v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Vandermeer]

I'm wondering if it might be useful to implement a minimum ratio, like you also mentioned here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12847.msg157286#msg157286 - simply to ensure there are people to choose from when promoting. Looking at my own current game, there are ranks where I currently have no officers employed. The officers who have jobs are:

R1: 3 out of 4
R2: 0 out of 8
R3: 4 out of 16
R4: 3 out of 32

What happens when all my R2 officers retire? Without a minimum ratio, if there are no jobs, there won't be promotions, which also means I won't get new R1 officers once the R2 officers have retired, since there are no officers to promote. I think I'd prefer to not have to create artificial admin commands to ensure the right number of jobs at all levels. Or perhaps this is just the way to go? Creating admin commands as career pathways for specific skills? I usually have a very simple command structure, so I'm a bit hesistant at the thought of needing a more complex structure simply to create more jobs, but perhaps I'll just have to bit the bullet, if there isn't a minimum ratio.

I thought about this too. It seems having some baseline of empty promotions is currently off the table, but maybe the function that searches for candidates in the next lower rank can also make another run into the second next lower if it couldn't find anyone (and eventually loop through all lower ranks if necessary), then promoting someone on basis of future promise, but not assigning them yet. They would stay without command, but be lifted up as promising candidates, and perhaps in one year promoted again to then take their role.
This could also ease some worries about never finding qualified higher level candidates, since it would be really rare to have someone run through 3 different types of filters throughout their career and then still have some spare new talents for a 4th specialization position at the top ranks.


On another note, if you really have ranks that do nothing before next, maybe it could just be necessary to delete that rank and compress the hierarchy for you? Well, I do actually understand the need for fluff ranks in a sandbox game, so maybe it is better to find a real solution to this empty-rank problem. After all, in case there are only very few positions for a certain rank, the situation would still occur and run risk of creating a promotion bottlenecks.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I'm wondering if it might be useful to implement a minimum ratio, like you also mentioned here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12847.msg157286#msg157286 - simply to ensure there are people to choose from when promoting. Looking at my own current game, there are ranks where I currently have no officers employed. The officers who have jobs are:

R1: 3 out of 4
R2: 0 out of 8
R3: 4 out of 16
R4: 3 out of 32

What happens when all my R2 officers retire? Without a minimum ratio, if there are no jobs, there won't be promotions, which also means I won't get new R1 officers once the R2 officers have retired, since there are no officers to promote. I think I'd prefer to not have to create artificial admin commands to ensure the right number of jobs at all levels. Or perhaps this is just the way to go? Creating admin commands as career pathways for specific skills? I usually have a very simple command structure, so I'm a bit hesistant at the thought of needing a more complex structure simply to create more jobs, but perhaps I'll just have to bit the bullet, if there isn't a minimum ratio.

I think you may be overthinking it. If you find you are using a lot of commanders (R3) but no captains (R2), just flag some of your ship classes as 'Senior C.O' and you will have R2 roles available, or just start your admin ranks at R2. If you have no R2 ships or admin commands, then you don't need R1 admin commands anyway.

[LuuBluum]

It depends on how I handle starting commanders. If I set up a 2:1 starting ratio, then I could assign different ages to higher ranks. If I let it work organically with everyone starting at the bottom rank, then everyone would need to start at a similar age.

If the starting age was even just shifted up to 30 or 40 it would probably be okay. Really the major issue is that absolutely no army colonel, ship captain, lead scientist, or colony governor should be 21 years old unless we are roleplaying some serious nepotism problems. 30 might be a bit young for some of these jobs but it is a lot better as an approximation.

Yeah, even just taking a look at the US system, if your minimum officer rank in your navy is lieutenant (which would have fully decked-out ships led by commanders, or with senior C.O. captains; this seems ideal to me), that's... graduate officer academy at 22 (4 years), minimum 2 years to promote from ensign, and another 2 years to promote from lieutenant (junior grade). Lieutenant commanders would be another 3 years on top of that, with a total of 9 to 11 years of cumulative service.

So just from that alone (since those are all minimums), having academy graduates start in their late 20's/early 30's seems ideal even if that would be on the young side for the civilian sector.

[smoelf]

I think you may be overthinking it. If you find you are using a lot of commanders (R3) but no captains (R2), just flag some of your ship classes as 'Senior C.O' and you will have R2 roles available, or just start your admin ranks at R2. If you have no R2 ships or admin commands, then you don't need R1 admin commands anyway.

That is very possible 
Part of the problem here is also that we currently assign manually, where I look at best skills rather than merely rank. So some of the R1 officers are assigned to admin command where the minimum required rank is R3 or even R4. It would likely look very different if I only assigned best skills within specified rank for the admin command, which is what the new system will do, if we follow the automation without player interference.

[nuclearslurpee]

I think you may be overthinking it. If you find you are using a lot of commanders (R3) but no captains (R2), just flag some of your ship classes as 'Senior C.O' and you will have R2 roles available, or just start your admin ranks at R2. If you have no R2 ships or admin commands, then you don't need R1 admin commands anyway.

That is very possible 
Part of the problem here is also that we currently assign manually, where I look at best skills rather than merely rank. So some of the R1 officers are assigned to admin command where the minimum required rank is R3 or even R4. It would likely look very different if I only assigned best skills within specified rank for the admin command, which is what the new system will do, if we follow the automation without player interference.

Also note that v2.0 will allow specifying the minimum required rank of an admin command manually, which (with a small bit of one-time micro) avoids the problem that we have presently that the minimum rank for a command might be CDR or CAPT when you want only CDRE, RADM, or higher in an admin command. This way you can make sure that the commands you assign a R1 officer to are actually requiring a R1 which should help matters.

[cdrtwohy]

Starting Commanders

Even though v2. 0 introduces the concept of promotion on-demand, an Empire will still need an initial officer corps.  This will be created used the current method of promotion based on ratios, using 2:1 for naval and 4:1 for ground.  Once the game begins, promotion will be on-demand (or manual) only.

Starting commanders will be assigned an age of 21 + Random(5).  For each rank they are promoted during the initial race creation their age will be incremented by 2 + Random(5).

I also considered having all officers start at the lowest rank and organically change as ships are built, but that prevents the age modification above and could look very odd.  Also, Aurora doesn't actually track age.  It tracks career start date vs current date and adds 21 years.  Therefore adding 'Age' to starting officers is actually changing their career start date to before the game start date.

Awesome, Thanks Steve I know that this doesn't really change the core of the game at all but it does make me feel better :)

[Migi]

Also, Aurora doesn't actually track age.  It tracks career start date vs current date and adds 21 years.  Therefore adding 'Age' to starting officers is actually changing their career start date to before the game start date.

To satisfy all the people who have strong opinions about this (and I don't count myself among them), could you add a setting which changes the offset for each empire?
You could call it Commander Graduation Age.

[Kelewan]

Starting Commanders
Therefore adding 'Age' to starting officers is actually changing their career start date to before the game start date.

Just wondering: the date library can handle negative years (e.g. starting year 1)?

[alex_brunius]

Awesome, Thanks Steve I know that this doesn't really change the core of the game at all but it does make me feel better

But it does change the core!

The core of the game always was about creating interesting stories and this is right on the spot when it comes to supporting such

[QuantumPete]

Even though v2.0 introduces the concept of promotion on-demand, an Empire will still need an initial officer corps. This will be created used the current method of promotion based on ratios, using 2:1 for naval and 4:1 for ground. Once the game begins, promotion will be on-demand (or manual) only.

I think it would be good to start with no officer corps (it's the dawn of a new era, start with a clean slate, just like ships and ground units). How about instead having a number of "officer points" similar to "build points" and "research points" to kickstart games? That way we can set up the commander naming schemes properly before any are created. It also means we can rename all the ranks without it looking odd in the commanders' history for the first few decades. And it would mean we can immediately promote the right ones, rather than leaving it up to the gods of random. Each such "officer point" allows the creation of one officer of the lowest rank. We can then promote them on demand ourselves. The button could then even be used in SM mode to add more commanders (just like the insta-build-and-add-to-fleet on the ship design misc tab).

What do you think?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Starting Commanders
Therefore adding 'Age' to starting officers is actually changing their career start date to before the game start date.

Just wondering: the date library can handle negative years (e.g. starting year 1)?

The data library can't handle it, but I have a try/catch that will default to 1st Jan 0000 if that happens. That will only be an issue though if someone starts a campaign on or shortly after 0 AD.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Even though v2.0 introduces the concept of promotion on-demand, an Empire will still need an initial officer corps. This will be created used the current method of promotion based on ratios, using 2:1 for naval and 4:1 for ground. Once the game begins, promotion will be on-demand (or manual) only.

I think it would be good to start with no officer corps (it's the dawn of a new era, start with a clean slate, just like ships and ground units). How about instead having a number of "officer points" similar to "build points" and "research points" to kickstart games? That way we can set up the commander naming schemes properly before any are created. It also means we can rename all the ranks without it looking odd in the commanders' history for the first few decades. And it would mean we can immediately promote the right ones, rather than leaving it up to the gods of random. Each such "officer point" allows the creation of one officer of the lowest rank. We can then promote them on demand ourselves. The button could then even be used in SM mode to add more commanders (just like the insta-build-and-add-to-fleet on the ship design misc ta).

What do you think?

If you want to do this, just use the 'Replace All' option after game start and choose 0 for the number of commanders.

[Migi]

Even in a Conventional start, I think most brand new Space Navies would create a starting roster from interested Air, Naval, and Land officers, similar to how Navy and Land officers who were interested in aviation were used to form the first air forces during and after WW1.

There might be a scenario where only graduates of the new Academy are chosen, but I think that would be the minority of scenarios. And you can model this by using SM and smashing the Retire button a lot.

[CowboyRonin]

Even in a Conventional start, I think most brand new Space Navies would create a starting roster from interested Air, Naval, and Land officers, similar to how Navy and Land officers who were interested in aviation were used to form the first air forces during and after WW1.

There might be a scenario where only graduates of the new Academy are chosen, but I think that would be the minority of scenarios. And you can model this by using SM and smashing the Retire button a lot.

This logic also applied to the initial astronaut training programs - most were military pilots (or had military experience - Neil Armstrong had retired from the Air Force before he was accepted into astronaut training, but he did have the background) before they became astronauts. 

[Jarhead0331]

Even in a Conventional start, I think most brand new Space Navies would create a starting roster from interested Air, Naval, and Land officers, similar to how Navy and Land officers who were interested in aviation were used to form the first air forces during and after WW1.

There might be a scenario where only graduates of the new Academy are chosen, but I think that would be the minority of scenarios. And you can model this by using SM and smashing the Retire button a lot.

This logic also applied to the initial astronaut training programs - most were military pilots (or had military experience - Neil Armstrong had retired from the Air Force before he was accepted into astronaut training, but he did have the background) before they became astronauts.

Neil Armstrong was in the United States Navy, not the Air Force.