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Should we change the soldier ranks?  

52 members have voted

  1. 1. Should we change the soldier ranks?

    • Yea (change to the suggestion below)
      20
    • Nay (leave them the way they are)
      14
    • Yea, Other (explain in comments below)
      18


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I am not a number, I am a forum avatar!

What about having no ranks at all? Pulled from all corners of the globe, the Xenonauts fight equally for survival of the species. In the face of such adversity, they have shown that rank is meaningless*. Needless to say, that once the final award ceremony is over all Xenonauts are shot by the US for being commies.

* the only "superior" rank is you the player, controlling their actions. An extension would be to score the player in ranks.

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  • 2 weeks later...
I voted yeah, even though I would like slightly different ranks, just because my nitpicking isn't that important and your ranks would be far better than current.

A squad of majors and colonels out fighting in close quarters combat is ludicrous and really hurts immersion for me.

Gah, the number of commanders posting in this thread is totally ruining immersion. ;)

Seriously though, in X-com, its iterations, and Xenonauts I always thought of the ranks as sort of an honorary award for fighting incredibly dangerous foes for the betterment of humanity. I always had in mind the scenes from Apocalypse now when the brass were going to make Cpt. Willard a Major for taking out Kurtz. Not that Apocalypse now is a particularly accurate depiction of military promotion procedure. Failing that, I think of the military ranks of not a few astronauts. A fair amount of those gentlemen ended their careers as Lt. Colonels and Colonels, with even a few Generals and Admirals.

I'm fine with the ranking, as it is. It seems more acceptable on harder difficulties without save-scumming due to a higher turnover rate (nice cleaned up euphemism there).

edit: If anything, more immersion ruining for me is the thought of us pitting green privates against aliens. If we were sending elite troops against an imminent alien threat, I would imagine we would pull our best combat troops from across the world to combat it and absolutely none of them would be privates, let alone privates without previous combat experience.

Edited by Bovine
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I had suggested something for another guy's mod that eschewed the generalized ranks of most army/navy/air force systems and followed something a little more in-line with the depiction of Xenonauts as heavy-on-grunts rapid-reaction force: the United States Marine Corps; more specifically, a system that follows the track of an infantry weapons specialist: from private to a warrant officer, namely...

Private (E-1). Private First Class (E-2). Lance Corporal (E-3), Corporal (E-4), Sergeant (E-5), Staff Sergeant (E-6), Gunnery Sergeant (E-7), Warrant Officer (WO-1)

This skips out the more senior enlisted ranks that one would normally find sitting in an office, or coordinating training, and focuses entirely on personnel you would actually see on the ground in the fight, and obviates the idea that you'd have these brand-new officers out of some school with no experience running around telling these guys what to do, as well as foregoing on the concept that you have "colonels" running around on the ground doing gruntwork. What it does depict is a bunch of guys running the gamut from rookies up to experienced veterans who are masters of their craft. The whole "Privates in Xenonauts" thing makes a good deal more sense, too, if one assumes that something akin to what the Brits do with troops who've completed Selection for the Regiment do: reduce their nominal rank to Trooper, the equivalent of a Private, and have them work their way up from there, sidelong and independent of their prior rank.

One could go a step farther with this in-universe thinking and wonder why we'd be using a UK structure; they're part of NATO of course, but they weren't exactly moving and shaking tactical development or doctrine, even in the 70s, and they weren't anywhere near where the United States and Russia were at the time when it comes down to it, as far as the development and race between superpowers was going, either militarily or politically.

All THAT said, GizmoGomez's suggestion makes a mountain of sense, especially compared with the system we have in place with the vanilla build, which just comes off as more than a little silly. But hey, at least we got rid of the vaguely childish-sounding "Rookie/Squaddie" thing.

Edited by EchoFourDelta
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#1 I do believe we should change the ranks....by adding to them.

1. private

2. Private 1st class

3. corporal

4. sergeant

5. staff sergeant

6.Sergeant first class

7. Master Sergeant

8. Sergeant major

9.2nd lt

10. 1st lt

11. captain

12. major

13. lt colonel

14. Colonel this would be final rank.

#2 I would like to see more medals added

#3 I would like to see a wall of the dead added...a roster of all the troops you've lost.

If you agree with these points please say so in a clear and defined way as this post has gotten a little long and may not get much visual recognition with how divided things are currently.

I believe all 3 of these things would add important immersion..please please be specific on any of my points you agree with and want to see happen so we can get something done and finalized with the rank debate.

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#1 I do believe we should change the ranks....by adding to them.

1. private

2. Private 1st class

3. corporal

4. sergeant

5. staff sergeant

6.Sergeant first class

7. Master Sergeant

8. Sergeant major

9.2nd lt

10. 1st lt

11. captain

12. major

13. lt colonel

14. Colonel this would be final rank.

If you agree with these points please say so in a clear and defined way as this post has gotten a little long and may not get much visual recognition with how divided things are currently.

The thing that's making things silly are exactly what you're suggesting; it's odd to see anyone above the rank of captain doing much of anything in the field other than a one-day observation of something or other, or being transported to a different location. The same can be said of just about anything above E-7 on the enlisted side. Seeing things like Master Sergeant and Sergeant Major is kinda shady; it just makes it look like someone copy-pasted the ranks up with no real understanding of what they're supposed to be. The thing on the other end of that with the junior officer ranks is equally bad; a 2nd Lieutenant is a brand-new officer fresh out of school, and unless he came straight from the enlisted as a mustang, you end up with a situation where most privates first class and lance corporals know better.

The ultra-senior enlisted ranks, super-junior officers, and the high-ranking field-grade officers make little to no sense given the context of the game, hence the very sensible suggestion that GizmoGomez made with it being a redesignation from rank to a particular soldier's efficacy in combat, or my slightly later suggestion of implementing a rank structure that kinda makes sense, and which runs a plausible progression from a boot brand new to the organization to someone who's specialized to the point they're subject matter experts.

Simply copying the US Army's enlisted and officer grade tables in their near entirety without understanding how they fit together doesn't answer much of anything.

Edited by EchoFourDelta
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I think there may be an 8 rank limit?

In one of the many threads on this (is it just me or are there a lot of threads for the same subjects lately) I was happy with:-

Private, Lance Corporal, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant Major, 2nd Lieutenant, Lieutenant, Captain.

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Echofourdelta.....

I do understand the ranks and what they do....it would be very easy to defend them for a number of ways and reasons but I'm just gonna go ahead and do it the easy way to keep this short.

X-com Udo defense uses the rank of colonel as it's final rank.......this game sold millions of copies. Your argument however logical you want it to be, has no point in sales or immersion.

Finally Doing it the way I suggested recognizes Experience for the ranks and lastly a special command like Xcom can have any rank going on a mission it wants...Case in point...it is not unusual for a navy seal team to have 5 sergeants and 2 captains on the same mission.......and lastly if a colonel of navy seals wanted to go on a mission guess what....he would...My father happens to be a former navy seal so I know of this happening.

Thothkins I saw your suggestion, I'd rather see it stay what it is then change to the set you suggested. I'm not a fan of lance corporals and the point of going above 8 was to further be invested in the troops and to help shut down the promotions r to fast argument. So even if we take away master sergeant and sergeant major...we would still have 12....

Edited by Jmac006
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Echofourdelta.....

Case in point...it is not unusual for a navy seal team to have 5 sergeants and 2 captains on the same mission.......and lastly if a colonel of navy seals wanted to go on a mission guess what....he would...My father happens to be a former navy seal so I know of this happening.

Well, yes, it is. Because the Navy doesn't have "Sergeants" and "Captains" (well, they have a rank called "Captain," but it's equivalent to a Colonel in the Marine Corps, Army, or Air Force.). As for enlisted ranks in the Navy SEALs, the term you're looking for is "Petty Officer." These come in various flavors according to grade. The Navy doesn't have "Colonels" at all.

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You clearly think I need the military explained, I'm a former US Army Infantry soldier...so nothing you can tell me that I do not already know.... Also I was speaking relatively about the ranks for seal teams....However it seems you want to be semantic about it...so replace sergeant with e-5 and replace colonel with whatever rank you want, cause if a field grade seal wants to go on a mission, he does.

I'm done wasting time on your posts. Enjoy the game.

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A few thoughts I have about the rank names:

1) About the "Commander"

The rank of Commander at the top of the hierarchy followed by Colonel evokes a strong sense of familiarity (even if not entirely militarily accurate) due to the original X-COM and other space-oriented sci-fi. Battlestar Galactica, for example, follows this same relationship where the Commander is the top officer, and the Colonel is second in command.

Part of what really adds to the "feel" of an X-Com game is the fact that the "Commander" is really just the truest avatar of the player. In X-COM UFO Defense, there was only 1 Commander (and you all know you gave that soldier your own name), and in XCOM EU, the Commander rank was removed, but the implication was that YOU were the Commander, and you were always addressed as such. During contests to draft rank names such as this thread, one would be wise to remember that in X-COM, you are the Commander, and the Commander is you. Switching the Colonel & Commander ranks as Xenonauts has done seems like an unnecessary shake-up of the familiar, but I can begrudgingly accept it.

2) Appropriate Rank Names

There's a major style choice apparent in the ranks X-COM names, which it seems pretty clear the Xenonauts designers have picked up on. Below are all the ranks, save for one, collectively found in UFO Defense, Terror From the Deep, Enemy Unknown, and Xenonauts. What do you notice about all these ranks?

a) Rookie

b) Seaman

c) Private

d) Squaddie

e) Ensign

f) Corporal

g) Sergeant

h) Lieutenant

i) Captain

j) Major

k) Colonel

l) Commander

The answer is: every one of those ranks is a single word. These ranks were selected for their simplicity, and decisively avoid creating new ranks by simply concatenating lower ranks. I would like to add more named ranks (after all, a chief source of joy in X-COM is watching your little chess pieces transform from mushy weaklings barely capable of holding a gun into majestic superhuman death incarnate), but to remain consistent with the proper atmosphere of an X-COM game, ranks like Petty Officer, Lance Corporal, Sergeant Major, Lieutenant Commander, or any rank with a number in it (i.e. 2nd Lt.) should all be avoided. Going against this single-word naming convention would do far more to break immersion than having 15 colonels in your squad ever could.

3) What other military ranks could we consider?

To expand the number of ranks directly while adhering to the single-word rank rule, some other military ranks seem worthy of consideration, like Admiral, Specialist, or General.

4) What about other militaries?

To me, the concept of military ranking in the X-COM organization is a multinational effort, where human soldiers from all over the planet join forces to combat an enemy much greater than itself. So why is virtually every rank identifiable as an existing rank in the United States military?

The answer, obviously, is that Americans were the target audience of the games, and thus would identify better with military ranks they were more likely to be familiar with. But as times change, couldn't perhaps our military ranks be more multinational as well?

Here are some ranks outside the typical American ones that might fit well into a multinational military organization like the Xenonaut forces:

English: Commodore, Brigadier, Marshal, Cadet

French: Bombardier, Cavalier, Commandant

Chinese: Jiang (general)

German: Stabshauptmann (staff captain), Unteroffizier (corporal)

Russian: Polkovnik (colonel)

I second Jmac006's wish to increase the raw number of ranks in the game, and (most) of the ranks I've mentioned above should be able to fit somewhere in a command hierarchy fairly easily without breaking the immersive feeling of leading a truly multinational military effort against an existential threat.

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Actually, the game is being made by Brits, so I'd imagine the ranks are more British than American. It's a moot point, really, since both militaries use the ranks presented in the game in much a similar way.

We cannot increase the number of ranks, it's hardcoded. Sorry mate.

Also, I wouldn't even bother with traditional ranks; since it's more of a private military that's hired and funded by the world than a UN force or whatever, I just stuck with my rank system. It makes more sense, especially since two big things about being promoted in real life is a larger pay and more/a different responsibility, and in this game every soldier, regardless of rank, has the same pay and responsibility, that is, kill aliens.

Thus, every soldier has the same "rank" as far as the traditional sense goes.

I'd say that rank in this game is more of an experience indicator than anything else.

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Voted other

I think simplifying the ranks to non military experience indicators wouldn't rub people the wrong way.

I'd like to see something including

rookies

squadies

veterans

elites

or keep ranks but make it much harder to get a promotion, i.e. doing 2 missions without firing a shot shouldn't give you a promotion like it is now.

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I agree that dropship packed with colonels is a bullshit. At the same time i want to point out that soldiers level up in terms of rank too quickly. Like from Corporal to Commander in just 2 month? That kind of too quick and too unrealistic even in times of all out war like WW1 or WW2. Btw i wonder why it's Commander (naval rank) not Lieutenant colonel (army rank)? That's the only naval rank among army ranks in game. We are not on a warship or spaceship. Also that a bit confusing because we are (players) addressed as Commander (i believe that goes as a military title, not a rank).

So my suggestion isn't only make ranks like Gizmo said (lower ranks with captain as a maximum rank) but also make that progress a lot slower.

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Recognizing there is a fixed limit on the number of ranks, there is only one suggestion I can offer which realistically has a chance of making it into the final game:

Change the soldier rank of Commander to Commodore (or alternatively, to Commandant).

This will improve the hierarchy of soldier progression, because as I mentioned in my earlier post, the "Commander" is always the supreme or penultimate rank, meant in X-COM/Xenonauts lore to embody the player directly, who has supreme authority in all decisions. The soldier rank of Commander existing (below Colonel) while the player is also referred to as Commander confuses the narrative of the game.

I say this very seriously: this suggestion is the ONLY one about ranks the game designer is likely to even consider, as it should be. The soldier rank of Commander should be changed slightly to Commodore or Commandant, to distinguish it from the rank of Commander given to the player.

If the number of ranks is fixed, any other changes are simply not going to happen, nor should they. Xenonauts is already a great game, that has faithfully stuck to its core vision of replicating the original X-COM with better graphics. The "Supreme Commander", Chris, deserves massive credit for that.

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Commander was the highest rank in Ufo Enemy unknown.

But

1) UFO Defence or Terror from the deep doesn't personificate you. You were there like some omnipresence. While Xenonauts usually address at you directly using that Commander title. So "Commander" as military rank and "Commander" as a military appointment became a bit confusing.

2) There were more complicated promotion system. Not just throwing Colonels left and right.

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Its not unrealistic for a colonel to take the field. A general would be a bit ridiculous.

However, I think Major would be a good place to stop. So in principle I agree - unless you made Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel really, really hard to achieve. Imagine losing them then!!!

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> Its not unrealistic for a colonel to take the field.

Colonels command entire regiments, literally thousands of troops. It's uncommon for even a battalion-leading lieutenant colonel to stray too far from the CoC while administrating his subordinate company commanders. This is a level removed even from that, on an upward tier.

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Since Xenonauts are a "special force" I don't think it is unrealistic that they would gain rank quicker than standard military units.

I mean in the military, what is considered a "field rank" or "combat able rank" depends on the Military Occupational Specialty. For example Explosive Ordinance Disposal Experts tend to have high ranked people out in combat situations because EOD units are usually very small. Aviation officer usually fly combat missions till colonel.

There are several ways you can be more accurate thought, if you want.

1. Use only Enlisted Ranks. In some branches, like the United States Marine Corps (not sure about the Royal Marines), it is possible for enlisted Marines all the way up to E9 (depending on the MOS) to be in combat situations.

2. If you use officer, go up to Captain (not the Navy variety) or use Warrant Officer Ranks. Soldiers fighting Aliens would have to be technical experts in order to utilize and salvage alien technology. Warrant Officer ranks would make sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_officer_%28United_States%29

*EDIT* I recommend something like:

Private, Lance Corporal, Corporal, Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, Sergeant Major, Warrant Officer , Chief Warrant Officer

Edited by B-Kun
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