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Ranks and levels - A plea to the Devs

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited February 2010 in The Academy
Would it be possible to restructure the current ranks so that we remain Ensigns untill Es11 then move on to Lieutenant JG, Lt Commander and Commander to the current skill cap. This would leave Captain and Fleet Officer ranks for future expansions.

Hell you could happily reintroduce the Commodore rank after Captain to prevent the stupid situation we have now where everyone is a Fleet Officer, essentially in any military (even Starfleet) a desk job NOT a ship commander.
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  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    You have to be promoted to Lieutenant after the tutorial, it wouldn't be appropraite for an ensign to command other ensigns on a permanent basis (your BO's.) And Lieutenant JG is technically a junior officer, and would not commonly be given command of a starship, (even under the special circumstances in STO).

    The Rank of Commodore was changed in TNG to Rear Admiral Lower Half, (a one pip admiral with a box) the 2 pip admirals you see in TNG+ are Rear Admiral Upper Halfs, then 3 is Vice Admiral, 4 is Full Admiral and 5 is Fleet Admiral. So Technically everyone in the game thats an admiral now is the equilivelent of a Commordore already, since they are Rear Admiral Lower Halfs.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    johnhawke wrote: »
    You have to be promoted to Lieutenant after the tutorial, it wouldn't be appropraite for an ensign to command other ensigns on a permanent basis (your BO's.) And Lieutenant JG is technically a junior officer, and would not commonly be given command of a starship, (even under the special circumstances in STO).

    The Rank of Commodore was changed in TNG to Rear Admiral Lower Half, (a one pip admiral with a box) the 2 pip admirals you see in TNG+ are Rear Admiral Upper Halfs, then 3 is Vice Admiral, 4 is Full Admiral and 5 is Fleet Admiral. So Technically everyone in the game thats an admiral now is the equilivelent of a Commordore already, since they are Rear Admiral Lower Halfs.

    There is no half rear admirals, only rear admirals and up. But the rest of what you said is correct.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Rear admiral lower half is a rank, so is upper half, don't believe me? look it up.

    http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Rear_admiral

    look at the first paragraph

    QUOTE: Some systems instead used two tiers of rear admiral rank, "rear admiral upper half" and "rear admiral lower half." Officers of the lower half were equal in grade to commodores.

    Heres another similar reference

    http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Commodore


    QUOTE: Commodore (later replaced by rear admiral-lower half) is a naval rank, the equivalent of which is used by the service organizations of many civilizations.

    Always back up your statements.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    No cited material, no images to back it up, very peculiar edit by the author who added that and not even a single episode or docuement quotation to back it up. So i'll say that it's something fannon that's found it's way into memory-alpha that overlooked the attention of the admins. i'll let em know and clean that article up.

    there is no "half" rear admirals in starfleet.

    CONFIRMED: "lower half" is pure speculation: http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Talk:Rear_admiral

    In canon terms it means that they're only guessing, it never officially appeared and therefore is not a legitimate rank.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Would it be possible to restructure the current ranks so that we remain Ensigns untill Es11 then move on to Lieutenant JG, Lt Commander and Commander to the current skill cap. This would leave Captain and Fleet Officer ranks for future expansions.

    Hell you could happily reintroduce the Commodore rank after Captain to prevent the stupid situation we have now where everyone is a Fleet Officer, essentially in any military (even Starfleet) a desk job NOT a ship commander.


    I agree. I refuse to wear my Admiral Rank dots on my collar and refuse to put the title Admiral above my character. I associate the Admiral Rank with a Desk job and that is *not* what my character does. He may have the rank, but he refuses to retire and accept the ****le.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    if it bothers you that much, you dont have to use the admiral title, and you dont have to wear the admiral pips. i suppose if there is enough complaining, cryptic can recode npcs to address you by your chosen title rather than the level based one. but i dont see why this is such a dealbreaker for so many when you have the choice of title and appearance.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    sylq wrote:
    if it bothers you that much, you dont have to use the admiral title, and you dont have to wear the admiral pips. i suppose if there is enough complaining, cryptic can recode npcs to address you by your chosen title rather than the level based one. but i dont see why this is such a dealbreaker for so many when you have the choice of title and appearance.


    Sorry, not sure if you were responding to me or the OP, but if it was in response to me: Didn't I already say that?

    If it was in response to the OP: I agree. Even with the way NPC's refer to you can be a pain and a buzz kill for concept. But even then, it's not such a big deal.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I for one am going to keep my Captain rank pips and "Captain-in-name"
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    above post was a reply to OP yes. fwiw, i dont think it would be terribly difficult for cryptic to recode the way npcs address you, but again i honestly dont see the fuss. there are plenty of other, more major things that break immersion that im willing to let slide in the interest of it being a videogame.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Would it be possible to restructure the current ranks so that we remain Ensigns untill Es11 then move on to Lieutenant JG, Lt Commander and Commander to the current skill cap. This would leave Captain and Fleet Officer ranks for future expansions.

    Hell you could happily reintroduce the Commodore rank after Captain to prevent the stupid situation we have now where everyone is a Fleet Officer, essentially in any military (even Starfleet) a desk job NOT a ship commander.


    ok, not to be insulting at all but your idea has a HUGE flaw, I mean think it throughly, a star trek MMO, where you command ships etc, but where you can't raise to the lofty rank of Captain?! that's rediculas.

    now I agree that they proably should have made the "cap rank" at launch captain, but really it's not a big deal, RPers are already comfortably ignoreing IC rank, and for non-RPers eh... if your not RPing by definition rank means squat
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    ok, not to be insulting at all but your idea has a HUGE flaw, I mean think it throughly, a star trek MMO, where you command ships etc, but where you can't raise to the lofty rank of Captain?! that's rediculas.

    now I agree that they proably should have made the "cap rank" at launch captain, but really it's not a big deal, RPers are already comfortably ignoreing IC rank, and for non-RPers eh... if your not RPing by definition rank means squat

    Really, i think you shouldnt be able to progress past captain, "Admiral" as a title should just be reserved for a fleet captain, but then you run out of ranks for character levelling
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    sure it would be better to start at ensign lvl 1-10 then lt.junior grade then lieutenant,lt.commander,commander and captain.Rear admiral lower halfs should command small starbases with a few ships and the size increases the higher admiral you become eg.rear admiral,vice admiral,admiral and fleet admiral.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Would it be possible to restructure the current ranks so that we remain Ensigns untill Es11 then move on to Lieutenant JG, Lt Commander and Commander to the current skill cap. This would leave Captain and Fleet Officer ranks for future expansions.

    Hell you could happily reintroduce the Commodore rank after Captain to prevent the stupid situation we have now where everyone is a Fleet Officer, essentially in any military (even Starfleet) a desk job NOT a ship commander.

    I'm not entirely sure that having Ensigns in command of starships or Commanders in control of the most powerful ships the Federation and Klingon Empire can build would be any more 'sensible'. ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    johnhawke wrote: »
    You have to be promoted to Lieutenant after the tutorial, it wouldn't be appropraite for an ensign to command other ensigns on a permanent basis (your BO's.) And Lieutenant JG is technically a junior officer, and would not commonly be given command of a starship, (even under the special circumstances in STO).
    .

    Actually RL military has a contingency just to cover how/when a LTjg can become a command officer of a vessel or a battle situation. Granted it hasn't happened since the God knows when, but the precedent does exist. STO merely uses it to launch the player character into the game.
    You are right though, normally a LTjg would never be allowed to continue to command a vessel, once the event that field promoted him/her was over.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Thats why i said "given" command, not assumed outta necessity, but i see your point.

    And in a time of war, A low ranking admiral would command a starship and that ship would likely command a fleet. Heck, Fleet Admiral nechayev commanded the USS Soverign, and she had 5 pips. lol.

    http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Nechayev

    And as far as Halfs, in TNG 2 pips was Rear Admiral, and in this game 1 pip is Rear Admiral, so how can they both be Rear Admiral? The answers is halfs. The US Navy uses the Half system, and all Starfleet Ranks are based on the US Navy. So logically, even if it never was quoted in an episode, we can assume this would be correct.

    US Navy ranks: http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=266

    Notice 1 Star (1 pip) Is Rear Admiral - Lower Half
    2 Star (2 pip) is Rear Admiral - Upper Half
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