Im proposing here that we remove the disord requirement from the Tsunami Force(TF).
I understand that discord allows members of the TF to communicate faster and more efficiently but I don’t believe it should be a requirement. When I first join TSP I wanted to join the TF but couldn’t because I couldn’t get discord. But I’m active almost every day, meaning I could have still served in the TF.
What Im trying to say is that the discord requirement shouldn’t be one. Let me know what you think.
Discord is essential to the Tsunami Force (for reference for those who don’t remember the Tsunami Force is the On-Update force). This proposal is very clearly infeasible to anyone who has updated before.
When participating in on-update r/d a fraction of a second matters significantly. Chasing and liberating require the speed of communication discord allows, and anything else that can provide that same speed of communication is going to be more prohibitive of participation than discord. Discord is the cornerstone of on-update communication for a reason. By removing the discord requirement you would majorly hurt the ability of the SPSF, as commanders would need additional less effective lines of communication that would be impossible to manage in the time frames needed during update.
Discord is also required for purposes of inter-organization cooperation. We work with many other defender orgs in Libcord (the primary defender discord server where operations take place) and any members of the SPSF without discord would be unable to participate in those operations.
Even medium sized regions use Discord, in my personal experience in the Indian Armed Forces (Region of India), Discord was essential, there is no proper workaround for it yet.
This still ignores the fact that active nations like myself couldn’t join TF
I don’t understand this argument. If participating in Tsunami Force requires a certain level of presence that you can’t meet then clearly you aren’t “active” for the purposes of Tsunami Force and you have to participate elsewhere, for instance via Tidal Force. You can’t reasonably expect the entire mechanics of the game to change just to suit your convenience.
Overwhelmingly seconding Of_the_Ages here. Even if we could shift away from discord (though any service that would allow communication down to the single seconds would be just as cumbersome) Discord is the standard among all of our allies. SPSF rarely is operating alone, so a push away from Discord would require convincing a dozen or more other militaries to tear down the systems we’ve been using for years. Simply not possible.
The other option here, I suppose, is allowing nominal membership without actually modifying how we operate, which just feels nonsensical.
Agree with all the opinions stated here, although there was one time I successfully called a trigger for someone without a discord through NS telegrams 
Looking at this, I see New-Halo’s point in removing the discord requirement, but I don’t know of any good messaging systems that the SPSF and our allies could use. @New-Halo any suggestions?
I disagree I feel Discord still needs to be a requirement. There needs to be crucial and fast communication and Discord is usually the best answer. The RMB isn’t usually that reliable if there not on NS at that time. Discord is still very much so needed.
Granted I’m a bit out of the loop but I couldn’t imagine this working without some sort of instant communication medium (be it Discord or whatever else).
There is an off-update force, (I believe it’s called the Tidal Force, right?) but it hasn’t been well maintained. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, it hasn’t had a mission for months.
I think an awareness program, even a small one, can go a long way to giving people without access to Discord a chance to help in defending, without eliminating the Discord requirement itself. As an addendum, I feel there should also be more missions given to the Tidal Force, albeit much lower-stakes and to smaller regions.
I think setting aside a detag every update or so for the Tidal Force could be a great way to give them more missions.
I was thinking we still have discord, because our allies use it but if you cant get discord you should still be able to join. Maybe you could get pinged from a dispatch or be send a telegram. Just something so you can move to the next region.
If I may ask, if you cannot meet the requirements to participate in the Tsunami Force then why do you so desperately want to join? Wouldn’t it be more productive to evaluate where else in the military you can participate?
There’s two significant issues I think with this:
The first is practical. Operations of the tsunami force often have windows from trigger to jump of only a couple seconds. You would have to widen the gap (and thus lower the military standard) to allow a commanding officer the additional seconds to send two messages out. This is technically possible but people will grumble.
The second is jurisdictional. When we work with the Libcord coalition, more often than not our admiralty is not the one commanding that particular update (not to cast any doubt on Slab’s ability here, we just have a lot of coalition allies and that often means being commanded by a coalition ally). Even if this assembly were to lift the discord requirement, we simply do not have the jurisdiction to force non-TSP coalition allies to change the way they command an update. This isn’t really the forum that can make that change, even if we wanted to.
Now, a discussion on Tidal Force activities and how to include people without discord there is probably a more fruitful.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t R/D run out of IRC before Discord? The point I’m trying to make here, as others have, is that running ops on Discord is just the way of the times. It’s like MySpace being the most popular social network in 2005, then Facebook in 2010. It’s a structural matter that cannot be changed unless something revolutionary displaces Discord as the premier space to conduct R/D, which is something that none of us can foresee.
I mean, you admitted that Discord allows the Tsunami Force to communicate instantaneously. If there is something better that they can use, I’m all ears to learn what it is.
But I suppose the more important question here is why can’t you use or what is preventing you from accessing Discord?
Yes, Discord is the way of the times, but removing the requirement still forces the Admiralty or whoever is actively running the defense to split their attention between multiple platforms (some much slower than others), and drastically reducing effectiveness.
Discord is also readily available to more people on NS than not, so if you can’t access it, there might be an issue that will prevent you from effectively participating in the defense regardless. In that case, it’s likely a better idea to join the Tidal Force in lieu of the Tsunami Force.
Thank you everyone for responding.