That's what has been proposed all the time. No one ever said "don't let the Admiral players (both of them) enjoy the game as they see fit".
The whole "Admiral/Captain" discussion is all about a feature request to be able to decide how NPCs address us - which would fix oh so many things.
Unfortunately, changing the rank used by NPCs to the player-selected title might be quite tedious for the devs, as they would have to change the variable in each and every mission contact's dialogue anywhere in the game, which might as well be 200 or 500 (or possibly more) places in the code to touch. It might be easier to just let the rank as it is displayed in the UI (if you don't hide it) be selectable from a predefined list.
Really? I know the first qoute here like me doesn't speak for the hole, but I've seen this statement reworded several times. To think the Admiral rank should be completely removed is silly, more so considering it has survived 4 years of gameplay with this thinking just now coming to light. Honestly if you want to be referred to as captain I'm fine with that, hell if we get custom titles I'd like to be "Commidor" (pardon my spelling), but I like the idea of being a Admiral and all the responsibilities and privileges that follow. The one beef I do have is the ease in which you can reach Max level in this game. It fit the scale about two years ago but have 3 times as many story missions now, the level should be adjusted to fix accordingly.
In my opinion: That it should be completely removed isn't silly (because this is a Star Trek game), it's just not very agreeable and there is no need for it.
But there is a real need for the option to not be called Admiral.
Option sure but you are right this is a star trek game, there where no admirals in starfleet?
All and all I feel as you do about options, more options and features the better but on this issue in general I personally think we Both are a minority,.while we debate the relevance of the Admiral rank I think may players don't really care, so long as they command their ship a title means nothing to them.
Cryptic made a mistake with those rank names, as even though there are Admirals in Star Trek, clearly the game is about being a captain, there is no way to look at it otherwise. Aside from that, it's all up to your personal headcanon/RP.
If you ask for opinions, I personally would eliminate ranks above captain. In fact, I'd make every player captain and start the tutorial at commander because everything you do in the entire game is captain's duty (aside from doing crewmen errand work half the time). I would also ban a lot of uniforms from the game and severly limit people's uniform customization. See why it wouldn't be good to do that? :P
Seriously, let NPCs adress us by chosen rank title. Everyone could be happy
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I can cope with being a Vice Admiral - have even, in one of my fanfic pieces, retconned an excuse for why there are so many VAs about - but, yeah, at the end of the day, I'd rather be the Captain of a starship....
... or, the Admiral of a fleet of starships. It'd be nice to have the option, for those who'd like that mode of play. I'm all for more options, I've said that many times. (I still think we need a diplomatic/exploration play style on the Fed side, so that a Starfleet character can reach level 50 without having to fire a phaser in anger. For those who'd like that sort of thing.)
It would be good if they completely decoupled rank titles from character levels, both for players and NPCs. It always bugs me, the number of Commanders I have on my ship. On a practical level, yes, they're all Commander level, because I want a full range of powers available for ship boff slots and away teams.... but, realistically, most of them should be Lieutenants or Lieutenant Commanders at best. (IIRC, Spock was the only Commander on the original Enterprise, and even he started out as a Lieutenant Commander and got promoted sometime within the TOS timeframe.)
If we do go the full Admiral/squadron commander route, of course, it'd be nice to be able to promote boffs to Captain and even beyond. The rank of Commodore (historically a problematical one, sometimes it's used, sometimes it isn't) is one I'd like to see, for two reasons of my own; it was used in the TOS era (William Windom's character in "The Doomsday Machine" was Commodore Decker, for instance), and I have an android boff called Amiga, and I would really like to promote her to Commodore. (I never said they were sensible reasons, did I?)
When Rear Admiral Kirk assumed control of the Enterprise in The Motionless Picture, he wore (and was addressed by) the rank of "Captain", as the ship's commander. His permanent rank was still Rear Admiral. Will Decker, the former captain of the ship, wore Commander's rank, although his permanent rank was still Captain.
When Kirk assumed command of the ship in TWoK, he did not change his apparent rank, because the ship was still technically under the command of Captain Spock. However, Spock allowed him to command the ship as though Kirk were the captain, thus giving him the nominal responsibilities anyway. (Had there been proper followup to the events of TVH, with Kirk reduced in rank to Captain and assigned to command of the new Enterprise, there should also have been the revelation that Captains Spock and Scott, while under Kirk's command, were wearing Commander's rank pips again. You can't have two captains of a ship.)
This is based on the Naval tradition that the commander of the vessel is always called "Captain", no matter the actual rank; usually, in the past, this has been used for such things as a Lieutenant Commander in charge of, say, a destroyer, who will be addressed as "Captain" by his crew and in official communiques, but will still be paid as a Lt Cdr.
Your third paragraph is correct. Your second paragraph (parenthetically) is only sort of correct. In the current US Navy, the "ship commander title" of captain is unrelated to the "O-6, full-bird" rank of captain, to the extent that there's no reason that you could not have two or three O-6 officers on the ship and only one of them being the ship's captain. By that standard, Spock and Scott would not have had to take a demotion to O-5 in order to allow Kirk to resume command of Enterprise - unless Starfleet's Personnel regulations required it, or something.
You can have two O-6 captain-rank officers on a ship. You cannot have two captains of a ship. Except for US Navy SSBNs, that have Blue crews and Gold crews, and they're not captain at the same time.
I don't mind being called "Admiral", but I do mind being called "Rear Admiral" or "Vice Admiral" or for that matter "Lieutenant junior grade" or "Lieutenant Commander". The current standard is to drop the modifier, so it's "Admiral", "Lieutenant", or "Commander" respectively. But, it's only an irritation to me so I'm not going to require that Cryptic make the fix immediately.
Really? I know the first qoute here like me doesn't speak for the hole, but I've seen this statement reworded several times. To think the Admiral rank should be completely removed is silly, more so considering it has survived 4 years of gameplay with this thinking just now coming to light. Honestly if you want to be referred to as captain I'm fine with that, hell if we get custom titles I'd like to be "Commidor" (pardon my spelling), but I like the idea of being a Admiral and all the responsibilities and privileges that follow. The one beef I do have is the ease in which you can reach Max level in this game. It fit the scale about two years ago but have 3 times as many story missions now, the level should be adjusted to fix accordingly.
Let me clarify:
I'd be fine with the option. Sometimes when I say "what I'd do", I'm saying what I'd do if designing the game from scratch or commenting on a feature that's unreleased.
The genie is largely out of the bottle.
I WOULD be impressed if Cryptic risked controversy to set the ranks "right", to make captains feel less like peons on their way to admiral and more like a respectable terminal career position with broad power over faction politics and mission setting. I think "captain" is made to seem unimportant both in the rank structure and in how missions are designed and in many fundamental other ways throughout the game. (In some ways, I really wished they'd made us all Elite Forces style hazard team commanders aboard NPC Captains' ships not because I don't want to be Captain but because it would feel more authentic to gameplay.)
But I don't expect them to rectify this and I'd be satisfied with optional rank and a "We'd probably do a lot of things differently if we were building a STO 2" comment.
The thing that sticks in my craw about the "Admiral" rank is two things:
1) No player has ever adequately explained to me what's appealing about it without making captains sounds like a lot less than what they were on the shows. Being captain is a big deal. Capotains can have captain rank officers under their command, call for back-up, command multiple ships, set the ship's mission and course, and dictate faction policy until they cross certain lines. Until a Captain can do that in the game, I don't see a need for Admirals without somehow undervaluing Captains in the Trek setting.
2) No dev has ever really explained to my satisfaction what the thinking was behind the admiral ranks. I have no real clue why it was done and the absence of a reason makes it seem like something that was done to impose some kind of preference overtop the IP.
The thing that sticks in my craw about the "Admiral" rank is two things:
1) No player has ever adequately explained to me what's appealing about it without making captains sounds like a lot less than what they were on the shows. Being captain is a big deal. Capotains can have captain rank officers under their command, call for back-up, command multiple ships, set the ship's mission and course, and dictate faction policy until they cross certain lines. Until a Captain can do that in the game, I don't see a need for Admirals without somehow undervaluing Captains in the Trek setting.
2) No dev has ever really explained to my satisfaction what the thinking was behind the admiral ranks. I have no real clue why it was done and the absence of a reason makes it seem like something that was done to impose some kind of preference overtop the IP.
All my this.^^^^
I seriously haven't heard any good argument as to why we should be admirals and not captains. The only argument for admirals that doesn't really have a counterpoint is "I like my admiral pips, don't take them away!!!".
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
Bottom line is, Admirals, or rather Vice Admirals in our case, our HIGHLY privileged Captains of our own ships, infact if you pay attention to the TNG series, there is this female Vice Admiral that Picard is sometimes visited by in person who commands her own personally chosen Excelsior Class cruiser, that is HER personal ship. As a result there would be no captain on that ship because she is its dedicated commanding officer.
Bottom line is, Admirals, or rather Vice Admirals in our case, our HIGHLY privileged Captains of our own ships, infact if you pay attention to the TNG series, there is this female Vice Admiral that Picard is sometimes visited by in person who commands her own personally chosen Excelsior Class cruiser, that is HER personal ship. As a result there would be no captain on that ship because she is its dedicated commanding officer.
Yeah, pretty much that.^
While I would LIKE to know who/why decided to make the level cap VA, I don't really think it matters.
I let my crew call me "Skip" as I don't hinge on formality. We're all Admirals commanding ships full of Commanders because some dope at Perpetual never did his homework, and figured the easiest way to go, was to attach level progression to rank. If you follow 21st century Naval structure, a true Captain, commands a battle group, and not a single vessel. This is the same pay grade as the brigade level, Army rank of full bird, Colonel. Lt. Commanders, and Commanders are the workhorse "captains" of the fleet.
The rank thing is all Cryptic.
Perpetual's idea was for players to form crews, not fleets, and team up on ships with the crew/guild leader as the Captain. They never exactly worked out the mechanics of how ships would be flown.
Cryptic used very little of Perpetual's work aside from 3D models and some uniform designs, mainly starting from scratch.
Perpetual's idea was for players to form crews, not fleets, and team up on ships with the crew/guild leader as the Captain. They never exactly worked out the mechanics of how ships would be flown.
Cryptic used very little of Perpetual's work aside from 3D models and some uniform designs, mainly starting from scratch.
And I am immensely grateful that Perpetual lost the license to STO due to this very reason.
And Kirk lamented about being promoted to Admiral in just about every scene he was in in all the following movies.
And McCoy commented that Kirk's acceptance to being promoted to Admiral was the worst thing he ever did. Kirk's place was in the Captain's Chair, in command of a starship. With "The Voyage Home" and having saved the Federation again, Starfleet still had to punish him for the whole stealing of the Enterprise and all that. His "punishment" was demotion to the rank of Captain and to his later surprise, command of another Constitution-refit, the Enterprise-A. Him and his core officers were expecting some trash hauler of a ship, but Kirk was fine for just having a ship.
The funny thing with the court martial and reduction in rank for Kirk was that he was smiling when they told him he would "only" be a Captain again :cool:
By naval tradition, the ranks of Admiral no longer really makes you having a ship as "yours" to command. They are in charge of groups of ships: Task Forces, Fleets, Groups, whatever terminology you want to use. On campaign, when the Admiral goes to a specific ship to command his unit from there, that ship is now the "Flagship." The Captain in command of that Flagship still has the duties and responsibilities of that posting, but he gets to have a flag officer looking directly over his shoulder every day, directly telling him what needs to be done.
It's why for STO the max rank players should have is Captain. And there's nothing wrong with that in Star Trek lore. The furthest we ever see Picard was Captain, never attaining Admiral. "The Sisko" was the same. Kirk got to the Admiral ranks but found out he always just wanted to be just a Captain with a vessel to call his own. Janeway got to Admiral, but was sitting in some office now issuing orders and not in command of a vessel.
kirk sisko picard where in a TV show not a Video game some here dont want to compromise they are not going to be happy until Admiral is REMOVED from the game and its not going to happen so instead of QQing about that start asking Dev when we going to get NPC's to call us by the rank i want them to
kirk sisko picard where in a TV show not a Video game some here dont want to compromise they are not going to be happy until Admiral is REMOVED from the game and its not going to happen so instead of QQing about that start asking Dev when we going to get NPC's to call us by the rank i want them to
What about this being a video game makes the admiral rank preferable. Please explain.
The thing is that with subspace communications, it doesn't matter where an Admiral is. They could be stuck behind a desk at Starfleet HQ or in their ready room on a ship. Having Admirals flying in different ships instead of all of them stuck at stationary areas is a very effective defense mechanism. With Admirals flying all around Federation Space, then a successful enemy attack on Starfleet HQ won't devastate Starfleet's Command Structure.
As far as Janeway being stuck behind a desk as a Vice Admiral, she was responsible for doing the first scientific survey of Hobus after the Hobus Supernova. She might not command a starship often, but she does when necessary.
What about this being a video game makes the admiral rank preferable. Please explain.
We have tons of unused Bridge Officers and ships. An Admiral system where we can have some of those unused Bridge Officers promoted to Captain that pilot our unused ships so some of those ships would fight with us and others sent on missions similar to duty officer assignments would make the Admiral rank preferable. After all tons of players have spent hundreds of dollars or more on ships that they no longer use because something newer and better came out. Kirk and Picard didn't have to worry about unused ships in the Dry Dock so this would fix a problem that is only present since this is a video game.
We have tons of unused Bridge Officers and ships. An Admiral system where we can have some of those unused Bridge Officers promoted to Captain that pilot our unused ships so some of those ships would fight with us and others sent on missions similar to duty officer assignments would make the Admiral rank preferable. After all tons of players have spent hundreds of dollars or more on ships that they no longer use because something newer and better came out. Kirk and Picard didn't have to worry about unused ships in the Dry Dock so this would fix a problem that is only present since this is a video game.
All of those things were done by Captains in the shows.
Admirals tend to focus more on paperwork, teaching, etc.
All of those things were done by Captains in the shows.
Admirals tend to focus more on paperwork, teaching, etc.
im going to ask you this can you say you know for a fact you know what every admiral in starfleet was doing where they were at??? yes or no will do have you ever written produce a EP of star trek how about a movie did you come up with what can and can not be?
because we are not playing real life trek sorry to be the one to tell you that
What does that have to do with wanting to be an admiral and how is the desire to be an admiral any different than wanting to be a janitor or a crash test dummy or the Mayor of Candyland?
What does that have to do with wanting to be an admiral and how is the desire to be an admiral any different than wanting to be a janitor or a crash test dummy or the Mayor of Candyland?
video game not real life you dont like admiral do this picture in your head!! they are captain and move on from this nitpick
Comments
Really? I know the first qoute here like me doesn't speak for the hole, but I've seen this statement reworded several times. To think the Admiral rank should be completely removed is silly, more so considering it has survived 4 years of gameplay with this thinking just now coming to light. Honestly if you want to be referred to as captain I'm fine with that, hell if we get custom titles I'd like to be "Commidor" (pardon my spelling), but I like the idea of being a Admiral and all the responsibilities and privileges that follow. The one beef I do have is the ease in which you can reach Max level in this game. It fit the scale about two years ago but have 3 times as many story missions now, the level should be adjusted to fix accordingly.
<sarcasm>
Sorry, you're not worth it. :P
</sarcasm>
Option sure but you are right this is a star trek game, there where no admirals in starfleet?
All and all I feel as you do about options, more options and features the better but on this issue in general I personally think we Both are a minority,.while we debate the relevance of the Admiral rank I think may players don't really care, so long as they command their ship a title means nothing to them.
If you ask for opinions, I personally would eliminate ranks above captain. In fact, I'd make every player captain and start the tutorial at commander because everything you do in the entire game is captain's duty (aside from doing crewmen errand work half the time). I would also ban a lot of uniforms from the game and severly limit people's uniform customization. See why it wouldn't be good to do that? :P
Seriously, let NPCs adress us by chosen rank title. Everyone could be happy
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... or, the Admiral of a fleet of starships. It'd be nice to have the option, for those who'd like that mode of play. I'm all for more options, I've said that many times. (I still think we need a diplomatic/exploration play style on the Fed side, so that a Starfleet character can reach level 50 without having to fire a phaser in anger. For those who'd like that sort of thing.)
It would be good if they completely decoupled rank titles from character levels, both for players and NPCs. It always bugs me, the number of Commanders I have on my ship. On a practical level, yes, they're all Commander level, because I want a full range of powers available for ship boff slots and away teams.... but, realistically, most of them should be Lieutenants or Lieutenant Commanders at best. (IIRC, Spock was the only Commander on the original Enterprise, and even he started out as a Lieutenant Commander and got promoted sometime within the TOS timeframe.)
If we do go the full Admiral/squadron commander route, of course, it'd be nice to be able to promote boffs to Captain and even beyond. The rank of Commodore (historically a problematical one, sometimes it's used, sometimes it isn't) is one I'd like to see, for two reasons of my own; it was used in the TOS era (William Windom's character in "The Doomsday Machine" was Commodore Decker, for instance), and I have an android boff called Amiga, and I would really like to promote her to Commodore. (I never said they were sensible reasons, did I?)
Your third paragraph is correct. Your second paragraph (parenthetically) is only sort of correct. In the current US Navy, the "ship commander title" of captain is unrelated to the "O-6, full-bird" rank of captain, to the extent that there's no reason that you could not have two or three O-6 officers on the ship and only one of them being the ship's captain. By that standard, Spock and Scott would not have had to take a demotion to O-5 in order to allow Kirk to resume command of Enterprise - unless Starfleet's Personnel regulations required it, or something.
You can have two O-6 captain-rank officers on a ship. You cannot have two captains of a ship. Except for US Navy SSBNs, that have Blue crews and Gold crews, and they're not captain at the same time.
Let me clarify:
I'd be fine with the option. Sometimes when I say "what I'd do", I'm saying what I'd do if designing the game from scratch or commenting on a feature that's unreleased.
The genie is largely out of the bottle.
I WOULD be impressed if Cryptic risked controversy to set the ranks "right", to make captains feel less like peons on their way to admiral and more like a respectable terminal career position with broad power over faction politics and mission setting. I think "captain" is made to seem unimportant both in the rank structure and in how missions are designed and in many fundamental other ways throughout the game. (In some ways, I really wished they'd made us all Elite Forces style hazard team commanders aboard NPC Captains' ships not because I don't want to be Captain but because it would feel more authentic to gameplay.)
But I don't expect them to rectify this and I'd be satisfied with optional rank and a "We'd probably do a lot of things differently if we were building a STO 2" comment.
The thing that sticks in my craw about the "Admiral" rank is two things:
1) No player has ever adequately explained to me what's appealing about it without making captains sounds like a lot less than what they were on the shows. Being captain is a big deal. Capotains can have captain rank officers under their command, call for back-up, command multiple ships, set the ship's mission and course, and dictate faction policy until they cross certain lines. Until a Captain can do that in the game, I don't see a need for Admirals without somehow undervaluing Captains in the Trek setting.
2) No dev has ever really explained to my satisfaction what the thinking was behind the admiral ranks. I have no real clue why it was done and the absence of a reason makes it seem like something that was done to impose some kind of preference overtop the IP.
All my this.^^^^
I seriously haven't heard any good argument as to why we should be admirals and not captains. The only argument for admirals that doesn't really have a counterpoint is "I like my admiral pips, don't take them away!!!".
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
While I would LIKE to know who/why decided to make the level cap VA, I don't really think it matters.
My character Tsin'xing
The rank thing is all Cryptic.
Perpetual's idea was for players to form crews, not fleets, and team up on ships with the crew/guild leader as the Captain. They never exactly worked out the mechanics of how ships would be flown.
Cryptic used very little of Perpetual's work aside from 3D models and some uniform designs, mainly starting from scratch.
And I am immensely grateful that Perpetual lost the license to STO due to this very reason.
I think a halfway option would be best personally.
And McCoy commented that Kirk's acceptance to being promoted to Admiral was the worst thing he ever did. Kirk's place was in the Captain's Chair, in command of a starship. With "The Voyage Home" and having saved the Federation again, Starfleet still had to punish him for the whole stealing of the Enterprise and all that. His "punishment" was demotion to the rank of Captain and to his later surprise, command of another Constitution-refit, the Enterprise-A. Him and his core officers were expecting some trash hauler of a ship, but Kirk was fine for just having a ship.
The funny thing with the court martial and reduction in rank for Kirk was that he was smiling when they told him he would "only" be a Captain again :cool:
By naval tradition, the ranks of Admiral no longer really makes you having a ship as "yours" to command. They are in charge of groups of ships: Task Forces, Fleets, Groups, whatever terminology you want to use. On campaign, when the Admiral goes to a specific ship to command his unit from there, that ship is now the "Flagship." The Captain in command of that Flagship still has the duties and responsibilities of that posting, but he gets to have a flag officer looking directly over his shoulder every day, directly telling him what needs to be done.
It's why for STO the max rank players should have is Captain. And there's nothing wrong with that in Star Trek lore. The furthest we ever see Picard was Captain, never attaining Admiral. "The Sisko" was the same. Kirk got to the Admiral ranks but found out he always just wanted to be just a Captain with a vessel to call his own. Janeway got to Admiral, but was sitting in some office now issuing orders and not in command of a vessel.
system Lord Baal is dead
What about this being a video game makes the admiral rank preferable. Please explain.
As far as Janeway being stuck behind a desk as a Vice Admiral, she was responsible for doing the first scientific survey of Hobus after the Hobus Supernova. She might not command a starship often, but she does when necessary.
We have tons of unused Bridge Officers and ships. An Admiral system where we can have some of those unused Bridge Officers promoted to Captain that pilot our unused ships so some of those ships would fight with us and others sent on missions similar to duty officer assignments would make the Admiral rank preferable. After all tons of players have spent hundreds of dollars or more on ships that they no longer use because something newer and better came out. Kirk and Picard didn't have to worry about unused ships in the Dry Dock so this would fix a problem that is only present since this is a video game.
because we are not playing real life trek sorry to be the one to tell you that
system Lord Baal is dead
All of those things were done by Captains in the shows.
Admirals tend to focus more on paperwork, teaching, etc.
im going to ask you this can you say you know for a fact you know what every admiral in starfleet was doing where they were at??? yes or no will do have you ever written produce a EP of star trek how about a movie did you come up with what can and can not be?
system Lord Baal is dead
What does that have to do with wanting to be an admiral and how is the desire to be an admiral any different than wanting to be a janitor or a crash test dummy or the Mayor of Candyland?
video game not real life you dont like admiral do this picture in your head!! they are captain and move on from this nitpick
system Lord Baal is dead
I am asking: why does it matter to you?