INPrint I have no idea. People started making factions that were both uninteresting and OP, such as the Hypatiens until TheCommander started changing. (Just look at what happened to gibbyones' original faction)
Question two: Unsure, but answer is probably no.
RedAndCosmoteer I've seen enough to agree with you. In other words, people replace lack of imagination with a declaration of superiority, and it is not even their fault. The problem is the same that I've faced when first tried to make my faction: those who know how to make interesting faction don't want or can't teach those who wants to join but have no idea how. All the guides to RP tells how to play around your faction, but there's nothing about how to make it worthwhile. One can't simply play Cosmoteer and get struck with idea of The Faction Of Factions, the way to RP is too long and unintuitive for most of people out there. The Rulebook can help them greatly. When I first played D&D, it took around 15 minutes to understand what's going on and to get how to interact with the others respectfully. Without any rules, it would be impossible.
INPrint The issue with rules is, with every bit restriction you give, you take a little bit freedom off from the rp, while this is necessary in some cases, it is hindering in others, usually the problem is not what a faction is or how powerful it is, but rather how it is used and I´m not sure wether one can fix the behaviour of people or their basic mindset about interaction with factions and others with rules.
INPrint
Drakador_Chaos Drakador is right, because with the bloodcult, they have big boomguns that can destroy a lot of stuff, but they use it in a manner that doesn't ruin the day of others and also doesn't blow up a carefully crafted and great faction.
RedAndCosmoteer
A faction should, at least in theory, define itself mainly by it´s behaviour and characters, not by it´s firepower, even though that also is part of it.
Drakador_Chaos And the bloodcult, they don't raid other factions and
RedAndCosmoteer ruin the day of others
which is why they are liked so well by the people of the Forum, but behave in a way that everybody likes AND is interesting.
Drakador_Chaos I think I undestood your position. Let me clarify: is restrictions like "you should have a limited amount of ships" or "you shouldn't declare war to all sentient species within reach" so unbearable for the roleplayer? Note that I point a question about RP getting worse, not about RP always being bad. The most honorable and experienced RPers won't feel any restrictions that the Rulebook might grant, for all the necessary restrictions are in their heads. The Bloodcult is an example of a good, well-balanced faction thanks to their boomguns never destroyed anything worthwhile and well-done. But whet it comes to an average faction of that day, their boomguns actually destroy everything only for lulz. The Rulebook is supposed to be a counter for this kind of factions.
To sum up, I think that the Rolebook shouldn't prevent those who know how to behave in RP from enjoying their interactions, but it should stop those who just wants to show everyone how cool he could be in the Internets.
INPrint You can use the terms "flak", "beam weapon" and "cannon" from now on i guess.
RedAndCosmoteer Drakador_Chaos Oh, and I forgot one thing to add: the Rulebook might result all the stuff around trade and research agreements, alliances, non-agression pacts and other of a kind making more sense than now. Or at least it can make people care more about their trade routes than about their blitzkriegs.
INPrint Perhaps a rulebook would result in less creative freedom, but it might be smart to have some guidelines, wich people can follow along, and link the guidelines to already excisting guides revolved around RP. Like the one of Drak. Perhaps it could mildly improve RP.
But we will Always have some people who wouldnt understand RP too much, and do bad stuff. We just have to take the bad side to also have the good side.
Namek Thanks for the idea. Maybe we should start with the guideline "How to make your faction interesting and how not to make it annoying"? Or maybe we should just rage against the OP? 
All I really want from the Rulebook is to prevent the following situation:
jbox1 Normal RP thread:
A: This is my fleet of 20 fighters
B: A massive battle fleet appears
A: sends 50 cruisers, 20 battleships, 70 carriers, and 200 fighters
B: Uses massive DSL
A: Uses even more massive DSL
B: Destroys massive DSL
A: What were we waring about again?
B: I am not sure...twirling sound
C: Wanna allie for no apparent reason?
A: Sure.twirling sound
D: Here is 999 ships and 999,999,999,9999 Credits for no apparent reason.
A: Sure
INPrint Yeah, I really try to avoid that from happening. Even though I intend to use some kind of Super-Weapon in the future, I can assure it's preparation will always be announced a long time before actual use. In that way, if the enemy didn't know it was going to happen, they just didn't pay attention.
INPrint
But the thing is, even back in 2017 or early 2018 RP had no rules.
The thing that made it fair, was if you sent a death star to stop a tiny fleet, the person you sent it against would just say "yeah, but no." and ignore you.
That is what made RP stable, i think the idea of "limitations" has gone now, with NH having millions of ships, and Psionics being thrown around like its nothing.
If anything, RP has not gotten worse now, its just changed.
However, there is one thing i do think needs to change...
RP'er 1: My ship warps in, its as big as a planet and has 1000000 guns.
RP'er 2: Have you built it?
RP'er 1: yes here:
insert picture of microscale
What, is the actual point in microscales?
i get some people can't build a 1:1 deathstar... but that is the point.
It used to be, that your computer was the limit to how big your factions ships could be.
This meant people had to build smart, and couldnt just say they could spam 10km long warships.
But now, if anything you may aswell join a Cosmoteer unrelated RP, like on discord.
Because really? if you are not even going to build the ship properly, or at least out of hull armour and Drones, you may aswell not be on the cosmoteer forums.
Thing is, i can accept lore weapons, thats fine, but not ships that don't even exist.
Microscales, although first thought of as a solution to the whole "ship measuring" competition, has just made it worse.
Jenwuf And this trend will continue unless we add a least a few basic guidelines. People are going to get bored soon, that's when the age OP will reach it's peak. Everyone will be super, then they will calm down. But it'll take many of our community members as well. If we want to grow our community we need to make rules.
Jenwuf
My 2 cents:
"The thing that made it fair, was if you sent a death star to stop a tiny fleet, the person you sent it against would just say "yeah, but no." and ignore you."
That just bring this back...
Undated_Abyss Its usually isn't enough or followed always.
