Minor correction here, by that point she was already a one-star. She got her first star in Honor Among Enemies when she was in charge of that squadron of Q-ships, remember? (Not counting her being in field command of half the Grayson Space Navy in the previous book, since that's a different service.)
Otherwise correct.
To condense it down, you can't learn to command men in a classroom. It just doesn't work that way. Talent must be tempered by experience. Again I point to Prime Kirk, who took 18 years to make captain and was still the youngest man to ever hold the grade in the history of Starfleet.
Now, if you want a way to make the current tutorial make sense, by all means, have your guy stomp a bunch of Borg and get a battlefield commission. Then time-skip fifteen years or so, like they bloody well should've done at the end of ST2009. (But then they would've had to do something actually creative in the sequel instead of retreading TWOK. ) And you're still not going to be a fleet admiral.
The brass has already seen that you add "experience" to what I am and I'm a god. With only 5 years experience, I've done more than anyone in this universe. I have seen, fought and killed stuff that would make experienced Klingons cry for mommie (if there were any left I hadn't killed already...). Section 31 doesn't hide from me, they ask for favors. No Captain, Admiral, or President has done what I have. Even "Q" hangs out with me and gives me 1000's of signed photos. :cool:
The "God Emperor of Dune" is just a man with one planet and a christ complex, who doesn't have squat for a wardrobe compaired to me.
"Suspension of Disbelief"
Fleet Admiral is just the Federations way of giving me the "00" title. I'm licensed to Kill, I have the Federations "Letter of Marque", Hell I have the red "Bat-Padd" linking directly to the Fed's top guy.
"Captain" is the rank of the person who presses my off-duty cloths.
No one is really saying it means anything. Star Trek is fiction. The writers had the characters get promoted however they wished. There was no reality involved. People throwing out all these "real world" examples are only deluding themselves. We are talking about a show where one of the smartest people in Starfleet, AKA Spock, did not even remember his species has dual eyelids because the story needed him to forget it to add drama/tension to the episode.
There is nothing real about Star Trek and the next Captain in a TV show might make that Rank at 25 because the writers want him to be younger then Picard. It is all writer's fiat.
Exactly the point
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Of course Picard became Captain at the age of 28 only 6 years post Academy graduation.
And Kirk did not take 18 years. He graduated the Academy in 2257 and became Captain of the Enterprise in 2265 at the age of 32. Thus 8 years after the Academy.
Ok, fine, 8 years. That's still a far cry from fourth-year cadet to fleet admiral in 18 months. :rolleyes:
There is nothing real about Star Trek and the next Captain in a TV show might make that Rank at 25 because the writers want him to be younger then Picard. It is all writer's fiat.
And watch everybody and his brother who knows anything at all about the military call bullsh*t for exactly the reasons previously laid out. Hell, this even came up in a panel on military sci-fi I went to at a con back in January, regarding the end of ST2009 (one of Baen's editors, a retired Air Force officer, was on the panel, as was a serving Navy officer in line for his first command this year).
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
^I really don't understand why people expect a videogame to follow the same time progression as a show for players. We ARE NOT canon, thus what we achieve means NOTHING to the overall story. It is so gamers can have more story, progression, and better gear which is the heart of an MMO.
None of which requires the player character to be an admiral or to have gotten there a year and a half after Academy graduation, especially in a franchise where the hero rank is captain.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Ok, fine, 8 years. That's still a far cry from fourth-year cadet to fleet admiral in 18 months. :rolleyes:
And watch everybody and his brother who knows anything at all about the military call bullsh*t for exactly the reasons previously laid out. Hell, this even came up in a panel on military sci-fi I went to at a con back in January, regarding the end of ST2009 (one of Baen's editors, a retired Air Force officer, was on the panel, as was a serving Navy officer in line for his first command this year).
But Starfleet isn't the military....it's a fictional organization. People are promoted based on the writers whims.
But if we want to keep it real...we'd all only be ensigns and LTs since only one year passed in real time.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Frankly, when they announced that players could achieve the rank of Fleet Admiral (a rank usually reserved for the Commander in Chief of Starfleet - Star Trek Encyclopedia) I threw in the towel on the argument.
From that point forward, I retconned all my characters. I now have characters in 2 distinct categories.
The first category is TOS era. With the addition of the T6 Command ships, which have the generalized shape of a Connie, plus some features to give them an "old-timey" feel, I created my own alternate universe. I have 3 TOS era Starfleet officers, a TOS Romulan and a TOS Klingon. The highest rank any of them hold is Commodore, as it was the only flag rank that we saw in command of a starship during that era.
My second category is TWOK era. 1 officer of each faction, with 1 Captain (Starfleet), one Commander (Klingon) and 1 Subcommander (Romulan).
They have their own backstories, summed up in their "Personnel Record" I wrote in their Captain's Logs, and whatever rank they are at, is pretty much where they will be the rest of their careers.
Beyond the scope of my own little alternate reality, I basically ignore EVERYTHING else. All the weirdly dressed players, all the funny uniformed NPCs, all of it. My alternate reality is the only one that matters to me, and the rest of what exists in the game is galactic background noise.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Frankly, when they announced that players could achieve the rank of Fleet Admiral (a rank usually reserved for the Commander in Chief of Starfleet - Star Trek Encyclopedia) I threw in the towel on the argument.
From that point forward, I retconned all my characters. I now have characters in 2 distinct categories.
The first category is TOS era. With the addition of the T6 Command ships, which have the generalized shape of a Connie, plus some features to give them an "old-timey" feel, I created my own alternate universe. I have 3 TOS era Starfleet officers, a TOS Romulan and a TOS Klingon. The highest rank any of them hold is Commodore, as it was the only flag rank that we saw in command of a starship during that era.
My second category is TWOK era. 1 officer of each faction, with 1 Captain (Starfleet), one Commander (Klingon) and 1 Subcommander (Romulan).
They have their own backstories, summed up in their "Personnel Record" I wrote in their Captain's Logs, and whatever rank they are at, is pretty much where they will be the rest of their careers.
Beyond the scope of my own little alternate reality, I basically ignore EVERYTHING else. All the weirdly dressed players, all the funny uniformed NPCs, all of it. My alternate reality is the only one that matters to me, and the rest of what exists in the game is galactic background noise.
I do this too...I have a TOS era character and a character that crossed over from the reboot universe to the STO one
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
I do this too...I have a TOS era character and a character that crossed over from the reboot universe to the STO one
It's really the only way to enjoy the game. And I find that doing the in-depth work to recreate the era as accurately as I can, gives me a bigger invested interest in the character as well.
No one has a true investment in their character until they run "Night of the Comet" 14 times to get MK XI TOS ground weapons for all of their Boffs. :P
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
It's really the only way to enjoy the game. And I find that doing the in-depth work to recreate the era as accurately as I can, gives me a bigger invested interest in the character as well.
No one has a true investment in their character until they run "Night of the Comet" 14 times to get MK XI TOS ground weapons for all of their Boffs. :P
Just keep claiming the Tos bundle and they all get upgrading phasers....though I do run the missions over for the small hand phaser and the tos rifle.
I do get more enjoyment out of those two toons
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Minor correction here, by that point she was already a one-star. She got her first star in Honor Among Enemies when she was in charge of that squadron of Q-ships, remember? (Not counting her being in field command of half the Grayson Space Navy in the previous book, since that's a different service.)
Otherwise correct.
To condense it down, you can't learn to command men in a classroom. It just doesn't work that way. Talent must be tempered by experience. Again I point to Prime Kirk, who took 18 years to make captain and was still the youngest man to ever hold the grade in the history of Starfleet.
Now, if you want a way to make the current tutorial make sense, by all means, have your guy stomp a bunch of Borg and get a battlefield commission. Then time-skip fifteen years or so, like they bloody well should've done at the end of ST2009. (But then they would've had to do something actually creative in the sequel instead of retreading TWOK. ) And you're still not going to be a fleet admiral.
Actually Honor Harrington was merely an acting commodore she was still a captain of the list. Remember when she gets captured by Lester Tourville, she's only a Commodore. In fact in the beginning of that book Hamish Alexander thinks to himself it was about time she made that rank. Shy she was commodore in command of heavy cruiser squadron 18 and not a battle cruiser squadron. When she gets home from cerberus she gets jumped 3 grades to 3 star admiral.
Just an FYI.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
Realistically, this game should be paced over a number of years as opposed to - well, 18 months. I don't see why it wasn't paced more accordingly to somewhat more realistic time frame.
I think the idea of expecting the player to focus on one toon's progress for 18 months is really ridiculous. This is a game, not a job or a real hobby. Players lose interest aftr six months, so why expect the game mechanics to have a player grinding away for 18 months on just one toon, and the goal to create many toons so the player will buy many "shinies" from the in-game store. I have played those long drawn out games and do not find them so entertaining that I will devote 18 months to just one toon. Expecting a longer run is more counter-productive and unappealing. :rolleyes:
It's really the only way to enjoy the game. And I find that doing the in-depth work to recreate the era as accurately as I can, gives me a bigger invested interest in the character as well.
No one has a true investment in their character until they run "Night of the Comet" 14 times to get MK XI TOS ground weapons for all of their Boffs. :P
I guess that makes me an "investor"
How many have you upgraded? And hey, you forgot the Type-I Phasers. (first time I saw
these was on the exchange. Bought (5) of them for about 120,000 Ec each. Now thats an
investor, or rather an idiot.)
I can shut my mind off and go along with the flow regarding most other aspects of this game (and I'm really having fun with my new delta recruit) - but the whole notion of going from cadet to fleet admiral in 18 months is just unfathomable to me. Meanwhile, could someone remind me again how long Captain Picard was a captain? Hey, if I can make fleet admiral in 18 mos and they can make a bipolar madwoman who executed someone because she missed her friends (ahem) an admiral, no names necessary there, surely Jean Luc should be Emperor of the Federation within a few weeks.
Realistically, this game should be paced over a number of years as opposed to - well, 18 months. I don't see why it wasn't paced more accordingly to somewhat more realistic time frame.
Then again, it's no less realistic than going from cadet to captain of a starship within a matter of days - absolutely no one could ever buy that type of nonsense! :rolleyes:
Old characters did it in less than a year. Hell, since time doesn't seem to pass in game at any perceivable rate it may have happened in a day.
How many have you upgraded? And hey, you forgot the Type-I Phasers. (first time I saw
these was on the exchange. Bought (5) of them for about 120,000 Ec each. Now thats an
investor, or rather an idiot.)
BCW.
I upgraded my personal Hand Phaser and Rifle to MK XIV, and the weapons for my 4 Primary away team members to MK XII, then the rest are MK XI.
I thought about getting some Type 1's, but I always prefered the look of the Type 2's.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
But Starfleet isn't the military....it's a fictional organization. People are promoted based on the writers whims.
But if we want to keep it real...we'd all only be ensigns and LTs since only one year passed in real time.
Or, they could've started us off as senior commanders and then get bumped to captain after the tutorial and left us there. :rolleyes:
Cryptic should never have linked level to character rank to begin with, and now it's just ridiculous because there is no rank after fleet admiral. What are they going to promote us to next time they increase the level cap? Secretary of Defense? President of the Federation? What's next, God?
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
There are precedent in real life of accelerated promotions. I invite anyone to look up Audy Murphy. He enlisted in the Army after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was deployed to Europe (Italian Front) in 1943 and by 1946, he was a 1st Lieutenant. From Private to 1st Lieutenant in about 3 years. Under normal circumstances, he would have been lucky to achieve Sergeant in that same time frame.
I know it is not the same as 18 months as indicated in the game. But this is a game and suspension of disbelief is required for it this or really any game to make complete sense.
There are precedent in real life of accelerated promotions. I invite anyone to look up Audy Murphy. He enlisted in the Army after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was deployed to Europe (Italian Front) in 1943 and by 1946, he was a 1st Lieutenant. From Private to 1st Lieutenant in about 3 years. Under normal circumstances, he would have been lucky to achieve Sergeant in that same time frame.
I know it is not the same as 18 months as indicated in the game. But this is a game and suspension of disbelief is required for it this or really any game to make complete sense.
Still a very far cry from fourth-year cadet to fleet admiral in 18 months. And I note that Audie Murphy was a mustang with several years of service under his belt as an enlisted man, not a green Academy cadet given permanent command rank on xir midshipman cruise.
The comparable scenario to STO would have had them taking Murphy from private to General of the Army by 1946.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Or, they could've started us off as senior commanders and then get bumped to captain after the tutorial and left us there. :rolleyes:
Cryptic should never have linked level to character rank to begin with, and now it's just ridiculous because there is no rank after fleet admiral. What are they going to promote us to next time they increase the level cap? Secretary of Defense? President of the Federation? What's next, God?
Clearly we will be named the "God-Emperor of EVERYTHING" including the Borg, Undine, and all the Q and Inconians and Heralds. As a bonus perk you will be able to hang out with Devs and also see the code. Then you collapse into a singularity of awesome since you are "The One" and then the servers physically melt cause they just can't take the sheer amount of awesome the player possesses.
Cheers from Antonio Valerio Cortez III, Half-Celestial Archduke of the Free Marches Confederacy.
Still a very far cry from fourth-year cadet to fleet admiral in 18 months. And I note that Audie Murphy was a mustang with several years of service under his belt as an enlisted man, not a green Academy cadet given permanent command rank on xir midshipman cruise.
The comparable scenario to STO would have had them taking Murphy from private to General of the Army by 1946.
I agree completely. As I said that I know it is not the same. I also agree with the sentiment that they should have never tied rank with level. I also feel that with each season, they should have advanced the date by a year. Or at the least, with every anniversary event. That should make the game at least 2414.
But Starfleet isn't the military....it's a fictional organization. People are promoted based on the writers whims.
But if we want to keep it real...we'd all only be ensigns and LTs since only one year passed in real time.
Its a fictional organization based off of an IRL organization. Unless of course you think that Gene Roddenberry naming the ranks in Starfleet and the USN ranks matching up is just a coincidence. And lets not forget that though ST is fiction, it is supposed to be about Earth in the future. Its not like Star Wars where its some "land far far away". I dont expect ST to be 100% realistic, but the shows and movies (minus JJ) have all tried to keep it reasonable. STO may be fiction, but i just dont like how the writers "whims" keep getting carried away. You watch the ST shows and you arent seeing UFP Star Commander Admiral 5th tier Janeway. Its Captain Janeway or Admiral Janeway.
I actually think that the reason ranks are the way they are in STO is because the writers either do not care, do not know, or they think that making the storyline kinda like JJ ST1 would draw in more people. That along with the "chosen one" storyline where you are basically god, just makes it all the more ridiculous for me.
And watch everybody and his brother who knows anything at all about the military call bullsh*t for exactly the reasons previously laid out. Hell, this even came up in a panel on military sci-fi I went to at a con back in January, regarding the end of ST2009 (one of Baen's editors, a retired Air Force officer, was on the panel, as was a serving Navy officer in line for his first command this year).
I do not care what everyone and their brother calls. Star Trek is not real. It has never claimed to be a reality simulator. The fact that a certain group of fans want it to be real still does not make it real.
And beyond all of that STO is not a Star Trek Simulator. STO is a combat-base RPG. It is full of gaming tropes which have nothing to do with Trek; they are required to be there due to it being a game. I do not remember Kirk blowing up a Romulan ships and a big glowie appearing in space and Kirk telling Spock: have that Plasma Torp installed on the Enterprise in 2 seconds.
Would it have been more realistic for ranks to stop at Captain? Sure. But it has been over 5 years now, it is not going to change, so it is time to get over it. Would it be interesting if it took you 10 in-game years to reach Admiral? Sure; but you would be missing out of a lot of cool stuff in the timeline, such as the Energy Ribbon coming back in 2410 - a mission we have to look forward to as the game is currently in 2410.
Overall, though, none of this really matters because it is just a game.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Would it not be funny if the day the STO servers shut of, log in one last time, play your final mission and then at the end you hear the words "Computer, end program!" And the holodeck appears and you see Captain Taggard in front of you congratulating you onpassing the phaser test exam and he welcomes you on his traing cruise ship?
Would it not be funny if the day the STO servers shut of, log in one last time, play your final mission and then at the end you hear the words "Computer, end program!" And the holodeck appears and you see Captain Taggard in front of you congratulating you onpassing the phaser test exam and he welcomes you on his traing cruise ship?
oh now that's just flat out cruel! I like it!
Forgot to mention that the main server is called "Holodeck." This idea has been discussed before by players. As most of us know, Agent Drake has put us through an advanced holodeck to assess our potential of becoming a Section 31 operative. What if all we've done up to now is a simulation and is only happening in 18 hours even though it seems like 18 months to us? At the end before the game shuts down, There's one last mission: We walk in to see Admiral Quinn and instead of Quinn, it's Taggart or Drake in the admiral's chair. ESD then turns into a holodeck and we are told that we have only been in the simulation for 18 hours, not 18 months. And that we were put into it unknowingly, to see how we would handle things in the real (Star Trek) world. Then of course we pass the simulation, and see our first ship leaving ESD. Our first command... Is a Miranda-class starship! We know we will have to climb the ladder all over again, but this time it will take years, maybe decades! Then the game ends.
"Being a troll myself, I classify this malcontent as a Type-2 Oblivious Troll. My reasons for coming to this conclusion are: The annoying colored text he deploys, the contradictory threads he creates, the excessive whining and foot stamping, the amusement factor of his threads, and the apparent lack of realization that he is in fact a troll, like me, and is not the heart broken, victimized, player, he sees himself as."
Since being called "Captain" of the vessel you command and ranked are two different things (your crew starts calling you character Captain even during the tutorial), but I must say, I like your ranking a bit better, but no cadet should be given a ship. I think Ensign to begin with and maybe simple keep the rank Lt. or Lt Cmdr for two numeric game rankings.
Just my two ECs.
Yeah, thats why I said appropriate content for those grades. They could take the SWTOR kind of approach with it, and not even give you a ship to command up until your at a level were it would make more sense then as a cadet (a little into Ensign?), and just fill level 1-9 and a couple into Ensign with ground based stuff/stationed on a ship you don't command. Would potentially give them room to have a little more detailed tutorial to.
I do not care what everyone and their brother calls. Star Trek is not real. It has never claimed to be a reality simulator. The fact that a certain group of fans want it to be real still does not make it real.
And beyond all of that STO is not a Star Trek Simulator. STO is a combat-base RPG. It is full of gaming tropes which have nothing to do with Trek; they are required to be there due to it being a game. I do not remember Kirk blowing up a Romulan ships and a big glowie appearing in space and Kirk telling Spock: have that Plasma Torp installed on the Enterprise in 2 seconds.
Acceptable breaks from reality, none of which require the PC to have gone from cadet to admiral in 18 months.
Would it have been more realistic for ranks to stop at Captain? Sure. But it has been over 5 years now, it is not going to change, so it is time to get over it. Would it be interesting if it took you 10 in-game years to reach Admiral? Sure; but you would be missing out of a lot of cool stuff in the timeline, such as the Energy Ribbon coming back in 2410 - a mission we have to look forward to as the game is currently in 2410.
And why does a mission with the Nexus require the player to be an admiral or to have been a cadet less than two years earlier?
Overall, though, none of this really matters because it is just a game.
So because it's a game, it's automatically absolved from having to make logical sense. Got it. /sarcasm
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
I do not care what everyone and their brother calls. Star Trek is not real. It has never claimed to be a reality simulator. The fact that a certain group of fans want it to be real still does not make it real.
And beyond all of that STO is not a Star Trek Simulator. STO is a combat-base RPG. It is full of gaming tropes which have nothing to do with Trek; they are required to be there due to it being a game. I do not remember Kirk blowing up a Romulan ships and a big glowie appearing in space and Kirk telling Spock: have that Plasma Torp installed on the Enterprise in 2 seconds.
Would it have been more realistic for ranks to stop at Captain? Sure. But it has been over 5 years now, it is not going to change, so it is time to get over it. Would it be interesting if it took you 10 in-game years to reach Admiral? Sure; but you would be missing out of a lot of cool stuff in the timeline, such as the Energy Ribbon coming back in 2410 - a mission we have to look forward to as the game is currently in 2410.
Overall, though, none of this really matters because it is just a game.
They could just as easily backdate the years so that it's still 2410. Very few of the game's events in episodes are storyline specific to where it would pose any difficulties to have a Klingon ship attack us in 2400.
I agree it's not going to change although it would still be nice as a game feature if we could be addressed by the rank we choose.
I can shut my mind off and go along with the flow regarding most other aspects of this game (and I'm really having fun with my new delta recruit) - but the whole notion of going from cadet to fleet admiral in 18 months is just unfathomable to me. Meanwhile, could someone remind me again how long Captain Picard was a captain? Hey, if I can make fleet admiral in 18 mos and they can make a bipolar madwoman who executed someone because she missed her friends (ahem) an admiral, no names necessary there, surely Jean Luc should be Emperor of the Federation within a few weeks.
Realistically, this game should be paced over a number of years as opposed to - well, 18 months. I don't see why it wasn't paced more accordingly to somewhat more realistic time frame.
Then again, it's no less realistic than going from cadet to captain of a starship within a matter of days - absolutely no one could ever buy that type of nonsense! :rolleyes:
18 months, I plan to do it in around one month.
that's around how long it took me overall with my others.
if I had more time I could have done it quicker but I have got a job and family to think of.
seriously though, I guess they just recognise greatness when they see it in the future.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
At the time, the United States didn't maintain its military at the same levels per capita that we do nowadays. The standing army was pretty small and they had to bulk it up fast. The big defense budgets we know and love today are a product of the Cold War.
The proper comparison is the early TNG Starfleet with the post-Wolf 359, Dominion War-era Starfleet, which was one hell of a lot bigger. I'm sorry, if Starfleet's that hard-up for personnel it should be visibly on the verge of total collapse. Their losses aren't that heavy.
You make an assertion that isn't backed by the facts.. Shelby said/strong implied that after Wolf 359 the losses in Ship and Personnel was "that heavy". What Shelby said/implied is canon in the universe of Star Trek for the Federation at that time.
Comments
The brass has already seen that you add "experience" to what I am and I'm a god. With only 5 years experience, I've done more than anyone in this universe. I have seen, fought and killed stuff that would make experienced Klingons cry for mommie (if there were any left I hadn't killed already...). Section 31 doesn't hide from me, they ask for favors. No Captain, Admiral, or President has done what I have. Even "Q" hangs out with me and gives me 1000's of signed photos. :cool:
The "God Emperor of Dune" is just a man with one planet and a christ complex, who doesn't have squat for a wardrobe compaired to me.
"Suspension of Disbelief"
Fleet Admiral is just the Federations way of giving me the "00" title. I'm licensed to Kill, I have the Federations "Letter of Marque", Hell I have the red "Bat-Padd" linking directly to the Fed's top guy.
"Captain" is the rank of the person who presses my off-duty cloths.
Exactly the point
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
And watch everybody and his brother who knows anything at all about the military call bullsh*t for exactly the reasons previously laid out. Hell, this even came up in a panel on military sci-fi I went to at a con back in January, regarding the end of ST2009 (one of Baen's editors, a retired Air Force officer, was on the panel, as was a serving Navy officer in line for his first command this year).
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
None of which requires the player character to be an admiral or to have gotten there a year and a half after Academy graduation, especially in a franchise where the hero rank is captain.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
But Starfleet isn't the military....it's a fictional organization. People are promoted based on the writers whims.
But if we want to keep it real...we'd all only be ensigns and LTs since only one year passed in real time.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Frankly, when they announced that players could achieve the rank of Fleet Admiral (a rank usually reserved for the Commander in Chief of Starfleet - Star Trek Encyclopedia) I threw in the towel on the argument.
From that point forward, I retconned all my characters. I now have characters in 2 distinct categories.
The first category is TOS era. With the addition of the T6 Command ships, which have the generalized shape of a Connie, plus some features to give them an "old-timey" feel, I created my own alternate universe. I have 3 TOS era Starfleet officers, a TOS Romulan and a TOS Klingon. The highest rank any of them hold is Commodore, as it was the only flag rank that we saw in command of a starship during that era.
My second category is TWOK era. 1 officer of each faction, with 1 Captain (Starfleet), one Commander (Klingon) and 1 Subcommander (Romulan).
They have their own backstories, summed up in their "Personnel Record" I wrote in their Captain's Logs, and whatever rank they are at, is pretty much where they will be the rest of their careers.
Beyond the scope of my own little alternate reality, I basically ignore EVERYTHING else. All the weirdly dressed players, all the funny uniformed NPCs, all of it. My alternate reality is the only one that matters to me, and the rest of what exists in the game is galactic background noise.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
I do this too...I have a TOS era character and a character that crossed over from the reboot universe to the STO one
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
It's really the only way to enjoy the game. And I find that doing the in-depth work to recreate the era as accurately as I can, gives me a bigger invested interest in the character as well.
No one has a true investment in their character until they run "Night of the Comet" 14 times to get MK XI TOS ground weapons for all of their Boffs. :P
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Just keep claiming the Tos bundle and they all get upgrading phasers....though I do run the missions over for the small hand phaser and the tos rifle.
I do get more enjoyment out of those two toons
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Actually Honor Harrington was merely an acting commodore she was still a captain of the list. Remember when she gets captured by Lester Tourville, she's only a Commodore. In fact in the beginning of that book Hamish Alexander thinks to himself it was about time she made that rank. Shy she was commodore in command of heavy cruiser squadron 18 and not a battle cruiser squadron. When she gets home from cerberus she gets jumped 3 grades to 3 star admiral.
Just an FYI.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
I think the idea of expecting the player to focus on one toon's progress for 18 months is really ridiculous. This is a game, not a job or a real hobby. Players lose interest aftr six months, so why expect the game mechanics to have a player grinding away for 18 months on just one toon, and the goal to create many toons so the player will buy many "shinies" from the in-game store. I have played those long drawn out games and do not find them so entertaining that I will devote 18 months to just one toon. Expecting a longer run is more counter-productive and unappealing. :rolleyes:
I guess that makes me an "investor"
How many have you upgraded? And hey, you forgot the Type-I Phasers. (first time I saw
these was on the exchange. Bought (5) of them for about 120,000 Ec each. Now thats an
investor, or rather an idiot.)
BCW.
Old characters did it in less than a year. Hell, since time doesn't seem to pass in game at any perceivable rate it may have happened in a day.
I upgraded my personal Hand Phaser and Rifle to MK XIV, and the weapons for my 4 Primary away team members to MK XII, then the rest are MK XI.
I thought about getting some Type 1's, but I always prefered the look of the Type 2's.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
Or, they could've started us off as senior commanders and then get bumped to captain after the tutorial and left us there. :rolleyes:
Cryptic should never have linked level to character rank to begin with, and now it's just ridiculous because there is no rank after fleet admiral. What are they going to promote us to next time they increase the level cap? Secretary of Defense? President of the Federation? What's next, God?
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
I know it is not the same as 18 months as indicated in the game. But this is a game and suspension of disbelief is required for it this or really any game to make complete sense.
The comparable scenario to STO would have had them taking Murphy from private to General of the Army by 1946.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Clearly we will be named the "God-Emperor of EVERYTHING" including the Borg, Undine, and all the Q and Inconians and Heralds. As a bonus perk you will be able to hang out with Devs and also see the code. Then you collapse into a singularity of awesome since you are "The One" and then the servers physically melt cause they just can't take the sheer amount of awesome the player possesses.
I agree completely. As I said that I know it is not the same. I also agree with the sentiment that they should have never tied rank with level. I also feel that with each season, they should have advanced the date by a year. Or at the least, with every anniversary event. That should make the game at least 2414.
Its a fictional organization based off of an IRL organization. Unless of course you think that Gene Roddenberry naming the ranks in Starfleet and the USN ranks matching up is just a coincidence. And lets not forget that though ST is fiction, it is supposed to be about Earth in the future. Its not like Star Wars where its some "land far far away". I dont expect ST to be 100% realistic, but the shows and movies (minus JJ) have all tried to keep it reasonable. STO may be fiction, but i just dont like how the writers "whims" keep getting carried away. You watch the ST shows and you arent seeing UFP Star Commander Admiral 5th tier Janeway. Its Captain Janeway or Admiral Janeway.
I actually think that the reason ranks are the way they are in STO is because the writers either do not care, do not know, or they think that making the storyline kinda like JJ ST1 would draw in more people. That along with the "chosen one" storyline where you are basically god, just makes it all the more ridiculous for me.
And beyond all of that STO is not a Star Trek Simulator. STO is a combat-base RPG. It is full of gaming tropes which have nothing to do with Trek; they are required to be there due to it being a game. I do not remember Kirk blowing up a Romulan ships and a big glowie appearing in space and Kirk telling Spock: have that Plasma Torp installed on the Enterprise in 2 seconds.
Would it have been more realistic for ranks to stop at Captain? Sure. But it has been over 5 years now, it is not going to change, so it is time to get over it. Would it be interesting if it took you 10 in-game years to reach Admiral? Sure; but you would be missing out of a lot of cool stuff in the timeline, such as the Energy Ribbon coming back in 2410 - a mission we have to look forward to as the game is currently in 2410.
Overall, though, none of this really matters because it is just a game.
oh now that's just flat out cruel! I like it!
Forgot to mention that the main server is called "Holodeck." This idea has been discussed before by players. As most of us know, Agent Drake has put us through an advanced holodeck to assess our potential of becoming a Section 31 operative. What if all we've done up to now is a simulation and is only happening in 18 hours even though it seems like 18 months to us? At the end before the game shuts down, There's one last mission: We walk in to see Admiral Quinn and instead of Quinn, it's Taggart or Drake in the admiral's chair. ESD then turns into a holodeck and we are told that we have only been in the simulation for 18 hours, not 18 months. And that we were put into it unknowingly, to see how we would handle things in the real (Star Trek) world. Then of course we pass the simulation, and see our first ship leaving ESD. Our first command... Is a Miranda-class starship! We know we will have to climb the ladder all over again, but this time it will take years, maybe decades! Then the game ends.
Yeah, thats why I said appropriate content for those grades. They could take the SWTOR kind of approach with it, and not even give you a ship to command up until your at a level were it would make more sense then as a cadet (a little into Ensign?), and just fill level 1-9 and a couple into Ensign with ground based stuff/stationed on a ship you don't command. Would potentially give them room to have a little more detailed tutorial to.
And why does a mission with the Nexus require the player to be an admiral or to have been a cadet less than two years earlier?
So because it's a game, it's automatically absolved from having to make logical sense. Got it. /sarcasm
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
They could just as easily backdate the years so that it's still 2410. Very few of the game's events in episodes are storyline specific to where it would pose any difficulties to have a Klingon ship attack us in 2400.
I agree it's not going to change although it would still be nice as a game feature if we could be addressed by the rank we choose.
18 months, I plan to do it in around one month.
that's around how long it took me overall with my others.
if I had more time I could have done it quicker but I have got a job and family to think of.
seriously though, I guess they just recognise greatness when they see it in the future.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
You make an assertion that isn't backed by the facts.. Shelby said/strong implied that after Wolf 359 the losses in Ship and Personnel was "that heavy". What Shelby said/implied is canon in the universe of Star Trek for the Federation at that time.
They are called Prodigies.