The intention of the rank system was to have a structure within each affiliation. Currently there are admirals and captains as the ranks inbetween mean very little.
Proposed Change
The following structure will be
Defend Support Enemy
Captain: Own Aff None PIR
Major Allied Aff Own Aff PIR + Own Posted
Commander ALL Allied AFF PIR + Own Posted
Wing Commander ALL ALL PIR + Own Posted + Ally Posted
Commadore ALL ALL ALL
Adirmal ALL ALL ALL
Admirals will have the added bonus that untargeted defenders/supporters
of the AFF/Position will 'intercept' targeting attempts ment for the adirmal.
It should also be noted that support does not chain. If ship 'A' supports ship 'B' and ship 'B' supports ship 'C' and has an enemy of ship 'D' then Ship 'A' will not support actions against ship 'D'.
Personally I see that these ranks are of limited use to trading and exploration players. While I would relish the chance to have a fleet of warships with a Major at the Helm or whatever aff specific names come up, I would rather see a bonus given to cargo ships, increase in sensor power, or speed.
Cheers
Mark C
RIP PD
So do I assume from this that all my fleet will lose the ability to support my Admiral's if the need should arise to attack (an enemy vessel not PIR for instance)? If this were the case then unless I make all vessels at least Major then they will not support my Admiral until he/she is attacked which sort of negates the idea of another ship protecting the targeted Admiral.
Cheers
Jons
SMS Fleet Commodore
| QUOTE |
| So do I assume from this that all my fleet will lose the ability to support my Admiral's if the need should arise to attack (an enemy vessel not PIR for instance)? |
Yes the idea is that most warships should be major or above - there is supossed to be a rank structure within an affiliation but this does not seem to have happened with the current setup. Although we propose that the support own aff is bumped up in required rank, the support/defend allied aff would be reduced.
| QUOTE |
| If this were the case then unless I make all vessels at least Major then they will not support my Admiral until he/she is attacked which sort of negates the idea of another ship protecting the targeted Admiral. |
Any defender of the Affiliation or admiral will be used to protect the admiral. So if you have defend all SMS on your list then someone should thorw themselves infront of the admiral.
| QUOTE |
| Yes the idea is that most warships should be major or above - there is supossed to be a rank structure within an affiliation but this does not seem to have happened with the current setup. |
I don't quite see the point of this, other than to bump up the cost of running warships. I believe that there is an up-front cost and a weekly maintenance fee for ranks above captain. Try as I might, though, I can't find the details of this in any of the rulebooks or in the mailing list archives.
Can someone post the costs here, please?
rob
'Set Ship Rank' setting the ship rank will cost between 1000 - 6000 per vessel and an
additional 10 - 60 per week per ship to maintain.....
So to have the facility to attack, most aff's are looking at a pretty large pay out and prob
between 500 - 1000 extra in wage costs per week...
Not too bad apart from the extra to update all current warships........
Cheers
Jons
Its not supposed to be cheap to have an offensive war fleet and it is supposed to take time to sort out. I'm also thinking that perhaps you have to have X majors to have Y captains. I want a structure.
| QUOTE |
| But is it the place of the designer/GM to force a given military structure on an affilaition? |
Thats a bit of a loaded question. All i wanted was a structure (anything) to the military side of the game. I'm not going to force anything onto the game that does not have a good reason to be there.
An idea for structure that i had was dropping support lists and replacing with command lists. The command list contains all the positon that will follow your lead. This will then allow them to defend and take your enemy lists etc. Each rank could have X positons on its command list and command could chain.
So And admirmal could command 2 Commanders
Each commander could command 2 majors
Each major could command 2 captains
All take the adirmals commands - it certainly adds structure but i'm not sure it helps the game (also 2 commands per ship was an example).
But from one point of view this could be seen as every military organisation for every aff being "forced" to have the same piramid structure, be they Human, Dewiek, Falconian or whatever.
The other side of the coin is if there is no structure imposed by the game system the players may select the "cheapest" ranks they need to do the job anyhow, irrespective of affiliation background, etc.
Phil
better feel. Not sure how the piramid structure would work for all aff's because of race differences (ie FGZ/Hive mind etc) but I'm certainly in favour of something else rather than lots of Captains looking up to the highest rank possible with no middle ground. At least the new suggestion gives the possibilty for a small battle group to be commanded by something other than an Admiral.
Cheers
Jons
The following structure will be
| CODE |
Defend Support Enemy Captain: Own Aff None None Major Own Aff None PIR Commander Allied Aff Own Aff PIR + Own Posted Wing Commander ALL Allied AFF PIR + Own Posted Commadore ALL ALL PIR + Own Posted + Ally Posted Adirmal ALL ALL ALL |
All promotions and maintenance of ranks will be free. This allows affs to generate
whatever structure suits them. And the rank just defines what the positions can do, the whole affiliation could be adirmal.
The cost will be shifted to actually adding to enemy/support and defend lists (as will the
maintenance). So adding and AFF to the enemy list could have for example a cost of
X thousand stellars and Y hundred stellars per week. All charges would come for induvidual
positions as they did the action ?
Any thoughts ?
Another thought: David mentioned the possibility of command lists rather than support lists. Possibly there should just be limits on the length of "support chains" - i.e. for each ship which has a position on its enemy list, the number of other ships which can support (without the same enemy on their own enemy list) is limted by the rank of the highest ranked ship present. Thus a Commander could have someone on his enemy list (from the Aff's Posted List), but only, say, 5 Majors could support him. To have more ships supporting would require a Wing Commander to be present, or else another Commander with the same position on his enemy list (at which point another 5 Majors could supprot the second Commander).
This is possibly a bit more flexible than the command lists idea, but may still incur the "forcing a pyramid structure" problem... Thoughts?
Richard
AFT
| QUOTE (David Bethel @ Jun 9 2003, 11:47 AM) |
| It should also be noted that support does not chain. If ship 'A' supports ship 'B' and ship 'B' supports ship 'C' and has an enemy of ship 'D' then Ship 'A' will not support actions against ship 'D'. |
If B supports C against D, why doesn't A support B in support of C against D? In other words, why doesn't A support B if its on its support list?
Also, what happens if B also supports D?
| QUOTE |
| If B supports C against D, why doesn't A support B in support of C against D? In other words, why doesn't A support B if its on its support list? |
Read the bit where it says:
| QUOTE |
| It should also be noted that support does not chain |
Its supposed to be this way, if A wanted to support C then it should put C on its support lists.
| QUOTE |
| Also, what happens if B also supports D? |
It will attacks D's enemies, which means that all D's and C's enemies are added to B's target list. A random target from this list is locked/attacked. All support does is add targets to your target list that are declared as enemies by the position you are supporting.
| QUOTE |
| If A wanted to support C then it should put C on its support lists. |
But A is not wanting to support C, it wants support B. In this case it is not doing what its support list tells it to do (support B).
| QUOTE |
| All support does is add targets to your target list that are declared as enemies by the position you are supporting. |
Hmm. Glad you stated that as I'd never have thought it would work like that.
How about Defend? Does that chain, or not chain, in the same way?
he way I see it, any warship would defend its ow shipping if ordered to and quite frankly having a captain not engage, seem ridicule.
Any warship should be able to defend its own.
I also expect it would be able to support in any engagement. Just because he/she is still a captain, it doesn't mean he/she can't order a support action!
I don't know if it's a mjor overhaul, but I'd rather see brass having to gain experience to be able to gain rank. Rank wouldn't allow them do anything more than the other ranks, but would add a hit bonus. Admirals would add a considerable bonus to the fleet under his/her command.
That way poorer, rather than smaller affs could be able to have at least a support enabled fleet and would encourage the reposting of particularly good officers to that brand new pride of the nation battleship.
The enemy bit I agree
| QUOTE |
| So why would we need captains for, if they can't do anything? |
oops mistake - corrected
| QUOTE |
| I don't know if it's a mjor overhaul, but I'd rather see brass having to gain experience to be able to gain rank. Rank wouldn't allow them do anything more than the other ranks, but would add a hit bonus. Admirals would add a considerable bonus to the fleet under his/her command. |
Currently we have experience and rank - experience determines how good you are and rank determines what your affiliation is allowing you to do. If you require a certain exp to have rank then you can cause stupid situations where an Aff has 60 warship but can not attack anyone.
| QUOTE |
But A is not wanting to support C, it wants support B. In this case it is not doing what its support list tells it to do (support  . |
You basically can get around support chaining by making your support list more specific. The problem with chaining support lists is that you canget IMP supporting CNF and attacking CNF in the same battle due to 1 ships support list. Its not difficult to chain the support its just too confusing.
| QUOTE |
| How about Defend? Does that chain, or not chain, in the same way? |
If you defend a ship and another ship fires at it then you add that ship to your target list. So defenders never fire on round 1.
, I feel it needs to go somewhere...I feel the whole idea of giving a ships a rank is a waste of time (Sorry, that is how I feel). I think the whole game would be better if personalities were given rank rather than ships.
There should be political ranks for political players. This way an affiliation could role play diplomats visiting starbases, other affiliations etc. High ranking political positions would also need more looking after in transit, as well as making the political position more playable...
Captains should also be given rank and the abilities to post/defend positions according to their rank as mentioned in the initial message in the thread. This way an experienced high-ranking captain can be given command of your newest most technologically advanced ship and not be stuck in some courier until retirement or destruction.
Taking this a stage further, captains could also specialise in areas of expertise (This should interest the traders/explorers out there). A military captain could increase the targeting or dodge ability of the ship, explorers could increase sensor levels & traders could move faster from their knowledge of space lanes....
There is not a lot of detail given here but I feel this would add more role-playing to the game and put emphasis on playing your (Or getting a) political position....
Maybe this could be given a Thread of it own, that is if it is feasible to programming this into the game…
This is particularly highlighted, for me, by the whole experience thing.
Perhaps if/when anyone out there gets organic ships, this will make some sense, but for most of us, for most of the time, an inanimate object does not gain experience.
Perhaps all ships have super advanced neural net type AI control systems, but why then do we need officers at all (or probably even crew for that matter).
Giving captain's specialisms is a nice idea, but a seperate issue to the main credibility of SHIP ranks.
What was/is the justification for giving the ranks to ships rather than the actual officers?
| QUOTE (Steve-Law @ Jun 24 2003, 01:13 PM) |
| an inanimate object does not gain experience.? |
It does not in Phoenix. Experience is tied to the officer. No experience is given to a ship.
| QUOTE |
| What was/is the justification for giving the ranks to ships rather than the actual officers? |
It is easier to keep track of a ship than it is an officer. The rank is tied to any officer/crewmember while he is in charge of the ship. If an admiral was killed while commanding a ship, the crewmember, right on the cusp of total victory suddenly say - sorry lads, we have to go home, the admiral is dead and we can't use enemy lists anymore until someone promotes me.
Basically it is a game mechanic which prevents things going pear-shaped leading to player complaints.
| QUOTE |
| There should be political ranks for political players. |
There are poltical ranks for players, it determines how many votes that have on internal politcal issues.
| QUOTE |
| A military captain could increase the targeting or dodge ability of the ship, explorers could increase sensor levels & traders could move faster from their knowledge of space lanes.... |
Currently the experience of the captain is on the officer, only is rank is determined by the ship.
Rank only allows enemies to be chosen (on Ship)
Experience determines combat bonuses (on Officer)
Later i intend to expand the experience in a similar way to what you have described but not yet.
Politicals need to have special abilities before that is worth doing.
| QUOTE |
| Maybe this could be given a Thread of it own, that is if it is feasible to programming this into the game… |
Most things are feasible but its a question of what is best to spend the time on.
| QUOTE |
| I have to agree that the change from captains' ranks in BSE to ships having the rank in Phoenix seems really silly. |
It was on the ship in BSE as well.... its just that there was no orders to move or have officers (other than a line of text) in BSE.
So if I take a 48% experience Admiral officer from one ship and put him on another ship that was just a Captain rank, I would end up with a 0% experience admiral ship and a 48% experience Captain ship? The experience would go with the officer and the rank would stay with the ship.
Otherwise you could transfer an Admiral from ship to ship, setting up the enemy/support/defend lists as you go. The Admiral could then go sit behind a big desk in his bunker in a safe starbase.
Could be time to start moving my 50% experience merchant ship officers to nice shiny "straight off the production line" warships.
| QUOTE |
| So if I've got this right (which isn't how it has been explained to me in the past) |
Its been like that for a long time
not sure who were talking to....or their beer levels.| QUOTE |
| So if I take a 48% experience Admiral officer from one ship and put him on another ship that was just a Captain rank, I would end up with a 0% experience admiral ship and a 48% experience Captain ship? The experience would go with the officer and the rank would stay with the ship. |
Yes
| QUOTE |
| Could be time to start moving my 50% experience merchant ship officers to nice shiny "straight off the production line" warships. |
We did wonder why more people had not done this...
Its like +1 per 25% exp to acc and dodge (assuming the ship is good enough).
They already list as living ships, so I'd really like to see my ships act as the officer:)
| QUOTE |
| Hum...I must agree that a metal ship having rank isn't logic |
The ship does not literally have the rank, it has a rank associated with it - its one of the crew on the ship. A _named_ officer just adds to the ships effectiveness. A ship having rank is _stupid_.
Patrol ship
Escort ship
Ship of the line
Patrol Leader
Flag ship
This the seniority of the ships level would give authority to the ship captains ability to attack/defend etc...
Its not the abilities given to the ship that are bothering players but the names of the ranks...
Does anyone else agree with this...?
Jason
The only slight problem is that it is entirely warship biased. Should a trading ship be a "Patrol" ship? But in principle I like it.
How about just "ship" for the bottom rank? (lame I know, but covers any role for a "non-combatant" ship).
Ship
Patrol ship
Escort ship
Ship of the line
Flag ship
| QUOTE |
| The only slight problem is that it is entirely warship biased. Should a trading ship be a "Patrol" ship? |
I see your point but I assumed that most tradeing ships or exploration vessals would be just SHIP (as you proposed) and not have attack/defend lists and just run from combat...?
Maybe not though, I know all of mine are...