Author Topic: Suggestion for officer changes  (Read 8163 times)

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Offline Lazerus (OP)

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Suggestion for officer changes
« on: February 24, 2018, 04:00:01 PM »
I'd like to suggest some changes to officer generation given the upcoming changes to officers and the additions of extra billets

While you've said that you want to limit the availability of senior officers to try and keep the amount of full officer crews low in most ships, and that would likely work to a degree, I'd like to make another suggestion based upon what I see as the real sticking point; that being that officers START at LTC, which is the naval equivalent of major in the army.     However, with the introduction of all of those division heads on board a single ship, it is highly unlikely an officer that highly ranked would be heading all of those divisions, extremely so on smaller vessels or non-combat vessels.     For example, the ChEng on most non-cruiser vessels would likely be a Lieutenant or a VERY junior LTC, and the TAO definitely would, or perhaps even a senior LTJG, as an example.   

I would like to suggest adding in Lieutenants to the naval rank system as the rank at which officers spawn, as they are far more likely to be filling most billets that aren't XO on most ships, and would likely be the XO many smaller vessels.     I feel this would also help with maintaining officer scarcity(which appears to be a goal of yours, Steve), as there would be yet another level of promotions needed to reach higher ranks.   

This may require some rejiggering to the military academy spawn rates, however, or a change in the promotion metrics for officers so that it isn't a pure 1:3:9:27:etc ratio for all naval officers.     One other suggestion I'd like to make, if you do introduce these changes, is that, if it is feasible, would be to reduce the amount of experience gain for lower ranking officers so that they don't become absolute monsters by the time they hit commodore or flag rank.   

I feel this would also be more realistic for fighters, for example, as you'd probably see LTJGs or LTs in command of them, instead of LTCs or higher.     LTs would also be more likely to be staffing actual staff positions in administrative roles along with LTCs, meaning that you would be able to compensate for the lower level of LTCs by employing more LTs in staff positions.   


As an example, using the future rules and my own (near endgame tech) level DesRon, all vessels in said squadron are 12000 tons, and would likely have all relevant officer slots open (XO, CHENG, TAO).     The problem being, though, that these are still Destroyers, and the smallest ships I deploy in a main combat role.     They aren't commanded by Captains, but Commanders or Lieutenant Commanders.     Under the revised rules, I wouldn't be able to fill those billets without inflating the ranks of my ship commanders, unless LTs were added or I built a whole bunch of academies to flood officers who would never be assigned anywhere to make up numbers, because I don't have a giant navy overall, and those senior officers are used in staff positions or commanding much larger vessels, which I find completely unintuitive and not quite in line with Aurora.   

On the other hand, if you do want to keep officers solely at the "senior" level of LTCs and higher, then perhaps instead of requiring officers in all billets for all ships, have some kind of graduated size cutoff or checkbox for those modules, where instead of a named officer, a junior officer is the one in the position, with a flat (and low) bonus that never improves, unlike an actual named officer, or just go with directly tweaking the promotion algorithm to keep flag officers rare but increase the numbers of mid-level senior officers.   

Another option, depending on the variables involved, as well, another but more complicated idea I had was that only the "promising" LTs would be available for actual assignments, instead of all of the LTs in the empire, but I'm not sure how well the code could handle only "promoting" the special LTs into existence for assigning to things rather than all LTs as the new bottom rank, with them being promoted to LTC independent of the normal promotion rules. 
« Last Edit: February 24, 2018, 04:40:15 PM by Lazerus »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2018, 06:06:49 PM »
In C# Aurora, You can add as many commander ranks as desired, assign them whatever names you like and specify which rank will command each ship class. The junior officer roles are based on one or two steps below the command rank.

You should be able to handle most of what you describe.
 
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Offline Lazerus (OP)

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2018, 08:48:35 PM »
Well that answers one of my concerns, however I was also wondering about others.

I'm concerned about new officer generation rate and promotion metrics.   If it stays, for example, the same current 3 gets 1 promoted metric as it is now, and you have even one more rank, to get a single top rank officer you'd need something in the neighborhood of 2200 of the lowest ranked officer, and it only gets worse from there.

Would it be possible to tweak the promotion metrics?  Or officer generation rate?  I some concerns about the overall officer numbers in relation to where you'd actually need officers, for example.   Or would you just need to build that many more academies and let attrition take it's course?  Or would you be able to change the ratio of officers promoted?

I also have questions about what can and can't be tracked for officers.   Can time-in-grade be tracked, for example? While it isn't common, it is known to have a skipper and XO of the same rank, especially if the XO is promoted during his time on ship.   If time-in-grade can be tracked, then it could allow for such things to happen, instead of immediately booting a good officer from a place you want him to stay for some time.   I'm not even sure if exceptions like that could be added, however, but I did want to ask about it.   It would also allow, for example, for a flag officer leading a fleet from a flag bridge to be subordinate to an officer in the admin command in charge of the fleet if they're the same rank, but the admin officer is more senior.

The reason I ask these questions is because, using again my current game as an example of what I would likely try to do, my current 1st Battle Fleet ( https://pastebin. com/1ByddQxD ) would need (Assuming 8 ranks in existence, with LT slotting under LTC)

1 Vice Admiral
4-5 Rear Admiral
4-5 Commodores
19 Captains
126 Commanders
129 Lieutenant Commanders
318 Lieutenants

As you can see, with the need for a full Admiral on top of this at the original admin command level, I'd need to somehow generate 2200 LTs, and even then, the rank distribution for any combat force that doesn't get wonky with assignments will by necessity either be short mid-level officers like commanders or captains (depending on assignment level), or have to deal with so many officers being generated a turn that it becomes a nuisance.   And this only covers my first combat fleet, and not the second, as well as the other fleets which require far different officer amounts with different rank requirements, for example, my survey fleet, or my specialist fleet for oddball things like boarding or dropships and the like.   And this is also not adding commercial ships into the mix (Although they would almost all be LTs and LTCs, so not as bad a problem)

I'm not sure what can be done about this in terms of player options or backend work, however, but I did want to bring it up as I can see a good idea behind the reformation of the current fleet/TF system, as well as a new way to use officers.

One other idea I think might help with ensuring there's enough lower ranks around would be to keep staff positions for admin commands, staffed by non-flag officers that would allow for, when fully staffed by officers with the correct bonus, some manner of extra benefit, such as an extra system of HQ coverage or some increase in the CO's effective stats?
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2018, 09:21:15 PM »
Academy commanders will change the distribution of trained special character types (civilian admin commanded academies will be more likely to generate civilian administrators for example), and the Academy commander's skill impacts the general skill distribution as well.

As most characters generated by an Academy are naval officers anyway putting a naval officer as head of an Academy will not have a major impact beyond expected skill distributions.

The ability to define promotion ratios would be nice, as would the ability to define how many officers you want at minimum at a certain rank. Promotion ratios would be more useful though.
 
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Offline Lazerus (OP)

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #4 on: February 24, 2018, 09:49:30 PM »
Quote from: Hazard link=topic=9846. msg106832#msg106832 date=1519528875
Academy commanders will change the distribution of trained special character types (civilian admin commanded academies will be more likely to generate civilian administrators for example), and the Academy commander's skill impacts the general skill distribution as well.

As most characters generated by an Academy are naval officers anyway putting a naval officer as head of an Academy will not have a major impact beyond expected skill distributions.

The ability to define promotion ratios would be nice, as would the ability to define how many officers you want at minimum at a certain rank.  Promotion ratios would be more useful though.

While I agree that commandants would be useful, that doesn't fix the expected problems vis a vis admin command layout, overall senior officers needed, or the sheer number of officers you'd need to fill those slots that WILL be in short supply unless you build a LOT of academies and slow down the game by forcing it to get a few hundred or a couple thousand officers per year.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2018, 05:43:00 AM »
Well that answers one of my concerns, however I was also wondering about others.

I'm concerned about new officer generation rate and promotion metrics.   If it stays, for example, the same current 3 gets 1 promoted metric as it is now, and you have even one more rank, to get a single top rank officer you'd need something in the neighborhood of 2200 of the lowest ranked officer, and it only gets worse from there.

Would it be possible to tweak the promotion metrics?  Or officer generation rate?  I some concerns about the overall officer numbers in relation to where you'd actually need officers, for example.   Or would you just need to build that many more academies and let attrition take it's course?  Or would you be able to change the ratio of officers promoted?

I also have questions about what can and can't be tracked for officers.   Can time-in-grade be tracked, for example? While it isn't common, it is known to have a skipper and XO of the same rank, especially if the XO is promoted during his time on ship.   If time-in-grade can be tracked, then it could allow for such things to happen, instead of immediately booting a good officer from a place you want him to stay for some time.   I'm not even sure if exceptions like that could be added, however, but I did want to ask about it.   It would also allow, for example, for a flag officer leading a fleet from a flag bridge to be subordinate to an officer in the admin command in charge of the fleet if they're the same rank, but the admin officer is more senior.

The reason I ask these questions is because, using again my current game as an example of what I would likely try to do, my current 1st Battle Fleet ( https://pastebin. com/1ByddQxD ) would need (Assuming 8 ranks in existence, with LT slotting under LTC)

1 Vice Admiral
4-5 Rear Admiral
4-5 Commodores
19 Captains
126 Commanders
129 Lieutenant Commanders
318 Lieutenants

As you can see, with the need for a full Admiral on top of this at the original admin command level, I'd need to somehow generate 2200 LTs, and even then, the rank distribution for any combat force that doesn't get wonky with assignments will by necessity either be short mid-level officers like commanders or captains (depending on assignment level), or have to deal with so many officers being generated a turn that it becomes a nuisance.   And this only covers my first combat fleet, and not the second, as well as the other fleets which require far different officer amounts with different rank requirements, for example, my survey fleet, or my specialist fleet for oddball things like boarding or dropships and the like.   And this is also not adding commercial ships into the mix (Although they would almost all be LTs and LTCs, so not as bad a problem)

I'm not sure what can be done about this in terms of player options or backend work, however, but I did want to bring it up as I can see a good idea behind the reformation of the current fleet/TF system, as well as a new way to use officers.

One other idea I think might help with ensuring there's enough lower ranks around would be to keep staff positions for admin commands, staffed by non-flag officers that would allow for, when fully staffed by officers with the correct bonus, some manner of extra benefit, such as an extra system of HQ coverage or some increase in the CO's effective stats?

Here are the actual numbers of US Navy ranks for the last three years. There are about 2100 Lieutenants per Admiral. However, it is interesting that from Lieutenant upwards, each rank is about half of the previous one, except there is a massive drop off after captain. With Aurora it is much more smoothed out, although the top and bottom distributions are similar.

I could modify Aurora to be more on these lines, but that would require the player to designate which is the first flag rank. Maybe I just change to a smaller rank divisor, such as 2.5 or 2.0. While I could add something to allow changing the rank divisor manually, I still need a reasonable default. Although having said that, I still don't have a good idea how the commander assignments with look with all the new junior officer positions and naval admin command positions. I need to run a test game to see how they look in a real situation.

I would prefer not to use time in grade. Aurora does track that already as part of the promotion mechanic, but it would get complex around designating ranks for each role, when that is very clear at the moment in C# Aurora.

« Last Edit: February 25, 2018, 07:51:04 AM by Steve Walmsley »
 
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Offline Lazerus (OP)

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #6 on: February 25, 2018, 07:42:48 AM »
Thanks for the update, Steve.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the test works out.  I definitely think there will need to be a tweak to promotion rates, but I don't have any way of testing it in C# aurora and I know my usual games and organization isn't the norm from what I can tell.

Sorry to hear that the time-in-grade thing won't be that useful though, I thought that would be an excellent way of keeping some commands or ship complements together when promotions happen, or to keep flag officers in line by arranging them via seniority.

Another couple questions I have that I didn't notice an answer to have popped up in my mind though.

With regards to fleet flag officers and admin commands, would the flag officer have to be a full grade lower than the admin officer, or would they be able to be equal rank?

As well, I know that you intend to have ship commanders only apply half their bonuses to crew on their own.   How will this apply to commercial ships?  Will the commercial related bonuses like minings and factory production apply at full or will there be sub-modules and officer slots open for those as well?
« Last Edit: February 25, 2018, 07:44:30 AM by Lazerus »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #7 on: February 25, 2018, 07:55:23 AM »
Another couple questions I have that I didn't notice an answer to have popped up in my mind though.

With regards to fleet flag officers and admin commands, would the flag officer have to be a full grade lower than the admin officer, or would they be able to be equal rank?

As well, I know that you intend to have ship commanders only apply half their bonuses to crew on their own.   How will this apply to commercial ships?  Will the commercial related bonuses like minings and factory production apply at full or will there be sub-modules and officer slots open for those as well?

Below is the rules post for naval admin commands. Each one is commanded by a naval officer. The rank required for the admin command is based on the ships assigned to that command, rather than the reverse.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103849#msg103849

Ship commanders will still apply their full bonus for anything that isn't covered by the new command and control modules (so everything except Crew Training, Survey, Fighter Operations, Engineering and Tactical).

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #8 on: February 25, 2018, 08:17:51 AM »
Below is the rules post for naval admin commands. Each one is commanded by a naval officer. The rank required for the admin command is based on the ships assigned to that command, rather than the reverse.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103849#msg103849

Ship commanders will still apply their full bonus for anything that isn't covered by the new command and control modules (so everything except Crew Training, Survey, Fighter Operations, Engineering and Tactical).

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg101818#msg101818

I believe that the OP was asking about this part:

Quote
This isn't as easy to achieve as it might seem as each of these Admin Commands will need an assigned commander or the chain will be broken. Also each superior Admin Command requires a commander of higher rank than the inferior Admin Command and any Admin Command with fleets directly attached requires a higher rank than the highest-ranked ship captain in those fleets. Therefore, large hierarchies are difficult to achieve. However, this does give meaningful commands for those higher ranked commanders that currently are used as the captains of major warships. It also means that if you establish the necessary command infrastructure required to support your fleets across your territory, it can have substantial benefits

Does "a commander of higher rank" mean A) "a commander at least one grade higher" or B) "a commander senior to", where a commander of some grade and number (e.g. 4th samurai) is senior to a commander of the same grade and higher number (e.g. 9th samurai)?  I had the same question and concern when I first read this rule; if the meaning is "A", it will be VERY difficult to create long chains of command (pun intended).  I've been operating under the assumption that the meaning is indeed "A", but didn't say anything because I figured you'd already thought of this and would not be interested in changing :)

John
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #9 on: February 25, 2018, 08:29:49 AM »
Steve, would it be possible for the game to tally duty stations at each rank and devise a promotion ratio based on that?

I mean, counting from highest rank to lowest one could have a ratio of 1.1 officers to duty stations at the highest level (which gives a bit of extra space for high level command), 1.3 officers to duty stations at the mid level (which is likely to see the most casualties and growth since you'd drop non-combatant roles on lower ranks) and 1.5 officers to duty stations at the lowest level (your strategic reserve of command personnel).

If it would then promote towards filling those ratios in the top first you'd probably end up with enough properly ranked commanders unless things go really badly wrong and/or you start a massive naval construction program without letting your Academies catch up.
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #10 on: February 25, 2018, 08:41:59 AM »
I believe that the OP was asking about this part:

Does "a commander of higher rank" mean A) "a commander at least one grade higher" or B) "a commander senior to", where a commander of some grade and number (e.g. 4th samurai) is senior to a commander of the same grade and higher number (e.g. 9th samurai)?  I had the same question and concern when I first read this rule; if the meaning is "A", it will be VERY difficult to create long chains of command (pun intended).  I've been operating under the assumption that the meaning is indeed "A", but didn't say anything because I figured you'd already thought of this and would not be interested in changing :)

John

It is A. C# Aurora is different to VB6 in that there are no longer a variety of possible ranks for ships. Each ship class has a specific rank (which can be set by the player), so you will no longer have senior officers commanding warships. If we assume the bottom rank is R1, Aurora will not assign any ship command higher than R3, although the player could override. The ranks at R4 and higher are intended for nested naval admin commands. This may or may not be a problem depending on how many officers are available in total and how much the admin commands are nested.

The more I consider it though the more I am inclined to lower the ratio for assignment to the next rank. If we assume 200 R1, then the current system will have (approximately) 7 R4, 3 R5 and 1 R6. Lowering to a 2.5 multiplier gives 13 R4, 5 R5 and 2 R6 (and perhaps 1 R7), while a 2.0 multiplier provides 25 R4, 12 R5, 6 R6 and 3 R7. Somewhere in-between (perhaps 2.25x) looks reasonable.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #11 on: February 25, 2018, 08:45:51 AM »
Steve, would it be possible for the game to tally duty stations at each rank and devise a promotion ratio based on that?

I mean, counting from highest rank to lowest one could have a ratio of 1.1 officers to duty stations at the highest level (which gives a bit of extra space for high level command), 1.3 officers to duty stations at the mid level (which is likely to see the most casualties and growth since you'd drop non-combatant roles on lower ranks) and 1.5 officers to duty stations at the lowest level (your strategic reserve of command personnel).

If it would then promote towards filling those ratios in the top first you'd probably end up with enough properly ranked commanders unless things go really badly wrong and/or you start a massive naval construction program without letting your Academies catch up.

That is an interesting idea. With everything in memory, it might be relatively fast to calculate those ratios. That would adapt the promotional ladder to the player's preferred style. I'll give it some thought.
 

Offline Hazard

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #12 on: February 25, 2018, 09:06:07 AM »
It wouldn't even need to be kept live. Most ships take a year or more to build, so updating once a year would be enough.
 

Offline Lazerus (OP)

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #13 on: February 25, 2018, 09:08:20 AM »
It is A. C# Aurora is different to VB6 in that there are no longer a variety of possible ranks for ships. Each ship class has a specific rank (which can be set by the player), so you will no longer have senior officers commanding warships. If we assume the bottom rank is R1, Aurora will not assign any ship command higher than R3, although the player could override. The ranks at R4 and higher are intended for nested naval admin commands. This may or may not be a problem depending on how many officers are available in total and how much the admin commands are nested.

The more I consider it though the more I am inclined to lower the ratio for assignment to the next rank. If we assume 200 R1, then the current system will have (approximately) 7 R4, 3 R5 and 1 R6. Lowering to a 2.5 multiplier gives 13 R4, 5 R5 and 2 R6 (and perhaps 1 R7), while a 2.0 multiplier provides 25 R4, 12 R5, 6 R6 and 3 R7. Somewhere in-between (perhaps 2.25x) looks reasonable.

While I understand that, Steve, I was actually asking about a specific situation.  That being, an officer assigned to a Flag Bridge in a fleet, any fleet, let's say he is a rear admiral.  Would you be able to put a rear admiral in charge of the admiral directly in command of said fleet, or would you need to put a Commodore on the flag bridge and then ensure Captain is the highest rank commanding actual ships, and then carry it on down?  In my example, using it again, that'd mean I'd then need 9 officer levels if I had to put Commodores on flag bridges instead of using seniority or postings to keep officers of the same rank subordinate to each other due to their postings.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Suggestion for officer changes
« Reply #14 on: February 25, 2018, 10:20:28 AM »
While I understand that, Steve, I was actually asking about a specific situation.  That being, an officer assigned to a Flag Bridge in a fleet, any fleet, let's say he is a rear admiral.  Would you be able to put a rear admiral in charge of the admiral directly in command of said fleet, or would you need to put a Commodore on the flag bridge and then ensure Captain is the highest rank commanding actual ships, and then carry it on down?  In my example, using it again, that'd mean I'd then need 9 officer levels if I had to put Commodores on flag bridges instead of using seniority or postings to keep officers of the same rank subordinate to each other due to their postings.

Yes, good point. If there is also a Fleet Commander assigned, the naval admin command will require a rank higher than that of the fleet commander, so in that case could be an R5 for the lowest admin command (assuming R3 for the ship commanders and R4 for the fleet commander). I think I will have to change the multiplier for higher ranks. Just need to decide how.