Freedom of Choice - Manually assign rank requirement for Admin. Commands

[Rook (OP)]

While organizing my Navy, I often setup task oriented Administrative commands to organize the fleets, and to fulfill Roleplaying elements.

Here's an example:

* - Denotes Fleets

Naval High Command ( ?? )

 > Sol Fleet Forces Command (??)
    > 1st Fleet ( Admiral )
       > *Taskforce X ( Vice-Admiral )

 > Office of Maritime Affairs ( ?? )
     > Military Aerospacelift Command
       > Logistics
       > Transportation
    > Surveyance Department ( Admiral )
       > Office of Naval Intelligence
       > Surveyance Fleet Command ( Vice-Admiral )
          > Survey Fleet Alpha ( Rear-Admiral )
            > *Taskforce Y ( Capt./Cdre. )

Now, with this structure and organization, you can see that I will quickly run into issues and have to create ranks for Fleets, or Administrative commands, in order to conform to the requirement of Superior ranks being in charge of Parent Admin. Commands that have fleets.

I propose that the player be allowed to override and manually set the rank requirement of an Admin. command. Hopefully this wouldn't mess with the Automated Assignment system, while still giving the player some roleplaying options.

I'm not sure if there's a better way to achieve this same result, but hopefully we can reach it somehow.


Cheers,
Rook

[nuclearslurpee]

I'm not sure I understand this. Why would there not be a requirement for a parent commander to outrank the sub-commander? The current system is fairly realistic, and frankly not inflexible as the "required" ranks are a minimum rather than a strict necessity.

The minimum rank of an admin command is always one higher than the highest-ranked sub-command, whether admin or fleet, so if all of your fleets have LCDR or CDR commanders then the parent admin command over those fleets can be a CAPT or higher but otherwise is not restricted.

If you have a fleet that is too high-ranked for an existing admin command structure, simply attach it higher in the structure:

Naval High Command (ADM)
  - Home Fleet Command (VADM)
      - Home Fleet Base Command (RADM)
          - Home Fleet Quartermaster (CDRE)
              + Second Fleet (CAPT)
          + First Fleet (CDRE)

[Rook (OP)]

An administrative, or supporting, command doesn't have to be truly Superior in rank. In some circumstances, it is simply organizational. I reckon that's true for real life as well.

As far as ingame terms, I ask myself, why would a Survey ship, which I feel like giving to an Admiral, suddenly require the administrative powers of a First Space Lord? Answer, simply because the game says so.

Now do you see? The situation is choice and roleplay. I'm not suggesting that the current system is broken, or doesn't function, or that I can't find ways to work with it. I'm simply suggesting that it be opened up a bit more so the player can customize their experience.

[QuakeIV]

I would actually also prefer to be able to use any rank for just about anything.  If a second lieutenant is all thats left then I reasonably could probably still ask them to do the job of running the remaining navy, such as it is.  It would presumably be a worse choice than a more experienced officer, but it should probably be technically possible.

[Garfunkel]

You can use SM to promote that 2nd lieutenant to run the whole space navy.

Why would you assign an admiral to run a survey ship in the first place? And if you must do it for story purposes, you can assign that fleet directly to the main admin command and call it a day since clearly, it is some sort of unique and special case. A workaround exists, no need to mess up an existing system for such a niche request.

[Rook (OP)]

I see your points. Ideally speaking, this suggestion wouldn't change the game for anyone who is happy with the current Rank requirements. Meaning, you wouldn't have to use it. You wouldn't have to opt-out. Your game will still require a superior officer to be in charge of every level of your command structure.

Ideally speaking, this suggestion would provide greater control of the command structure for those who want it. It would be an opt-in mechanic. Possibly through Space Master, or just a setting under the Fleet Organization window.

Additionally, I don't see this as a niche request. Almost every facet of Aurora seems to include a very high level of control for the player. From the size and function of a ship, to the strength and outfitting of even the smallest ground unit, to the name and company of a single component. It goes on. I would say, the ability to tailor your empire, federation, or republic, to your whim, is at the very heart of Aurora.

Then again, I am incredibly biased when it comes to this suggestion, so I could be mistaken.

[nuclearslurpee]

Additionally, I don't see this as a niche request. Almost every facet of Aurora seems to include a very high level of control for the player. From the size and function of a ship, to the strength and outfitting of even the smallest ground unit, to the name and company of a single component. It goes on. I would say, the ability to tailor your empire, federation, or republic, to your whim, is at the very heart of Aurora.

Aurora offers very high control and customization, but usually within the bounds of realistic (at least, in a sense) constraints. These constraints provide interesting problems for players to solve in order to develop effective ships, formations, doctrines, colonies, and so on. In this sense having meaningful constraints is what drives meaningful gameplay. A high level of player control is not synonymous with removing the constraints on that control.

In this sense, the constraints on ranks in a command hierarchy are both realistic (in no real-world navy would an Admiral ever be assigned to take orders from a Commander, for instance - it may happen in a situation, but the chain of command is never set up this way) and introduce an interesting set of decisions for the player to make in terms of how to allocate their leaders to develop an effective command hierarchy. Therefore, meaningful gameplay results from realistic constraints ^{until the auto-assign frells up your command hierarchy because it thinks your survey ship is a freighter...} 

I simply don't see how it adds anything to gameplay, aside from supporting some very strange RP idea in which an Admiral is somehow under the command of a Commander, to remove the rank restrictions from the naval HQ hierarchy, and I certainly don't see Steve ever making this change although I could certainly be wrong.

[Rook (OP)]

It would provide meaningful gameplay for me, at least.

Ah well, was just a thought.

[QuakeIV]

You can use SM to promote that 2nd lieutenant to run the whole space navy.

Why would you assign an admiral to run a survey ship in the first place? And if you must do it for story purposes, you can assign that fleet directly to the main admin command and call it a day since clearly, it is some sort of unique and special case. A workaround exists, no need to mess up an existing system for such a niche request.

Additionally, I don't see this as a niche request. Almost every facet of Aurora seems to include a very high level of control for the player. From the size and function of a ship, to the strength and outfitting of even the smallest ground unit, to the name and company of a single component. It goes on. I would say, the ability to tailor your empire, federation, or republic, to your whim, is at the very heart of Aurora.

Aurora offers very high control and customization, but usually within the bounds of realistic (at least, in a sense) constraints. These constraints provide interesting problems for players to solve in order to develop effective ships, formations, doctrines, colonies, and so on. In this sense having meaningful constraints is what drives meaningful gameplay. A high level of player control is not synonymous with removing the constraints on that control.

In this sense, the constraints on ranks in a command hierarchy are both realistic (in no real-world navy would an Admiral ever be assigned to take orders from a Commander, for instance - it may happen in a situation, but the chain of command is never set up this way) and introduce an interesting set of decisions for the player to make in terms of how to allocate their leaders to develop an effective command hierarchy. Therefore, meaningful gameplay results from realistic constraints ^{until the auto-assign frells up your command hierarchy because it thinks your survey ship is a freighter...} 

I simply don't see how it adds anything to gameplay, aside from supporting some very strange RP idea in which an Admiral is somehow under the command of a Commander, to remove the rank restrictions from the naval HQ hierarchy, and I certainly don't see Steve ever making this change although I could certainly be wrong.

It seems like you guys are defending an annoying constraint that doesn't really do anything of value, and I'm not sure why.

[nuclearslurpee]

It seems like you guys are defending an annoying constraint that doesn't really do anything of value, and I'm not sure why.

Could you explain more what you mean by this? In my mind at least, this isn't an "annoying" constraint but rather a very reasonable and realistic rule - you don't put junior officers in command of senior officers. That seems as sensible to me as the idea that scientists should be more skilled in their specific discipline than in "general science" - and while we see many complaints about the game spawning the player race with 17 biologists and zero propulsion specialists, no one is saying we should scrap that particular constraint.

I'm curious what it is about the naval admin rank system that suggests it "doesn't really do anything of value" in a game tailored to extreme detail and realism nerds, when literally every large, organized military ever has a fairly well-established rank system based on the tenet that superior officers command junior officers.

It's also worth noting, on a game-mechanics note, that removing the rank restriction would allow infinite stacking of admin commands, leading to a gamey approach of putting your entire navy under 100 nested admin commands and getting the command bonuses from 100 skilled commanders. The rank restriction is far more realistic - and far less arbitrary - than (say) limiting admin command nesting to N levels.

[Droll]

It seems like you guys are defending an annoying constraint that doesn't really do anything of value, and I'm not sure why.

Could you explain more what you mean by this? In my mind at least, this isn't an "annoying" constraint but rather a very reasonable and realistic rule - you don't put junior officers in command of senior officers. That seems as sensible to me as the idea that scientists should be more skilled in their specific discipline than in "general science" - and while we see many complaints about the game spawning the player race with 17 biologists and zero propulsion specialists, no one is saying we should scrap that particular constraint.

I'm curious what it is about the naval admin rank system that suggests it "doesn't really do anything of value" in a game tailored to extreme detail and realism nerds, when literally every large, organized military ever has a fairly well-established rank system based on the tenet that superior officers command junior officers.

It's also worth noting, on a game-mechanics note, that removing the rank restriction would allow infinite stacking of admin commands, leading to a gamey approach of putting your entire navy under 100 nested admin commands and getting the command bonuses from 100 skilled commanders. The rank restriction is far more realistic - and far less arbitrary - than (say) limiting admin command nesting to N levels.

Honestly if you spend the time needed to set up your ridiculous 100 layer command OOB then you deserve the "gamey" advantage you have. Especially since aurora already hands you the keys to SM which already demands loads of self-discipline.
To be frank, I'm not really a stake holder in this specific discussion but using "gameyness" as an argument point makes no sense to me.

We are talking about a game that has a feature that allows things like spawning stuff in for free, free terraforming, teleportation. I think its pretty "gamey" when I use SM to instant terraform mars.
So why don't we just take away SM mode for everyone? I can already see how popular that would be.

So enabling juniors in superior offices lets you have 100 layers of admins? Cool. You don't like that? Well then don't make a 100 layer command hierarchy.
You think that a junior officer in a superior post doesn't make sense? Then don't assign a junior officer to superior post. Its not like its messing with the auto-assignment system which is made to ignore admin commands.

The greatest strength of aurora is that you can make your own fun with a very flexible ruleset. I personally would not assign junior officers in superior posts because that's not the RP I go for but if that restraint were to be removed its no hair off my back.

Edit: I notice higher up in the thread you mention that a commander in a higher post wouldn't give orders to an admiral in a lower one - who is saying that in that RP universe that's what's happening? Maybe the commander is just in an office organizing various paperwork and notifying the admirals "under" him about information/intelligence that they might need to give their orders. Maybe the commander is just doing administrative stuff (cuz you know... admin command) while the admirals are further in the field managing their actual navy and doing the more involved stuff like issuing actual orders.

[RougeNPS]

Just rename the ranks...

[nuclearslurpee]

Edit: I notice higher up in the thread you mention that a commander in a higher post wouldn't give orders to an admiral in a lower one - who is saying that in that RP universe that's what's happening? Maybe the commander is just in an office organizing various paperwork and notifying the admirals "under" him about information/intelligence that they might need to give their orders. Maybe the commander is just doing administrative stuff (cuz you know... admin command) while the admirals are further in the field managing their actual navy and doing the more involved stuff like issuing actual orders.

This is actually one thing we lost from VB6 which was the ability to have various admin positions in a fleet HQ. I'd love to see that come back and I think it would give us a lot of the RP potential some in this thread are looking for. However with the current admin command system I'm not sure Steve would see a place for that old feature.

[Froggiest1982]

Edit: I notice higher up in the thread you mention that a commander in a higher post wouldn't give orders to an admiral in a lower one - who is saying that in that RP universe that's what's happening? Maybe the commander is just in an office organizing various paperwork and notifying the admirals "under" him about information/intelligence that they might need to give their orders. Maybe the commander is just doing administrative stuff (cuz you know... admin command) while the admirals are further in the field managing their actual navy and doing the more involved stuff like issuing actual orders.

This is actually one thing we lost from VB6 which was the ability to have various admin positions in a fleet HQ. I'd love to see that come back and I think it would give us a lot of the RP potential some in this thread are looking for. However with the current admin command system I'm not sure Steve would see a place for that old feature.

I would love to have civilian admins instead...one could create a complete functioning government with a bit of patience.

Not that I would, would I?!

 

[RougeNPS]

Your program is exactly what look for honestly. Its a perfect fit to Aurora. I just wish i didnt have to contend w/elections in my Federal Monarchy that relies upon the Throne first, and the Estate's Assembly second. But its fine. I manage.