvoes until one or the other collapsed and sunk. There were nuances, as anyone who's watched Master and Commander can guess, but that was the meat of it. Space, on the other hand, is much larger as well as in three dimensions. The missiles can fly out of eyesight and track targets based on signal outputs. Battles can be won by calibrations and calculations that the commanding officer could never understand or even hear about. As such it's important to remember that the battle tactic of charging in and blasting the other guy is not, per se, a battle tactic at all. It's just a backdrop, where minor heroics can occur but really the winner is the one with the bigger guns. If you want to claim victory, then either exploit something your enemy did or do something to cause them to act in a way you can exploit (i.e. a trap). Grinding battles tend to devolve into shouting OOC matches anyways.
Note, if you're one of those exceptions, then feel free to ignore that rule.
7) My god, it's full of stars. Yes, yes it is. Even on the map we use, there's still swaths of unclaimed space with enough planets labelled to start a mid-sized faction that takes up a whole sector. You can also make up your own planets, which means that when you're planning long-term strategy there's a detail you must never forgot: You might be in space now, but there's still such a thing as neighbours. If you pick your favourite planets to colonize or capture, you may find yourself scattered all across the galaxy with vast tracts of enemy space inbetween. Needless to say shuttling reinforcements or even basic government might be hard when your countrymen are on the other side of the galaxy. Plan accordingly.
8) The devil, a hyperspace jump, fighters caught under shields, unloaded missile bays, and abolisher fields are in the details. Details can usually be left out or in at your discretion when you're writing alone, but remember that when you pick a fight, you're writing a story with someone. That means that other person is entitled to fill in any gaps you leave out - any gaps. They can also call you on anything you say that wouldn't end up as you say it. Few people would complain about you launching fighters while your shields are up in a private thread, but in a battle? In that situation they're entitled to declare your fighters lost, because you just clearly said you were launching them into an energy shield. Make sure your first few fights are really, really practice. Holo-drills, expendable NPCs, or droids make the best first time soldiers, since you WILL lose some as you learn.
9) Attacker or Defender, you've equally at war. Some first timers don't realize that they're stepping on toes, and decalre that they personally gun down the entire landing party of stormtroopers with a pen-laser while in custody. Others, afraid of upsetting more experienced players, accept whatever their enemy does, no matter how outrageous it may be. Remember that wether you initiated the fight or are protecting yourself, you always have an equal say - no more, no less. You can't just dictate terms to someone and they can't do it to you, so make sure you're representing your side fairly and getting a fair shake while also considering wether you're giving them their say as well.
10) This land is your land, this land is my land, so stay on your land. That's not entirely true. If you're a Jedi and you want to visit Corellia, you could get away with it fairly easily, but always remember to check who owns the planet you're visiting, if anyone. If someone does own it then they might take interest if you blow up a building or set fire to the capital, even if it's just for a personal story. I'm not saying have your Jedi get his passport stamped on the way in, just know that if things get exciting then the owner should at least be notified.
11) What good are snub-fighters going to do against that?. It's always worth studying up on the technology available, not just to you and your enemy but everyone. It won't take long, and it'll avoid embarrasments when you show up with your X-wing squadron to take on a Curriase heavy cruiser. Officially, R&Ds aren't to be any stronger than the Star Wars canon ships, so officially you could hurl a fleet of X-wings, MC-80s, and Nebulon-B frigates at your opponant, but where strength may not have gone up smarts definetly have. New technologies, new concepts, new types of weapons and entire new strategies means that the standard issue tech might not be any less "powerful", it still may well be outclassed.
12) If you can't fight the foe you want, kill the foe you're with. Even people who've been here for years need to set an appointment a week in advance, slowly, via PMs, just to schedual a chance to talk to Omnae about roleplaying or fighting with him. Some of TRF's most powerful or reknowned IC leaders are played by people with lives (the author excluded), meaning that they only do so much roleplaying and usually focus on the stories they've been telling for a couple years. They don't or won't always spare time to practice with new guys if they think you'll lose interest and wander off in a week, and who can blame them? Don't think of them as aloof, however, because most love a chance to roleplay with someone new if that person proves they've got the attention span and drive to stick it out for whole threads by themselves. Try picking fights / writing stories with fellow newcomers or whoever is most available before going after specific targets.
13) History may have bored you in school, but it's about to become your new best friend. For the people who've been here for a while now, TRF is practically entirely history. The driving vendettas, enmities, wars, hatreds, and divisions almost entirely spring forth from earlier vendettas, enmities, wars, hatreds and divisions started by people who aren't even around any more. The justifications and events are long and widing, but they also form the very basis of TRF. In fact, they are TRF, they're what distinguishes it from other boards - they might have their own history, but they don't have ours. Ask a more experienced players for a few 'war stories' or background, and you'll learn more than you could than from sifting through the battlegrounds.
14) The waiting game. There was a time where, at TRF, you could post again if your opponant hadn't for 72 hours. That rule ensured people kept up with their posts, for fear of the enemy writing the entire battle themselves (and obviously coming out the winner). That rule is no longer in place, which means that sometimes battles stagnate. You may just get a post once a week, and learn to cope with the downtime by writing more individual threads. Worse yet, you might lose a roleplayer entirely. In such cases you can ask for permission to finish the battle, ideally from the opponant but if necessary from the staff, so long as you're at least somewhat fair. Most of the time, though, there's just a lot of waiting to be done. However you deal with that is up to you (write single-writer threads, do other stuff, avoid commitments involving other people) but it's a hurdle that must be dealt with. The occasional annoyed PM or AIM/MSN conversations can work wonders.
15) When all else fails - run away! No matter wether you serve the cause of good or evil, money or power, fun or solemn duty, there's always room to get out of a confrontation. It might cost you, but remember that by roleplaying an expansionist faction you're basically accepting that people are free to do battle with you and inflict damage, so sometimes it's going to hurt. Maybe you can convince someone that you just really don't want to fight, or offer them the correct compensation, or convince them of a way to change their reasoning or stance, but so long as you exist "publically" as a faction at TRF, there's always a chance people will come after you or will carry on with an attack of yours that went sour, and you will have to be ready to see it through to the end.
I hope these little pointers were at least somewhat enlightening or interesting. I also hope I managed to catch all the major significant parts of TRF warfare. Good luck to everyone!
I know that to some of the older members, who can say "Corellia" and make me blush, me writing a book on military procedure makes about as much sense as Simon Kaine writing Care Bear episodes. This would usually be true, but through sheer osmosis and time even the dimmest military strategists (yours truly) absorbs some facts and useful knacks about waging war in the galaxy. Many of the following points I've learnt from personal mistakes, some even very recently, so I hope the personal touch will help.
So, in the interest of provoking discussion, suggestions, and maybe providing a little guidance, here's Dolash's Art of War.
1) Know thy enemy, and his writer. What's more important than having an enemy is having that enemy's writer. If you intend to fight evil/good/the nearest person, for justice/power/to kill time, then checking the status of your opponant's actual roleplayers is a must. Not only does it ensure the actual threads will have participation, but it'll save you time and planning too. Do you need to destroy an evil empire when no body's home? Why not focus on the bad guys who're still kicking?
2) Know thyself, and thy motivation. War is mostly about winning, but you also have to have something to win. In fact, the only thing more frustrating than defeat is to be defeated then watch your victorious enemy sit around and not really accomplish anything with their victory. If you're going to take to the field and use up both your and someone else's time, try and make it for more than Mom's Homemade Apple Pie. If you want to do something that they don't want to happen (besides attacking them, although you should probably do that too), then suddenly there's a mutual interest in getting the war underway.
3) A cruiser in orbit is worth two Jedi on the surface. We all love Jedi and Sith and all that - shooting lightning from your fingers is pimp, no argument there. However, finding someone to train your force-user up to rank, developing the in-game connections and powers necessary to make a difference, and implementing a plot that can change the galaxy with only a few people on your side can take years. On the other hand, a guy with a Star Destroyer can glass a planet in basic training. Jedi and Sith have their place, but know that without a few thousand NPCs and their expensive equipment to back 'em up, it's going to take some time to dislodge your enemies.
4) Watch your step. I'm fairly sure everyone in the galaxy but Daemun Hyfe would like to kill Daemun Hyfe - being the Emperor of the Galaxy is basically the top job. Nevertheless, there are reasons why roleplayers who are much more experienced, powerful, and knoweldgable than the first-timers haven't done so yet. Consider that even if you do not know these reasons, they may be good enough that your initial engagements probably shouldn't be against the 256th, or the White Knights, or the Daemuns. If you really need a safe starter target, consider literally shooting Kraken's Stormtroopers in the ass. It's entirely possible they won't complain or even think it's out of the ordinary, and it'll give you vital battle experience. No matter the army, technology, or motivation, experience always builds from the ground up and can take time for your character to aquire.
5) You break it, you buy it. Those ships come from somewhere, are built of something, and theoretically someone eventually pays the bill for it. The same goes for armies - unless you happen to have full cloning facilities (Union boys, I'm looking at you) then you'll have to aknowledge that there's only so many adult males (and possibly females, depending on how progressive your RPs are) to draw your armed forces from in your quadrant. Unless you like to wait years between wars and don't mind systemetically wiping out your own population, you should do your best to lower casualties and avoid sending everyone on the same ship. People can and will call you on this if you keep sending unlimited legions of soldiers into deep space.
6) With rare exceptions, this is not the eighteenth century. There was a time where ships would pull up next to each other and launch salvoes until one or the other collapsed and sunk. There were nuances, as anyone who's watched Master and Commander can guess, but that was the meat of it. Space, on the other hand, is much larger as well as in three dimensions. The missiles can fly out of eyesight and track targets based on signal outputs. Battles can be won by calibrations and calculations that the commanding officer could never understand or even hear about. As such it's important to remember that the battle tactic of charging in and blasting the other guy is not, per se, a battle tactic at all. It's just a backdrop, where minor heroics can occur but really the winner is the one with the bigger guns. If you want to claim victory, then either exploit something your enemy did or do something to cause them to act in a way you can exploit (i.e. a trap). Grinding battles tend to devolve into shouting OOC matches anyways.
Note, if you're one of those exceptions, then feel free to ignore that rule.
7) My god, it's full of stars. Yes, yes it is. Even on the map we use, there's still swaths of unclaimed space with enough planets labelled to start a mid-sized faction that takes up a whole sector. You can also make up your own planets, which means that when you're planning long-term strategy there's a detail you must never forgot: You might be in space now, but there's still such a thing as neighbours. If you pick your favourite planets to colonize or capture, you may find yourself scattered all across the galaxy with vast tracts of enemy space inbetween. Needless to say shuttling reinforcements or even basic government might be hard when your countrymen are on the other side of the galaxy. Plan accordingly.
8) The devil, a hyperspace jump, fighters caught under shields, unloaded missile bays, and abolisher fields are in the details. Details can usually be left out or in at your discretion when you're writing alone, but remember that when you pick a fight, you're writing a story with someone. That means that other person is entitled to fill in any gaps you leave out - any gaps. They can also call you on anything you say that wouldn't end up as you say it. Few people would complain about you launching fighters while your shields are up in a private thread, but in a battle? In that situation they're entitled to declare your fighters lost, because you just clearly said you were launching them into an energy shield. Make sure your first few fights are really, really practice. Holo-drills, expendable NPCs, or droids make the best first time soldiers, since you WILL lose some as you learn.
9) Attacker or Defender, you've equally at war. Some first timers don't realize that they're stepping on toes, and decalre that they personally gun down the entire landing party of stormtroopers with a pen-laser while in custody. Others, afraid of upsetting more experienced players, accept whatever their enemy does, no matter how outrageous it may be. Remember that wether you initiated the fight or are protecting yourself, you always have an equal say - no more, no less. You can't just dictate terms to someone and they can't do it to you, so make sure you're representing your side fairly and getting a fair shake while also considering wether you're giving them their say as well.
10) This land is your land, this land is my land, so stay on your land. That's not entirely true. If you're a Jedi and you want to visit Corellia, you could get away with it fairly easily, but always remember to check who owns the planet you're visiting, if anyone. If someone does own it then they might take interest if you blow up a building or set fire to the capital, even if it's just for a personal story. I'm not saying have your Jedi get his passport stamped on the way in, just know that if things get exciting then the owner should at least be notified.
11) What good are snub-fighters going to do against that?. It's always worth studying up on the technology available, not just to you and your enemy but everyone. It won't take long, and it'll avoid embarrasments when you show up with your X-wing squadron to take on a Curriase heavy cruiser. Officially, R&Ds aren't to be any stronger than the Star Wars canon ships, so officially you could hurl a fleet of X-wings, MC-80s, and Nebulon-B frigates at your opponant, but where strength may not have gone up smarts definetly have. New technologies, new concepts, new types of weapons and entire new strategies means that the standard issue tech might not be any less "powerful", it still may well be outclassed.
12) If you can't fight the foe you want, kill the foe you're with. Even people who've been here for years need to set an appointment a week in advance, slowly, via PMs, just to schedual a chance to talk to Omnae about roleplaying or fighting with him. Some of TRF's most powerful or reknowned IC leaders are played by people with lives (the author excluded), meaning that they only do so much roleplaying and usually focus on the stories they've been telling for a couple years. They don't or won't always spare time to practice with new guys if they think you'll lose interest and wander off in a week, and who can blame them? Don't think of them as aloof, however, because most love a chance to roleplay with someone new if that person proves they've got the attention span and drive to stick it out for whole threads by themselves. Try picking fights / writing stories with fellow newcomers or whoever is most available before going after specific targets.
13) History may have bored you in school, but it's about to become your new best friend. For the people who've been here for a while now, TRF is practically entirely history. The driving vendettas, enmities, wars, hatreds, and divisions almost entirely spring forth from earlier vendettas, enmities, wars, hatreds and divisions started by people who aren't even around any more. The justifications and events are long and widing, but they also form the very basis of TRF. In fact, they are TRF, they're what distinguishes it from other boards - they might have their own history, but they don't have ours. Ask a more experienced players for a few 'war stories' or background, and you'll learn more than you could than from sifting through the battlegrounds.
14) The waiting game. There was a time where, at TRF, you could post again if your opponant hadn't for 72 hours. That rule ensured people kept up with their posts, for fear of the enemy writing the entire battle themselves (and obviously coming out the winner). That rule is no longer in place, which means that sometimes battles stagnate. You may just get a post once a week, and learn to cope with the downtime by writing more individual threads. Worse yet, you might lose a roleplayer entirely. In such cases you can ask for permission to finish the battle, ideally from the opponant but if necessary from the staff, so long as you're at least somewhat fair. Most of the time, though, there's just a lot of waiting to be done. However you deal with that is up to you (write single-writer threads, do other stuff, avoid commitments involving other people) but it's a hurdle that must be dealt with. The occasional annoyed PM or AIM/MSN conversations can work wonders.
15) When all else fails - run away! No matter wether you serve the cause of good or evil, money or power, fun or solemn duty, there's always room to get out of a confrontation. It might cost you, but remember that by roleplaying an expansionist faction you're basically accepting that people are free to do battle with you and inflict damage, so sometimes it's going to hurt. Maybe you can convince someone that you just really don't want to fight, or offer them the correct compensation, or convince them of a way to change their reasoning or stance, but so long as you exist "publically" as a faction at TRF, there's always a chance people will come after you or will carry on with an attack of yours that went sour, and you will have to be ready to see it through to the end.
I hope these little pointers were at least somewhat enlightening or interesting. I also hope I managed to catch all the major significant parts of TRF warfare. Good luck to everyone!
