Suggestion for officer changes

[Barkhorn]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the commanders we assign in-game actually represent exceptional officers, not just officers in general?

If this is the case, then I don't see why we should necessarily have all new officers start at the lowest rank.  Why not have some spawn at higher ranks, with appropriate ages?  This would help solve the issue of 2200 LT's for every admiral.  Further, it'd fit in more with the fluff; some officers might not prove themselves until they've risen quite a ways up the chain of command.

[Lazerus (OP)]

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.

Ah.  I was hoping that you would be able to have same ranked personnel in flag bridges and admin commands, at least for one step, as it is a vastly different billet.

Would it be possible to allow for officers of the same rank to occupy the admin command position and act as the flag officer of a fleet?  I can't see any real fluff reason for this not to be possible given that they're all very senior officers, just with different jobs that means one is answering to another.  I don't think it would add too much complexity, either, as it would only really come into play at the last step of an admin command chain, where you'd likely see 2 "junior" flag officers of the same rank.  Another option I can think of to alleviate this issue is to allow for admin commands to be posted to flag bridges, thus acting as flag officers, but only applying bonuses to the system they are in, representing that they are actually commanding from a ship instead of a desk.

Actually, why can't that be an option?  Admin commands already cascade, so couldn't you have admin commands at an HQ providing the multi-system bonus, and then subordinate admin commands below it able to be posted to flag bridges, allowing them to apply their bonus to the fleet they are superior to?  Or is that one of those backend things that can't be done easily?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the commanders we assign in-game actually represent exceptional officers, not just officers in general?

If this is the case, then I don't see why we should necessarily have all new officers start at the lowest rank.  Why not have some spawn at higher ranks, with appropriate ages?  This would help solve the issue of 2200 LT's for every admiral.  Further, it'd fit in more with the fluff; some officers might not prove themselves until they've risen quite a ways up the chain of command.

Nope, it's all officers, every single one of a given rank.  The current setup only allows what we know as O-4 equivalents for the navy and O-6 equivalents for the ground forces to be generated and all other ranks below that are counted as 'junior officers' that are simply numbers.

[Tuna-Fish]

except there is a massive drop off after captain. 

Just a minor detail that might be interesting: The massive drop off is caused by the congress setting a hard limit on the amount of flag officers in the navy.  Up to that point, you can be promoted based on merit when you have earned it, but past captain, the only way you get promoted is to be the best candidate at the time someone above you retires or dies.  Don't know if this would be a good mechanic for the game (maybe allow max # officers in rank option for each rank you define, with 0 being unlimited?), but it's the system that is in use irl.

[Steve Walmsley]

Just a minor detail that might be interesting: The massive drop off is caused by the congress setting a hard limit on the amount of flag officers in the navy.  Up to that point, you can be promoted based on merit when you have earned it, but past captain, the only way you get promoted is to be the best candidate at the time someone above you retires or dies.  Don't know if this would be a good mechanic for the game (maybe allow max # officers in rank option for each rank you define, with 0 being unlimited?), but it's the system that is in use irl.

A question occurred to me overnight. The US Navy has about 430 ships, many of which are commanded by a Commander. What does the Navy do with 3000 Captains?

Or are the stats wrong?

[TMaekler]

A question occurred to me overnight. The US Navy has about 430 ships, many of which are commanded by a Commander. What does the Navy do with 3000 Captains?

There are rumors of a secret us space fleet... 

[TMaekler]

Does any of the Navy's provide reasons as to how and why people get promoted? I would guess that in general somewhere there is a demand list and people just get promoted as the empty spaces need to be filled. Maybe Aurora can do the same. It simply summarizes how many people for each rank are needed and promotes as the needs are. Or at least do that for the higher ranks above Captain... .

[alex_brunius]

A question occurred to me overnight. The US Navy has about 430 ships, many of which are commanded by a Commander. What does the Navy do with 3000 Captains?

Or are the stats wrong?

My spontaneous guess would be 9 out of 10 are administrative functions. Need alot of people to turn papers back and forth to consume all those billion dollars of taxpayer money!

[Nori]

A question occurred to me overnight. The US Navy has about 430 ships, many of which are commanded by a Commander. What does the Navy do with 3000 Captains?

Or are the stats wrong?

I'd bet a good chunk are airplane pilots for carriers. Counting rotation and such, I feel like that could be 1k at least.

[Frank Jager]

Most Pilots are actually at the Subaltern level. Ensign to lieutenant. Lieutenant commanders are usually executive officers for naval aviation wings and commanders fill the squadron commander role.

With regards to the Navy's 3000 Captain ranked personnel, I would theorize that 50-60% of them are non-line specialists. JAG, Medical Corp, Staff officers (Executive Assistant or senior operations officer to a flag officer). Then there's the commanders ashore. Mostly commanding naval stations across the globe, relevent to thier specialization. The very few that are left probably around 15-20% are commanding officers of warships. In the US navy this is a ship of cruiser size or above, or they hold a flag rank in a smaller squadron.

As I have done a bunch of research into the Marine Corps Expeditionary force I will list an accurate breakdown of the deployable elements of a Marine Expeditionary Unit.
If needed I can also list thier command slots.

Rear Admiral (Lower Half) - 1
Captain - 6
Commander - 20
Lieutenant Commander - 82
Lieutenant to Ensign - 300+

This accounts for most of the positions available on all ships not just the commanding officers.

With Just COs in relation to Aurora's current officer structure
Captain - 4
Commander - 4
Lieutenant Commander - 6
Lieutenant to Ensign - 30

Hope this helps.
Sources are Wikipedia, life experience and a bit of second hand chat with current and ex us navy sailors.

[Tuna-Fish]

A question occurred to me overnight. The US Navy has about 430 ships, many of which are commanded by a Commander. What does the Navy do with 3000 Captains?

Or are the stats wrong?

The stats contain some not currently active officers. However, yes, there are a lot more captains than there are ships. The Navy has a lot more of logistics/research/training positions that are filled with high-ranking officers than there are ships. Every admiral has a staff filled with captains who do all the detail work for them. They are often people who have already served on a ship, and are now basically waiting for a position to open up to be promoted into, doomed to do all the administrative work of the Navy until such date.

[QuakeIV]

The navy and air force need highly educated staff such as computer scientists to program the computers (the navy does quite a lot of that in particular) and technicians to maintain the equipment.  The way payment works in the military, they need to bump their rank up to offer them acceptable salaries.  I know of a rear admiral who is just an engineer working on railguns.

e:  I should note, they are kindof quasi-high rankers, they don't generally have officer level authority of any kind, aside from being allowed to move around relatively freely.

[Lazerus (OP)]

Upon more thinking, I've come up with some more ideas for officers and it kind of spills into the new modules as well, so you need to, split this into a new thread.

The way the current system will work is rather.. stationary and offers no real incentive to go outside your borders, which is bad.  I'll admit it definitely helps by forcing you to actually employ more senior officers in various roles and keep some ships in certain areas to keep them working effectively, especially on the civilian side or for your defense fleets, but, I'm specifically referring to offensive fleets here.

We'll be using the 1st Battle Fleet I linked earlier, as well as a hypothetical cruiser task force that's much smaller.

The basic idea is that, to tie into the new admin command structure, new modules, and need for actually employing officers of successive grade, there's one other thing.

While desk jockeying is fine and dandy for day-to-day civilian or defense-oriented fleets, your actual battle fleets and their independent Task Forces and Squadrons often will NOT be in range of your naval HQ unless you game the system and build big, thus defeating the point.

My idea is to get rid of the current FMI-only bonus from sticking someone in your Flag Bridge, and instead, the Flag Bridge is where you can stick your Flag Officer for whatever you have under it.  ie: Aforementioned cruiser task force can have a commodore on the Flag Bridge, commanding directly.  This, of course, would give all (or some) of the Flag Officer's bonuses to the fleet, but to balance it, we could say it's limited to within the system the Flag Officer is in, or perhaps even lower for a Flag Bridge.  This, I feel, better represents what you want to do with the new graduated commands system, where you have the old boys flying desks back at HQ while your more junior Flag Officers are actually risking themselves in the battle.  This also cuts out that point of "Do I need to bump all my admin commanders up a rank so I can put someone in my Flag Bridge", since your immediate commander is on the flag bridge.  This also, I think, properly emulates the idea of sending a fleet on a proper deployment away from immediate HQ contact but still with a Flag Officer aboard.


The next idea was a complement to that, in the vein of the new officer modules, that, in addition to the Flag Bridge, there would be a far larger, FAR more expensive option of a Fleet C3 Center, or something similiar, that offers similiar bonuses, perhaps to 1 system radius, with giant EM and/or thermal sigs to make it impossible to hide.  This would then allow you to, I think, better choose between overall bonuses and campaign ability, as you can either have 1-2 Flag Officers at risk in your fleet, with no real other bonuses since you're outside of your HQ range, or you're in another sector, which I think most battle fleets would be, or to just stack bonuses as deep as your flag ranks go, in the case of things like civilian fleets that won't travel between sectors, defense fleets, and the like.  This, I feel, would be a good option for larger "main" fleets, where you would likely have two levels of admin command above the ships.  As an example, in my First Battle Fleet, as adapted for C# as it is, I would likely have multiple task forces related to their specific focus (logistics, main battle line, carriers, escort group), each with their own flag bridge equipped ship of some type, with a shiny new Commodore inside, and then, if this were real, a central CnC ship somewhere in the fleet holding a Rear Admiral who's the overall fleet commander.

The premise really boils down to, in my mind, making options for where you deploy those senior ranks to get the best bang for the fleet type, not just in a giant centralized naval HQ that never has to move because you built a level 100 one.

I think, as well, the Fleet CnC Center, if it gets made, should also require a decent amount of officers to staff it to properly apply the bonuses, with maluses to the range and/or effectiveness of the commander bonuses depending on the staffing, that way you also properly simulate the actual large staff you'd need to run a fleet in such a way.  Perhaps also make it so you can only chain a Fleet CnC bonus through Flag Bridges?

[Jorgen_CAB]

Personally I don't see why there should be any arbitrary level of promotion ratio, people should simply be promoted as positions are available to be filled.

There could be a 10% extra promoted for each rank of which could be assigned to administrative positions which could be a bit more fluent in what rank is needed such as flag bridge officers or junior officers on ships.

This way if you need 50 captains you would have 55 promoted, the five extra could take positions as flag officers. Flag staff officers could probably be of more than one rank type. Flag staff positions would not really unlock promotion opportunities but meant as use for that extra officer you get from each rank below the first.

Or something like this... I don't like to get an arbitrary number of each officer rank.

[Steve Walmsley]

Personally I don't see why there should be any arbitrary level of promotion ratio, people should simply be promoted as positions are available to be filled.

There could be a 10% extra promoted for each rank of which could be assigned to administrative positions which could be a bit more fluent in what rank is needed such as flag bridge officers or junior officers on ships.

This way if you need 50 captains you would have 55 promoted, the five extra could take positions as flag officers. Flag staff officers could probably be of more than one rank type. Flag staff positions would not really unlock promotion opportunities but meant as use for that extra officer you get from each rank below the first.

Or something like this... I don't like to get an arbitrary number of each officer rank.

I've been giving this some thought and the above is currently where I am heading. A naval organization is going to promote people to fill the required roles, rather than create roles based on the available people in each rank. Not sure on the mechanics yet, but I will sort this out before I start a test campaign.

[Bravo]

I have a Question.
Is it possible to have more then one officer per ship?
Larger ships often have more officers, not unlike the structure you have in the flag structure, but also for some navies there are more command roles on board.
A ship Captain who sail the ship and has the final authority on the ship, and for the ships safety.
But there is also a Operations Officer or Officer in Tactical Command whom runs the show from the Operations Room.
While a Ship might not always need as big of an org as a flag level.
Maybe a solution could be that any ship above 1001 tons(just an example) should have:
CO (Captain of the ship)
XO Executive officer
And for ships above a certain;size, crew number, and/or minimum rank for command give them:
Operations Officer (if Missiles or larger than commerical beam weapons)
Fighter Operations Officer (If Hanger space above xxx size equipped)
Logistics Officer (If one or more of Collier/Supply/Tanker are used)
Intelligence Officer (If Both Passive sensors and active sensors and ECM/ECCM(programming the necessary ECM/ECCM programs against known Threats)
Communication Officer(If Flag Bridge or other type of command module like a Large bridge which might be used for TG lead ships)

Fighters or ships at 1000 tons and below:
Only one Officer can be assigned.

From my perspective this would solve some issues I have had during my playthroughs.
Commanding Officer on a ship dies while the ship is on a long tour/patrol there will be some officers whom can take command of a ship.
Skill gaining for officers whom will be placed in the Task Force staff later on.  Currently some skills can only be trained in those positions which means they serve there until they die or retire and a Noob takes their spot.
You have roles for the lower ranked Officers to fill while they improve, and thus its more natural to have more Officers at a lower and fewer at the higher ranks.
It also grooms the officers to be of higher rank when they are good enough for Flag duties (other then the CO of course) which is more natural as well.

Also I do like the idea that promotions are depending on how many positions are available at each rank.
I believe many nations forces operate after this principle for Officers of O-3 and above (Major/Lcdr) while O-1 and O-2 are promoted by command/time in rank. 
But there are 3-4 ranks in the O-1/O-2 ladder for most nations as well.
So if this was to be implemented maybe it would be a viable option that the player when he/she makes the rank structure tick of the maximum rank for promotion by time in rank/service and another tick mark for when Flag level begins.

Thus you could have three levels of ranks
The ranks which your Officers promote to with time until max achieved if nothing else happens
The Command ranks which has Officers filling certain positions needed to be filled (plus some more if you want to change them around)
The Flag Officers which fill the top level ranks for executing the command of the fleet.

Maybe this could be an option for ground commanders as well?

Also are there plans to have a hierarchy which takes the position all the way from Headquarters/Fleet Command or even Ministry of Defence(with both Ground and Fleet Flag Officers represented) which are commanding Task Forces which are commanding Task Groups and Units?
And will we be able to set a retirement age or will there be one standard?

I'm sorry if I seem blunt, but I just want to hear others thought on my ideas and I hope it might be a helpful contribution.
Also thanks for a really great Game