Credibility with Ranks

The situation I encountered is that currently in a base I have 8 captains, 3 lieutenants and 1 corporal. To me that's just silly and I wonder why there wasn't thought about a mechanic to prohibit situations like this. If I remember correct for example X-Com Terror from the Deep had a system where - according to the number of your total soldiers - there were only a limited amount of high ranking officers. Only when a captain died or when you hired more soldiers there was the possibility for someone else to be promoted to captain.

It's an entirely unnecessary immersion breaker in my opinion. Just as the fact that "the best of the best" soldiers of the world, from special units and usually with combat experience, get sent to you as privates as if they would just have entered the army yesterday.

The solution I would see to this is to at least let every Xenonaut start as Specialist and from that on take much smaller steps (more ranks) towards the officer ranks as well as create a limit for officers like 1 lieutenant for every 8 xenonauts, 1 captain for every 16 etc.

Another option would be to stick with the current system and grant the bonuses for promotion (if there are any) but leave it to player to decide which soldiers they want to be promoted. It would result in a "this soldier has excelled himself on the field for promotion. If you want to promote him sign/click here". mechanic.

It's mostly because rank is used as an easy way of telling how experienced the soldier is in Xenonauts. I don't really see what is gained from a gameplay standpoint if you have to hire an additional 20 rookies you're not going to use just so your best soldier can rank up again (a la the original game).

Whoa! A personal reply from our beloved leader!

Topic wise: I guess I'm just a big immersion fan yet don't soldiers also increase their stats after a mission, even though they don't get promoted?

If yes, then ranks would be purely cosmetic anyway.

If not, then it is as it is and I guess what I and people who feel like me can do about it would be at least to change the rank names manually to a more credible ranking system. If the Xenonauts project is already in a constant struggle for funding, the last I would want to do is to pay my operatives needlessly the salary of a captain.

Yeah, they do. But it's easier to glance at your soldier's rank than all six (?) stats. If your guy is a Colonel it's a fairly safe bet he'll have a better set of overall stats than a Private or a Lieutenant, so it's basically just a convenience thing. Feel free to rename the ranks in strings.xml if you want.

The soldiers all get the same salary anyway so there's no need to worry about the finances

Gaining rank uses the same mechanics as gaining stats. Your guys actually get promoted when they gain X number of stat points, where X is a different value for each given rank.

It's not a regular army, it's special team. In the group ALFA, the russian spetsnaz no any fighters in rank less than 1st lieutenant. In majority they are captains and majors.

It's not a regular army, it's special team. In the group ALFA, the russian spetsnaz no any fighters in rank less than 1st lieutenant. In majority they are captains and majors.

I see. That's quite interesting to know Gonzales. It feels a bit like the team from the series "Stargate" then with it's Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter even though as an american SpecOps, e.g. a SEAL, you'll leave boot camp as an E-3 and you'll be at least an E-4, perhaps E-5 when you leave training. So quite far away from any officer rank.

If you're having trouble with your immersion, I've made a mod called "Xenonaut Real Ranks" where it changes the rank names to Xenonaut-0, Xenonaut-1, etc. The reasoning being the number denotes combat experience against extraterrestrials. Link is in the signature.

I see. That's quite interesting to know Gonzales. It feels a bit like the team from the series "Stargate" then with it's Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter even though as an american SpecOps, e.g. a SEAL, you'll leave boot camp as an E-3 and you'll be at least an E-4, perhaps E-5 when you leave training. So quite far away from any officer rank.

SEAL is like Spetsnaz GRU and (or) Airborne. Its army with the boot camps, regular ranks, etc. ALFA - special team for special purposes. It's formed of people with combat experience. The same is in Xenonauts.

The Xenonauts - special team where colonel commanding majors))))))))))

p.s. excuse my english))

It's mostly because rank is used as an easy way of telling how experienced the soldier is in Xenonauts. I don't really see what is gained from a gameplay standpoint if you have to hire an additional 20 rookies you're not going to use just so your best soldier can rank up again (a la the original game).

SEAL is like Spetsnaz GRU and (or) Airborne. Its army with the boot camps, regular ranks, etc. ALFA - special team for special purposes. It's formed of people with combat experience. The same is in Xenonauts.

The Xenonauts - special team where colonel commanding majors))))))))))

Sorry, but you are terribly wrong. I am not sure about SpecNaz, but western SF do have normal rank systems where most men in field are enlisted.

For example SEAL platoon is lead by Lieutenant O-3 and assisted by Lieutenant Junior Grade O-2, rest of platoon (14 men) are enlisted, usually Petty Officers E-4 to E-6, but can go up to E-9.

Do not get confused by term "Petty Officer", it is equivalent of sergeant.

Seals have roughly 500 officers and 2000 enlisted according to:

http://navyseals.com/nsw/learn-about-the-us-navy-seals/

There is no fluid advancement from enlisted to officer, its just a little different job.

I would expect that SpecNaz is similar in this way, and typical veteran combat operator would be rather 'starshina', not 'polkovnik'. Intelligence and counter-intelligence units may be made of officers though.

But why would you do that? Rank in X-Com was almost entirely disadvantageous, simply increasing the penalty when the guy bites it. It works much the same way here: If half your team is low-ranking, nobody cares too much when some die...if your team is only Colonels, they'll completely lose their shit the moment one bites it.

Having high ranking officers around in the original game also reduced the morale loss for casualties. A Skyranger full of rookies and your highest ranking dude (Who was preferably armed with a blaster launcher and a psiamp) who sat at the back of the skyranger all mission was a great way to train rookies - as long as your officer didn't die, half the rookies could die and yet everyone would stay pretty cheerful.

Having high ranking officers around in the original game also reduced the morale loss for casualties. A Skyranger full of rookies and your highest ranking dude (Who was preferably armed with a blaster launcher and a psiamp) who sat at the back of the skyranger all mission was a great way to train rookies - as long as your officer didn't die, half the rookies could die and yet everyone would stay pretty cheerful.