Military ranks

[Gorlom]

That was posted by Gazz last year though. I'm not sure it's still valid.

The pyramid structure is nice on paper.

However if you have an active team of 12 troops with another 100 back in the base your active team are almost certainly going to be your 12 highest ranks anyway.

The only time the pyramid structure works is at the start of the game in general.

Doesn't that depend on how the pyramid structure works? If you can only have 1 colonel 3 captains and 5 lieutenants then you can't have 12 colonels in your active team.

Needing x lieutenants to promote one to captain also prevents that.

Or am I misunderstanding what you meant?

Edited October 2, 2012 by Gorlom

[451]

That was posted by Gazz last year though. I'm not sure it's still valid.

Doesn't that depend on how the pyramid structure works? If you can only have 1 colonel 3 captains and 5 lieutenants then you can't have 12 colonels in your active team.

Needing x lieutenants to promote one to captain also prevents that.

Or am I misunderstanding what you meant?

As far as it stands, unless there is something to the contrary that I am missing, it stands as is with what Gazz has stated.

Pyramid structured ranks means that after x amount of soldiers have been recruited, a slot opens up for promotion and is granted to the most meritorious individual. Example: After 6 soldiers have been recruited in X-com, you can get your first sergeant. After 11 soldiers, you can get your first captain, and another sergeant slot opens up. It continues to progress like that, with one overall commander allowed for up to 250 soldiers, 10 colonels, 22 captains, 50 sergeants and unlimited squaddies and rookies.

You were absolutely meant to protect your officer types (Sergeants, captains, colonels and commander) because not only was there a huge penalty to morale immediately, but the loss of the mitigation towards future losses could be devastating for rookies you're trying to bring up.

[Gauddlike]

I can see that type of logic affecting the current XCOM re-imaging done by Firaxis considering that you only have 1 base, but playing the original XCOM where I would build up to 3 or 4 response bases coupled with a few manufacturing bases I would have anywhere between 40 to 90 soldiers, while rotating high-ranking officers to new bases so to have the veterans spread around with the influx of new recruits. Xenonauts seems to reward you for building extra interception bases as you can effectively cover more of the world and respond to alien threats more often. The missions that they would run, which would be very frequently, would mostly comprise of A captain or colonel, 2 to 3 sergeants, and the rest being 6 to 7 rookies and squaddies for the interception crew, with a small contingency back at base in case of an emergency base attack.

That assumes everyone plays in the same way you do.

I, for example, keep a squad together once it is formed, only adding new members to replace losses or to get rookies that all important first rank.

If there was no limit on the number of higher ranks then I would probably do this more often than if there was a pyramid type rank structure due to morale bonuses.

In your example my statement still holds true.

All (or the majority if you would prefer) of your highest ranks are going to be members of your active teams.

They get promoted on the basis of combat gains so those who are regularly in combat will progress faster than others.

You could deliberately make your active squads weaker if you wanted to by leaving your higher ranks on guard duty in the base of course.

That is a deliberate choice though rather than a natural result of the pyramid structure, or the freeform structure.

If you choose to cycle your troops out then you would have a large number of decent troops rather than a large group of rookies and a small group of veterans.

If you can only have 1 colonel 3 captains and 5 lieutenants then you can't have 12 colonels in your active team.

I didn't say you would have 12 of your highest rank, I said that the 12 would be your highest ranks.

A subtle difference but important

If you had 12 colonels available they would probably be in the squad (assuming you didn't swap out to others).

If you had 1 colonel 3 captains and 5 lieutenants as your highest available ranks then they would all be present.

That is why I don't mind which system is used because it makes no real difference to my squad make up in my mind.

The only reason I do slightly lean toward the pyramid structure is because I like the limited ranks being available only to my best/favourite troops.

That novelty wears off when the game promotes the wrong person and they have to have an 'accident' (never shower without making sure you aren't still wearing your stun rod) so the correct person can have that rank.

[Gauddlike]

You were absolutely meant to protect your officer types (Sergeants, captains, colonels and commander) because not only was there a huge penalty to morale immediately, but the loss of the mitigation towards future losses could be devastating for rookies you're trying to bring up.

Forgot to reply to this part.

It didn't really matter about the rank so much to me.

Your better troops would regularly be lower ranks when they can still gain stats when there is no promotion available.

If you take your commander along but hang back and avoid getting into the fight (or leave him in the base so he was safe) you would eventually find that your squaddies who had no available rank to progress to had better stats than your high ranks.

It becomes much more devastating to lose an experienced squaddie in that situation than to lose the commander.

The commander is having no real influence on the fight while the main combat role has moved from your elite (but low ranked) soldier and given to a rookie.

If promotion is not limited by a pyramid structure then you always know that the higher ranked trooper has gained more stats than the rank below him.

That is one of the many reasons for the discussion about using non real world ranks for progression.

The ranks show how much the soldier has progressed, it doesn't really relate to their role in the fight as a real world rank would.

[451]

Forgot to reply to this part.

It didn't really matter about the rank so much to me.

Your better troops would regularly be lower ranks when they can still gain stats when there is no promotion available.

If you take your commander along but hang back and avoid getting into the fight (or leave him in the base so he was safe) you would eventually find that your squaddies who had no available rank to progress to had better stats than your high ranks.

It becomes much more devastating to lose an experienced squaddie in that situation than to lose the commander.

The commander is having no real influence on the fight while the main combat role has moved from your elite (but low ranked) soldier and given to a rookie.

If promotion is not limited by a pyramid structure then you always know that the higher ranked trooper has gained more stats than the rank below him.

That is one of the many reasons for the discussion about using non real world ranks for progression.

The ranks show how much the soldier has progressed, it doesn't really relate to their role in the fight as a real world rank would.

There is an active discussion about how higher ranking individuals affect morale when a soldier is killed. Bringing out your one commander on a mission would be beneficial to a mission you feel you're unavoidably going to lose soldiers in, because you have to assume that risk in order to maintain combat effectiveness.

As to your earlier statement about how you work your squads, yes, it is a play style, but my understanding of Xenonauts and X-Com is that it absolutely rewards you for having a greater area of coverage, which means bringing up multiple squads to man these stations. If you sank all of your high-ranking operatives into one base, you would have a disparity in the effectiveness of your squads to maintain cohesion when the inevitable losses occur.

I firmly believe that if you have a morale bonus or loss due to an inherent bonus from a rank then it is necessary to have a pyramid style rank where it becomes a finite resource. If the ranks are only mean to associate with a level it becomes the opposite, morale should be a static gain or loss unaffected by how many captains or rookies you have.

[Sneakingviper]

I still find it weird to have commander as the top rank, since that is a naval rank and all others are land based ranks.. The old Xcom used naval ranks for all (from Ensign to Commander).

While I am aware that US calls all their branches commander, as short for commanding officer. And New Zealand has copied that. All other countries use the title only for their Naval branch, which it originaly came from.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Sneakingviper

[451]

TFD used naval ranks where as X-Com EU used shortened Army ranks with Commander being the highest.

[Sneakingviper]

TFD used naval ranks where as X-Com EU used shortened Army ranks with Commander being the highest.

I stand corrected, indeed just discovered a page that presented the ranks of TFD and UFO. And I remembered incorrectly.

[Gorlom]

I still find it weird to have commander as the top rank, since that is a naval rank and all others are land based ranks.. The old Xcom used naval ranks for all (from Ensign to Commander).

While I am aware that US calls all their branches commander, as short for commanding officer. And New Zealand has copied that. All other countries use the title only for their Naval branch, which it originaly came from.

top rank is colonel, second to top rank is commander

And Chris England (lead dev) is British

Edited October 2, 2012 by Gorlom

[451]

top rank is colonel, second to top rank is commander

And Chris England (lead dev) is British

Are you talking about Xcom or xenonauts? XCOM EU has the highest rank a Commander, where Captain is the highest in TFD if that's the case.

[Gorlom]

Are you talking about Xcom or xenonauts? XCOM EU has the highest rank a Commander, where Captain is the highest in TFD if that's the case.

I was talking about Xenonauts.

Are you talking about Firaxis game XCOM EU or Microprose's game UFO: EU/ X-com UD ?

Edited October 2, 2012 by Gorlom

[Sneakingviper]

In X-Com Enemy unknown (from Microprose) commander was the highest, and captain was the highest in TFTD.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Rank

[Gorlom]

In X-Com Enemy unknown (from Microprose) commander was the highest, and captain was the highest in TFTD.

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Rank

Ok, I'm not following the transfer from discussing Xenonauts ranking system to suddenly talking about UFO:EUs rank names?

I assumed this was still somehow relevant to Xenonauts.

I hope you can understand why I was confused?

[Sneakingviper]

Sorry for confusing you Gorlum, that was not my intent.

I was just confused by the mix between branches in Xenonauts when it came to titles, however, that seems to be true to the original, so nevermind

[451]

I guess officer promotions would have to be based on experience gained as a group somehow, then you choose who to promote. It can't simply be based on buying soldiers because that's not right. Presumably we could do something where all the experience gained by units at Sergeant rank and above goes into a pot and once it reaches a certain amount, you can promote any of your Sergeants or officers by one rank?

Being able to choose to promote NCOs or Officers is an interesting idea. I'm not sure if it's inherently better than just having limited promotions above Sergeant (chosen by you) and then REALLY feeling it when they die. It's more complex, but not necessarily better - bear in mind troops will increase their stats independently of their ranks.

I just saw this from Chris. While I can see this being effective, I'm a little reluctant to let go of the notion that you have to have x amount of troops before you can get a higher ranking officer. The experience pool for choosing an officer is a great idea. I know Xenonauts isn't a 1 to 1 remake of X-com, but even then X-com didn't force you to have too many soldiers for a commander to be brought in (30 for 1 commander).

I also enjoy the idea of making it a finite resource much like the original X-com. Maybe allowing 1 of each rank to be open immediately, then expanding based off of numbers would be a better solution.

[TornadoADV]

Commander should be taken as Commanding Officer, rather then the literal rank of Commander.

[Gorlom]

Sorry for confusing you Gorlum, that was not my intent.

I was just confused by the mix between branches in Xenonauts when it came to titles, however, that seems to be true to the original, so nevermind

So it was relevant.... but not in the way I assumed. I'm really confused now

[Yevgeniy]

Marshal

General

Brigadier

Colonel

Major

Captain

Lieutenant

Warrant

Sergeant

Corporal

Private

[StellarRat]

Most military organizations are headed up by a civilian. So maybe the top dog should be Director or Secretary or even Minister. Also, as some have pointed out some militaries have 1st and 2nd Lt's or Lt. Jg (Junior Grade) and Lt. Colonels and Colonels (full colonel). In US military there is no Marshal rank, but there are many levels of General and Admiral. There are a quite a few variations on all this stuff and to add to the confusion at least in the US military an US Army Captain isn't nearly as high a rank as a US Navy Captain.