Hello there! Welcome to the South Pacific Special Forces guide to raiding and defending, also known as R/D, in Nationstates. In here we'll be covering the basics of R/D, and helping you to get equipped for action. Let's dive in!


To start us off, you need to be familiar with the World Assembly, or WA, as this is a key part of R/D. The World Assembly is the single most important area of the game which allows us to raid and defend. Now, normally when you hear about the World Assembly you might hear about it passing legislation. That part of the WA is unimportant to us at the moment. The main part of the WA concerned with R/D is endorsements. Endorsements determine a few things; such as influence, which we'll cover later; and who gets the delegate seat of a region. The delegate has access to the regional controls, and gains a lot of power over the region. The delegate can change the World Factbook Entry, or WFE, ban and eject nations, set a password on the region to block entry, and add or remove tags from a region. Banning and ejecting nations costs the delegate influence, which is earned through spending time in the region. The rest are free, and have no repercussions on the delegate's influence.

How does all of that relate to us, you may ask. Well, when one raids or defends a region the goal of those people is to take the delegate seat from whoever is holding it at the time. Raiders and Defenders have different objectives, which we'll cover in a separate guide. Both, however, use the same in-game mechanics. They and their supporters join the WA on their puppet nations, gather in a region, endorse each other, and then move to their target region when the time is right. If their lead has more endorsements then the current delegate, then they will take the delegacy. Once the delegacy is under their control they are free to do anything they want to the region, as long as they have the influence for it. What happens to the region next all depends on who took the delegacy.

Now, there are a few things you may be wondering about the above. First off, I'd like to explain what a "puppet" nation is. A puppet nation is a nation created for the sole purpose of raiding or defending a region. There are two types of puppets. "Dirty" puppets, and "Clean" puppets. Dirty puppets are puppets which have been used before. Enemies may have added the puppets to their dossier, which allows them to keep track of the puppet. They can then see where the puppet moves, which will give away any operation it's a part of. Clean puppets are puppets which have not been used before, and are therefore better used for keeping a low profile and not compromising the operation.

Now, the second thing I wanted to explain is extremely important. If you don't pay attention to this it may cost you your entire military career. Each person is only allowed to have ONE nation in the World Assembly at a time. If you are caught with multiple World Assembly Nations then you will be BANNED from the World Assembly. Both on those nations and on any future nations. This stops you from being able to participate in any missions, or take the delegate seat of any region. Now can you see why this is so important?

Thirdly, not all regions are fit to be raided. Some regions have what's known as a Founder. Founders are the nations which founded the region. Being a founder gives you access to all of the regional controls, and all of the powers of the delegate. Although there is one difference between founders and delegates. Founders don't need influence to ban or eject nations. This means that they can ban or eject whomever they want, as much as they want, including the delegate. Some regions with founders take their defence a step further, and have what's known as a "Non-Executive Delegate". This option is only available to regions with founders, and denies the delegate access to the regional controls. That means that all of the powers we listed above the delegate has no access to.

Continuing on, there are only certain times that one can raid or defend. These times are known as "Update Times". When Nationstates updates it goes through a long process of making all the changes required to keep running. There are two update times during the day. There's "Major" update, which starts at Midnight EST; and "Minor" update, which starts at Noon EST. During both of these times the game counts up who has the most endorsements in a region, and gives them the delegacy of that region. They are assured control over the region until next update, assuming there isn't a founder to kick them out.

Now I said "starts at". Update takes a while to run. Each region takes a few seconds to run through, which doesn't seem like a whole lot, except for the fact that there are a lot of regions in Nationstates. It usually takes over an hour to run through all of the regions in NS. Regions don't always update at the same time either. With new regions being created every day, and slightly different amounts of time it takes to update each region, we get what is known as Variance. Early on in update variance isn't all tat bad, usually only amounting to only a few seconds earlier or later then usual. However, in late-updating regions variance could amount up to a few minutes earlier or later. With how precise the timing needs to be when raiding or defending, this can easily kill an operation if you aren't careful.

Finally, it is important that you choose which region you move from carefully. If your region updates before your target region, then any nations in the region become useless until next update. That is why militaries set aside designated regions to be their "Jump points". Jump points are late-updating regions, which militaries use as a staging ground for their operations. Any region which updates before your jump point is a potential target, while any that update after are a no-go.


This concludes the first part of the SPSF guide to R/D. The next section will cover the various forces and ideologies out there in NS, and where we fall among them.