R&D OOC

Kelev?
A new engine would be a sure thing on any future tank.
The way things are headed these days with hybrids and electrics.

Kelev is my future MBT for Israel, see my R&D thread. 135mm gun, two-man crew, tons of sensors, tons of dollars in cost

Thing about new tank designs is that the modern tank era is basically over. Aside from incremental upgrades (like a new gun or better ERA), there's really nowhere to go. Sure, you can make the next Abrams marginally more lethal and marginally more survivable, but then what? The Kelev is basically the height of that -- you're spending a fortune, and getting a very capable tank, but it's a tank designed to fight a war that almost no other country on earth will be fighting (ie, a defensive war against a half dozen neighboring countries).

NATO countries don't really need that. What they need is a tank like the Merkava: a tank purpose built to fight in urban environments. Because that's where the vast majority of Western armor is going to be in the coming decades.

Shh, don't tell NATO that.

inorite.

I think you guys will really like my future plan for armor. When I get around to posting it.

IN THE NEWS TODAY: "Yeah, um, guys? People don't normally make their own R&D?"

RESPONSE: This

That video is hilarious. Even when he's obviously pissed, the speaker goes to great lengths to be polite. He's a walking stereotype.

It should be noted: I did not post that today. I simply felt the need to bump the rules since I was linking to them anyway, so people read them.

R&D needs an overhaul as it is, IMO.

Should be more civil research and upgrade programs rather than people developing "LOLNEWTECH", except for the nations with their own spot in the price guide. And, honestly, the lack of civil progress in 21c is rather astounding considering the amount of time we've been spending in the future. Shouldn't Quantum PCs and medical advances hold as much of a spotlight as the shiny new bombers and tanks?

And, coincidentally, those nations should maintain posts in a "New Equipment" thread that postulates their new equipment for that round, or old stuff's availability. For example, resolution of the F-35 situation and the price of purchasing a F-22B, or other things of that nature.

If we're going to develop new stuff, we should have it organized and done well. And, likewise, we should have a system in place to have major multinational programs such as the F-35 and most, if not all European aircraft.

Using Moore's law assuming a 10 year round:

-The average digital camera would have 70 Megapixels
- Processors would be 5x more powerful(12.5 Ghz 10 core processors)
- 5x more memory (30gb average)

Conceivably in by the end of this round we could have Artificial intelligence

Also, No-one's complained about my R&D yet? I need to fix that...

The F-35 is largely an American development, with the primary contractor being Lockheed. It is up to the American player, alternatively with the other partners, to figure it out, not that of the mods, the same with European aircraft.

The same extends to the F-35 situation, its largely the American player's responsibility. They're welcome to ask for advice in the Military Help section if they want to though.

As for civilian tech, very few lolbreakthroughs go from discovery to application in the lifetime of a round, and as such is irrelevant.

Plus if you want to form a multinational program it can be done, I think Dax last round formed an international fighter aircraft project that would be cheaper than Typhoon. It started as a multilateral meeting and progressed from there to the R&D. I think the greatest problem people have with those projects is that they're long term and so they reap no reward in the round yet require a reasonable amount of detail.

Yes but if I say a Saudi Research firm has developed a new drug that makes Chemo drugs look like your branding someone with a hot iron in comparison to the side effects. It would of very big economic impact to an industry

The problem with civilian R&D is exactly that. Most people make up nonsense and don't clear it ahead of time.

Sort of like the time Chris (the Hungarian one) went "LOL AIDS IS CURED."

Yeah unrealistic things kill gameplay, now in that case a AIDs vacine to prevent the virus from taking root would be more realistic (infact I think it's either Canadian or American researchers who actually have a HIV vacine in the trial stages)

I don't think it's unreasonable that the admin team, likely via the Events Commission, generates certain civilian developments occasionally. I would be opposed to players individually RPing such things, but coming from the admins it could provide a novel and interesting twist to 21c.

True but then that opens up a new can of worms, wheres the line? Natural disasters, scientific breakthroughs? etc...

If the admin team decided to pursue this, I'd trust them to draw a reasonable line.

They've never overstepped their bounds by any massive measure. I'd just like to see a bit more than "Modern Day plus some new airplanes"

Certain nations/players have done civil development in the past it is not completely unused, heck space roleplay qualifies on that front and we have seen quite a bit of that. You have to reflect though that military technology affects multiple nations when reviewing this foreign policy orientated game style, a new iPhone being developed may be relevant if you have an Arab Spring type event or for an extremely detailed character story but outside of that it does not really warrant more than a single newspost.

Ukrainian (Hungarian?) doctors miraculously curing AIDS isn't overstepping their bounds? Of course it is -- it basically meant, as Chris (the other one) phrased it, that his country would get stupidly rich selling the thing to other people. A massive spike in GDP without consulting anyone does, in fact, mean you've overstepped your bounds. It's not all that different from other cases of people posting huge GDP growth jumps. It just so happens that he was rather clever in his making it happen.

While your misgivings about the emphasis on the military end are valid (because this board, myself included, has a predisposition towards that sphere), civilian R&D is much harder to do right. A lot of the idealized options (ie, cold fusion) create massive problems for the game and a lot of the mundane options (ie, that tablet that Zodiac unveiled as Taiwan) don't really add a whole lot to the game as a whole and, therefore most people don't really pursue them. And, as Ranger mentions, there's often relatively little reward for the effort put in. Most people would rather channel that energy elsewhere. And, frankly, so would I -- turmoil does more for the board's activity than a new phone.

We did have lots of space R&D for a time, though. But I guess most people don't bother when the earliest payoff is 2025.

I was referring to the admin team in their handling of the Events board, and avoiding abuse of power.

No, I know people FUBAR civil stuff.

I'm just seeing the flaws and frowning that we have to have rounds only go so far without having to restart. I mean, can't there be other options that allow some meaningful progress and action without everything getting swept away every few months?

I would love that. I wanted last round to go to 2020 (even while I, personally, wasn't interested in it very much). The problem on that front is that activity hits a slump at a certain point. It's usually around 2016 (I don't know why, but that's always been the troubled period). We tried implementing mid-round switches, and that worked once but it didn't work for the next round. We'll probably have another in 2015. Hopefully it works. I have a few ideas for next round that might address it, but I'll save those discussions for when we actually get there. It's too early to start planning for that.

The events team doing civil R&D is kind of... iffy. Suppose we do an event that has some scientist or other discover the cure for AIDS. Who gets to capitalize on it? Who gets to exploit it? What happens next? These are all difficult problems that have to be answered before something like that could work. There's promise in the idea, but there's no infrastructure to support it yet.