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These might have already been decided on, and I have no idea how many differents ranks there will be. but I'd like to see something like this:

Private

Private 1st Class (Squaddie)

Corporal

Sergeant

Master Sergeant

Lieutenant

Captain

Major

Colonel

Commander

Don't really like the idea of a General fighting on the front lines.

Btw, does this game have the same kind of rank limitations as in X-Com? I liked this feature myself, as it would feel a bit silly to have a strike team full of Commanders and Colonels. Plus it was always fun to see which soldiers become the commanding officers of my team.

EDIT: Noticed that this is already answered in the sticky thread. Not sure how I feel about this though, if the whole team are Commanders, the rank kinda loses it's meaning.

Edited by Lokik
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EDIT: Noticed that this is already answered in the sticky thread. Not sure how I feel about this though, if the whole team are Commanders, the rank kinda loses it's meaning.

I don't think this will happen unless you start reloading the game every time one of your guys kicks the bucket.

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Agreed, I also don't like the idea of being able to use allcCommanders in a mission, it really makes no sense and the whole purpose of rank obsolete. Heck even having more commanders than anythign else in your whole army is odd...

I don't think this will happen unless you start reloading the game every time one of your guys kicks the bucket.

And this will be the result, more tempting to do even more savegame reloads as you want the best squad... ok this is something you make up for yourself but still, it removes flavor. Will be the opposite for me probably, less reloads as I would feel like cheating having all super high ranked soldiers. I like having 1 commander, he's the man, prevent him from dying at big costs etc... that's flavor and coolness !

Edited by Leto
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Most of the time a Colonel is the highest rank you could find going into known combat (Brigadier being differently interpreted depending on service). It's a Generals perogative to do what he wants to though : )

Plus, Commander is only an official rank in some of the worlds navies, where it comes below Captain (which equates to a higher rank than the ground forces), otherwise it's a mission-specific designation to be held by an appropriate rank. Which is a shame, as it comes with a certain gravitas...

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A lot of people complain about this a lot. I really don't have a problem with it, but that's just me. Perhaps after a while, the ranks stop increasing, instead they diversify. What I mean by this is that after Lt. they rarely are on the front lines (As far as I know, I'm not in any armed forces so I could be wrong).

Perhaps the solution could be something like (in no particular order after the first few, and these are just examples):

Rookie

Squaddie

Corporal

Sergeant

Master Sergeant

Commando

Operative

Specialist

Expert

Infiltrator

Etc.

this way, the ranks don't really represent the seniority of the soldier, but rather their experience. The commander is always the highest rank, and I think the biggest objection that if you have a squad of commanders, who's in charge? It's unrealistic.

With this however, they are all roughly the same rank, some of them are just more experienced. You'll also notice I didn't have any officers, I think that should be you, but that's just my opinion.

Thoughts?

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This got talked about alot. Its not actually necessary due to the personnel screen allowing you to sort troops by their stats, as well as seeing all their stats on one screen (pending the new GUI change).

As far as I remember, it was decided to have a proper limited pyramid hierarchy (like X-com), with the possibility of having the officer promotions being player-controlled.

You'll still end up with a pile of Sergeants though, if you do well.

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Well it's certainly under consideration to have manually-promoted officers, but the system isn't nailed down yet. It's something we're going to have to play around with in the beta I think as right now we're concentrating on game-critical systems that haven't been implmeneted yet.

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I like the idea of player controlled promotions, back with Xcom I remember always having the "Why was HE promoted?" moments.

As for having a squad of all commanders etc, it may look odd and certainly is not realistic, but why should an equally experience soldier not gain the value of a promotion that really is earned...?

One thought I am having now is if there is a capped system a la Xcom where you need X many soldiers altogether to have officers of given ranks, but let's say you have just jumped up enough troops to have a captain, but your two lieutenants are both equally qualified for the role, one becomes captain, the other becomes, I'm thinking First Lieutenant (but it's not good), just something to signify that they are next in line and gain a smaller stat bonus than a normal promotion - then for every promotion they might have received based on experience but don't because there aren't enough troops for another captain they get another small boost, and another marker against there rank to show they are still moving up ...?

Would probably be quite difficult to implement, but could still allow you to have a squad of super-troopers that still adhere to nominal rank structure

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Well it's certainly under consideration to have manually-promoted officers, but the system isn't nailed down yet.

Thank you, will be like in the original X-COM.

Proposal:

01. Airman (need 1 soldier)

02. Corporal (need 3 soldiers)

03. Sergeant (need 5 soldiers)

04. Ensign (need 8 soldiers)

05. Lieutenant (need 10 soldiers)

06. Captain (need 15 soldiers)

07. Major (need 20 soldiers)

08. Colonel (need 40 soldiers)

09. Brigadier (need 60 soldiers)

10. General (need 80 soldiers)

11. Marshal (need 100 soldiers)

Edited by Yevgeniy
Proposal
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Back on the old forums I suggested an idea where you had two 'paths' you could promote your soldiers down, either the officer or the NCO tracks. Officers got stuff like moral boosts, and other passive bonus' that affect soldiers around them (and possibly increased psi capability in the late game) while NCO's improve in individual combat capability. It would introduce a little bit more of an RPG element to the game since you'd actually want to pay attention to your rookies stats when you decide how to promote them.

The NCO ranks would look something like Private, PFC, Corporal, Sargent, Sargent First Class, Master Sargent.

the officer ranks would look something like Private, 2nd Lt., Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, Commander.

Since officer ranks are not as combat effective on an individual basis it would create less of an incentive to promote everyone down the officer path. A player would need to balance the two tracks and ensure that he has sufficient officers to support his NCO's while at the same time having enough NCO's to do the bulk of the fighting.

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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.

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Instead of direct combat bonuses what if the NCO ranks had a synergy with officer ones so that both are needed to achieve an effect.

This is what I had in mind.:

-Officer rank - the ability to lead, determines the potential strength of the "leadership aura"

-NCO rank - the ability to take advantage of leadership and implement it on the field

Example:

Let's say you have a rank 3 officer providing a +3 (to whatever) aura to nearby men. However the accompanying NCO is of rank 2 so his received bonus is only +2. Same logic applies across the board.

Officers are weaker because they can't receive aura bonuses (they're job is to lead) while NCOs are front line guys with greater combat potential provided they have good enough leaders. NCO rank means nothing without an officer to fulfill its potential and vice versa, both classes need each other.

Officers are more valuable since they are the bonus providers and are likely to lvl up more slowly due to not receiving the aura benefits. Players will also have a tendency to keep them away from harm.

The snag lies in the fact that officer rank still needs to carry a certain bravery bonus for the officer in question since they are supposed to be more "mentally reliable" than those they lead and to whom they provide the aura benefits. Therefore this situation assumes the aura effects would go beyond just bravery and would also provide other bonuses like better reaction fire, defense or maybe even a small TU bonus (soldier needs to start his turn inside the aura to gain the bonus for that turn).

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That just takes us to a list of ranks. Nothing on the correct order of ranking up. Oh and they're all American, so kind of a moot point. Interesting, but I don't know what you meant to say when you quoted me with that...

I like this idea of sergeants spreading the officers aura. However might I suggest something else, more in line with how I envision soldiers on the battlefield? It's probably too complex and useless, but it might provide some other ideas.

I see sergeants as the leaders of the grunts, the ones who actually live and fight with the men. Officers are the leaders of sergeants, in that they give this squad an order, and that one another. So sergeants could give the immediate soldiers a moral boost. Officers could give something else, for instance a psi protection boost, or an accuracy boost, etc. Or it could be the other way around.

Thoughts?

Edited by anotherdevil
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My opinion is that, as others have pointed out, you don't ever see a general out in the field, probably not a colnel or even a major... A captain is probably as high as you'd see and even that is somewhat less likely... And by "in the field", I mean carrying a firearm, shooting, and being shot at, which is basically what's going on in the game. The airforce is an exception, since I believe anyone flying a jet has to be an officer for the most part.

To that end, if you want to be "realistic", the player is the general (directing the troops, taking the larger view) and really anyone running around the map shooting stuff is not going to be much more senior than a lieutenant, possibly a captain.

That having been said, clearly realism is not the most important consideration in the game, so why not drop the arguments on what's "realistic" or not and focus on what adds the most to the gameplay.

I like the idea of having a dual track of NCOs and officers, and the idea that officers add value primarily by boosting the stats and morale of the other guys. I'm especially fond of the idea that once a soldier is designated as an officer (and this would almost have to be an active choice by the player or it could suck a lot), they earn experience primarily through the actions and success of their troops rather than their own actions.

My personal opinion of the sergeants extending the area of influence of the officers is that that would be taking it too far - you're then essentially creating 3 different classes of soliders - officers, NCOs, and regular soldiers whereas I think a 2 class split is sufficient - officers and non-officers should do the trick.

I'm also a fan of the idea that up to a certain point (probably around the 3rd of 10 ranks, for example), promotions happen automatically upon achievement of certain milestones (x missons, or y successful missions, or z combined stat gains, etc.) and after that, are discretionary based on accumulated points (ie you can choose who to promote and into which channel).

It would also be interesting to have "achievements" or "specialties" whereby individual troops get special bonuses for achieving certain milestones (ie "make 50 aimed shots" gives you a "sniper" achievement, with an accuracy or AP bonus to using DMR class weapons (would not apply to assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, etc.)) Note that this would require that all or most alien weapons be "classed" as, for example "Sniper weapons" "Assault weapons" "Shotgun type weapons" "pistols", etc. and that this would not have to be restricted to weapons, the idea could also be applied to equipment (medic, grenadier, etc.)

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Morale currently is psi-protection as well. The better your morale, the better you resist. Officers improve it by making it harder for morale to be reduced (and maybe adding some as well, but that might just be mob-boosting).

I do like the sound of Chris' idea too.

Still a bit iffy about creating actual classes, but I can see how it would help further define trooper roles beyond their stats growing with their actions.

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I agree with the Officer/NCO branching paths. May I offer a suggestion for ranks? Numbers can be tweaked, focus on the concept!

01. Private (rookies)

02. Corporal (need 3 Privates)

03. Sergeant (need 3 Corporals)

04. Staff Sergeant (need 3 Sergeants) [it is here that the player must manually promote Staff Sergeants to either Warranty Officer or Gunnery Sergeant (NCO)

Officer Path

05. Warrant Officer (need 3 Staff Sergeants)

06. Chief Warrant Officer (need 5 Warrant Officers + Gunnery Sergeants) [Any combination of 5. With everything that's being described in this thread, it seems the best choice would be 1-2 Warrant Officers and 3-4 Gunnery Sergeants]

07. 2nd Lieutenant (need 5 Chief Warrant Officers + Master Sergeants)

08. 1st Lieutenant (need 5 2nd Lieutenants + First Sergents)

NCO Path

05. Gunnery Sergeant (need 3 Staff Sergeants)

06. Master Sergeant (need 5 Gunnery Sergeants + Warrant Officers)

07. First Sergeant (need 5 Master Sergeants + Chief Warrant Officers)

08. Sergeant Major (need 5 First Sergeants + 2nd Lieutenants)

Final Promotion

09. Captain (need 2 Sergeant Majors + 1st Lientenants; limit 1) [This will be the equivalent of Commander in XCOM]

Thoughts?

Edited by 81dB
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