I've always wanted the Rank Commodore, especially as I mostly fly Carriers & Dreads. I agree that STO's ranking structure, means in the STO universe, we've ended up with many more Chiefs than Indians. I Think Commodore should be the highest rank.
Extending it beyond Captain was always ridiculous, as you don't act in an Admiralty function. They should have had a special, dialogue and vanity name only rank of "Star Admiral" for a one star Captain exclusively for subscribers and left the rest of us at Captain. We are captains, we command starships, Admiral is a bloody desk job.
^^ This.
"James T. Kirk, it is the judgment of this council that you be reduced in rank to Captain. And that as a consequence of your new rank, you be given the duties for which you have demonstrated unswerving ability, the command of a starship."
Look at Admiral Quinn. The man's got his own office. And a big one. And he should have... but he alone. 10,000 Admirals on ESD, though, with virtually no lower ranks around, is ridiculous. There's no canon and/or RP in which you can make that work. We are Starship Captains. Period.
I would also point out that the only Starfleet flag officer who was confirmably, legitimately in command of a starship was a one-star. An entire Navy of fleet admirals is ridiculous by ANY standard.
And no, Marcus does NOT count. Regardless of its questionable legality or place in the chain of command, you cannot possibly describe its operations as anything remotely resembling normal Starfleet procedure. Just as originally written, it was an unacknowledged super-black outfit operating by its own rules, never mind the retcon-verse.
"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 favor the option of adding a toggle to our character sheet that lets you choose how NPCs refer to you. I usually wear captain pips and standard duty uniforms on all my characters, but everyone still says "Admiral". The problem is likely in how the dialogs themselves are structured.
Let's say all the missions so far have dialog that references a variable which contains the player's actual level-based rank. Call it $player_rank
Now, we introduce the ability to choose another rank for NPCs to call us. That gets put into another variable, let's call it $rp_rank
Depending on how the game's backend works, it could be as simple as opening a file for each mission or social map, and doing a find/replace to change all instances of $player_rank to $rp_rank. But, that assumes all the dialog can be accessed in one place. It's more likely that once the script is finalized and placed into the actual mission, each dialog tree and possibly each individual dialog box is a separate text field. This is how it is in the Foundry, for example. Now, you have to go through each one individually finding and replacing $player_rank with $rp_rank. That would be a pain in the butt for one fairly complex Foundry mission, let alone every mission and social zone in the entire game.
So you take the other route. Instead of altering the dialog, you alter what the variable $player_rank does. Now instead of referencing your level-based rank, it references the player's chosen RP rank. Then you make a new variable to do what $player_rank used to, say $level_rank. Problem is, $player_rank may have been used for more than just dialog, and changing its behavior just caused other parts of the game to behave strangely. Now you need to go through the game's code looking at everything that used to use $player_rank and decide if it needs to be changed to $level_rank or left alone. Again, a huge mess.
While I'd love to have this feature, when I actually think about it, it's probably a lot more work than we give it credit for. I can't see Cryptic dedicating that much work to such a small thing.
I would also point out that the only Starfleet flag officer who was confirmably, legitimately in command of a starship was a one-star. An entire Navy of fleet admirals is ridiculous by ANY standard.
It may be, if you take it literally, but the MMO is pretty much based on the idea of having populations of chosen ones running through their own quest lines. Other players implicitly default to being lesser heroes (in game) because it's impossible to reconcile their exploits with ours (especially once the multi-faction missions start) because it would require either writing each and every one of them into the plot of those missions or constructing a whole new set of fantastical, career launching, adventures.
Explicitly, other players simply not part of your narrative. They are never referenced except in PVE intro dialog. Granted, reframing everyone as Captain would make a group narrative easier to construct. But, given that some of us do like playing the part of a hands-on, Kirk-style Admiral, a change for the sake immersion (for a select group of people) would directly interfere with other people's narratives. You get a bit of atmosphere while someone else's story is ruined. That's not a fair trade-off.
The rational compromise is simply to implement a "preferred rank/title" option for dialog, not change global ranks. That way, people who enjoy the current story arc aren't interfered with while Captain purists have the full control they need for themselves.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Guys, as much as I'd like it to be, this game isn't a role playing game. God bless you for trying though.
I dunno my whole armada begs to disagree.
We also have our admirals within this armada, although most of our characters are of below captain rank.
Removing the option to play as an admiral at this point is stupid. Not giving us the option to be called the rank we choose, also stupid.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
The problem with STO is EVERY player character is considered to be the "Exceptional Officer" - born to command a starship and lead men/(Women too). So, yeah, there's no way around that plot point.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
My ship commanders, with few exceptions, are Captains. It's not their fault that random civilians and members of allied forces can't read their rank insignia...
Should simply remove it all together and instead use the player titles instead of player rank.
Currently missions use the rank, this means it is a simple swap of a variable in the code... if it was coded right or even half right... heck, 1/64 th right and it should still be this way.
Is the easiest change to provide the desired effect.
As per title - make Captain (the true 'hero' rank of Star Trek) the highest endgame rank, with Fleet leaders able to unlock the rank 'Admiral'.
Or, for goodness sake, please, PLEASE, let NPCs address us as our chosen Titles (like Commander, Captain, Lieutenant....and yes, even Moist, or Torpedo Target, etc. Because NO ONE else can see the NPC dialog except us and it is the PLAYER'S choice to be called that.)
I am SOOOO sick of being called Admiral everywhere I go when I am clearly wearing CAPTAIN stripes/pips.
Thanks!
Agree with the post, the suggestion and the cut of the OP's jib. This is a long overdue QoL change many have asked for.
As per title - make Captain (the true 'hero' rank of Star Trek) the highest endgame rank, with Fleet leaders able to unlock the rank 'Admiral'.
Or, for goodness sake, please, PLEASE, let NPCs address us as our chosen Titles (like Commander, Captain, Lieutenant....and yes, even Moist, or Torpedo Target, etc. Because NO ONE else can see the NPC dialog except us and it is the PLAYER'S choice to be called that.)
I am SOOOO sick of being called Admiral everywhere I go when I am clearly wearing CAPTAIN stripes/pips.
Thanks!
Agree with the post, the suggestion and the cut of the OP's jib. This is a long overdue QoL change many have asked for.
I have always and still support it.
The problem is that making Captain the highest endgame rank is too controversial. If the game was in Beta or even in the first couple of months after launch when the level cap was 45, then such a change would be acceptable. However, some people like being an Admiral and will be extremely pissed off by being demoted to Captain after being Admiral for years. Fleet Admiral is pushing it and it would have been better for Admiral to be awarded at level 60 instead of level 50.
If I remember correctly, Star Trek Online before Perpetual failed miserably and Cryptic took over was supposed to have us go up the ranks before we could finally gain command of a ship. It is more realistic for a Lieutenant to do various tasks on a ship under the command of a npc captain, but it is certainly not as fun as getting command of a starship in the first hour.
Well, since we now have Ship-Doffs, we kinda are technically Admirals... we command fleets of ships. What we need is to go 1 further. We need space 'away teams' aka, have 4 AI ships from our rosters as support in missions that we give commands to. Then we'd be full on Admirals.
As per Delta Recruit dialogue, player characters being admirals is part of the game storyline. Also, wouldn't much make sense having an admiralty system if we weren't admirals.
Being addressed by our chosen titles (which includes all the ranks for those who want to use them) would be optimal. Both in terms of giving players greater freedom for roleplaying and in making various unlockable titles more valuable as rewards.
A problem with the title you're called would be that in past threads players have voiced they very much like their "Moist" or "Torpedo Target" as a title, but not being addressed like that. To please that part of the base (which I should call "this part", since I am included here), you'd need to differentiate between those types of titles. You DON'T want to address my Ferasan as "Fast and Flurrious"...
I don't want to address your ferasan as anything.
Whether Cryptic would "need" to please that part of the playerbase is a decision for them to make. Personally I don't see any logic in wanting to display a title you don't want to be known by. Even though fact is very few players will ever see your title and even fewer will care.
If only we could display fleet titles/ranks...Not armada ones either.
I don't think that's a great idea. We'd have 'God' and 'Super Saiyan' running around ESD.
I'd expect we do have God and Super Saiyan running around ESD. Likely more than one. They are not reserved names. Having them as titles would make little difference.
And why is it that "running around ESD" has become shorthand for "I object to other players' freedom of choice for no good reason"?
And why is it that "running around ESD" has become shorthand for "I object to other players' freedom of choice for no good reason"?
Not sure how you came to that conclusion - I only referred to ESD as it's the most obviously busy social zone.
Well, yes. But lots of players/forum posters use "X running around ESD" (where X can be anything the person doesn't like) as if it was an actual argument against allowing other players to do X, and I was wondering how the phrase came to be used as such.
I saw Donald Trump running around ESD. it was hillarious.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
As per title - make Captain (the true 'hero' rank of Star Trek) the highest endgame rank, with Fleet leaders able to unlock the rank 'Admiral'.
Or, for goodness sake, please, PLEASE, let NPCs address us as our chosen Titles (like Commander, Captain, Lieutenant....and yes, even Moist, or Torpedo Target, etc. Because NO ONE else can see the NPC dialog except us and it is the PLAYER'S choice to be called that.)
I am SOOOO sick of being called Admiral everywhere I go when I am clearly wearing CAPTAIN stripes/pips.
Thanks!
Agree with the post, the suggestion and the cut of the OP's jib. This is a long overdue QoL change many have asked for.
I have always and still support it.
The problem is that making Captain the highest endgame rank is too controversial.
I understand that. But I still support the suggestion.
And I feel a viable compromise is the suggestion to have NPCs address you by a chosen title.
So yeah, I totally understand the points made against the suggestion. I still fully support the suggestion almost every time it comes up.
We are captains, we command starships, Admiral is a bloody desk job.
Sigh, no it's not. Kirk, Decker, Ross, Janeway all commanded starships whilst in the admiralty. There are numerous admirals in TOS that also do so, as does Black in ENT, at least two Admirals-of-the-week in TNG, and obviously Fleet Admiral Marcus. Admiral is a rank above captain that gives you more responsibilities that may mean being transferred to a Starbase or Outpost but can mean a Starship. Real captians accept their promotion like professional grownups.
Kirk is the single exception to this as he believes he'll be chained to a desk when made Admiral (well, apart from the fact that he remained in command of the Enterprise as Admiral in TMP and in TWoK). Well, technically Riker also refused to be promoted but finally grew up by NEM taking command of the Titan.
Kirk was a special case, Decker was a commodore, Ross did not command the ship he was on, he was on a flag bridge and commanded the fleet, the Actual captain of the ship ran the ship.
And when did Janeway command a ship when she was an Admiral? Last I checked she commanded Voyager as a captain till she got home, got promoted to Vice Admiral and taught tactics at the Academy last I knew of.
Most admirals didn't command the ship, they just rode along. Infact in TWoK, Spock would of been well within his rights to tell Kirk "Ok you gave my my orders, now go sit there twiddling your thumbs while I command my ship and get you to Regulus."
Infact Kirk told Spock to do just that. Spock out of friendship and knowing how much Kirk missed the chair told him to take command.
In TMP, Kirk was temporarily demoted to Captain to take command of the Enterprise while Decker was temporarily demoted to Commander. Had Decker survived the encounter, Kirk would of gone back to Starfleet command and Decker would of taken his rightful command. And IIRC, it wasn't long after the events of TMP Kirk handed the Enterprise over to Spock.
Also, if Admirals flew around in captain's chairs, why did Kirk tell Picard to never get promoted out of the captain's chair? Cause he knew A. Picard would miss it, B. it's harder than hell to get back in that chair. Only reason Kirk got back to where he wanted to be, he finally got demoted back to Captain and given back a ship. Kirk should of never taken the Promotion that took him out of that Captain's seat.
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!
This poor, poor horse. People just won't let her die a peaceful death.
They said that about the T6 Connie though. I obviously subscribe to the Galaxy Quest mantra: Never give up! Never surrender!
The T6 Connie made cryptic money, this is a Space Barbie request. Unless they make it an unlock in the C-Store, I highly doubt they are going to do it for you.
"Kicks horse again"
Can't we just create a T7 Connie thread and make the forums go up in flames?
I like the idea of letting us have our Starfleet rank be independent of our level as we level up. Whether that'll ever actually happen remains to be seen (probably highly unlikely, but then I once said that about Kelvin Timeline ships and a T6 TOS Connie too, so we'll see).
I say just wear captain pips or stripes or whatever, use the "captain" title, ignore the NPCs calling you "admiral," and carry on enjoying the game.
This proverbial dead horse has been thoroughly beaten into a dead horse purée by now. lol
tell that to Admiral Nelson, injured in battle and almost killed on several occasions and finally killed at Trafalgar while commanding HMS Victory, as an Admiral he had a more colourful career at sea then some captains.
he was a true hero.
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.
Comments
^^ This.
"James T. Kirk, it is the judgment of this council that you be reduced in rank to Captain. And that as a consequence of your new rank, you be given the duties for which you have demonstrated unswerving ability, the command of a starship."
Look at Admiral Quinn. The man's got his own office. And a big one. And he should have... but he alone. 10,000 Admirals on ESD, though, with virtually no lower ranks around, is ridiculous. There's no canon and/or RP in which you can make that work. We are Starship Captains. Period.
And no, Marcus does NOT count. Regardless of its questionable legality or place in the chain of command, you cannot possibly describe its operations as anything remotely resembling normal Starfleet procedure. Just as originally written, it was an unacknowledged super-black outfit operating by its own rules, never mind the retcon-verse.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Let's say all the missions so far have dialog that references a variable which contains the player's actual level-based rank. Call it $player_rank
Now, we introduce the ability to choose another rank for NPCs to call us. That gets put into another variable, let's call it $rp_rank
Depending on how the game's backend works, it could be as simple as opening a file for each mission or social map, and doing a find/replace to change all instances of $player_rank to $rp_rank. But, that assumes all the dialog can be accessed in one place. It's more likely that once the script is finalized and placed into the actual mission, each dialog tree and possibly each individual dialog box is a separate text field. This is how it is in the Foundry, for example. Now, you have to go through each one individually finding and replacing $player_rank with $rp_rank. That would be a pain in the butt for one fairly complex Foundry mission, let alone every mission and social zone in the entire game.
So you take the other route. Instead of altering the dialog, you alter what the variable $player_rank does. Now instead of referencing your level-based rank, it references the player's chosen RP rank. Then you make a new variable to do what $player_rank used to, say $level_rank. Problem is, $player_rank may have been used for more than just dialog, and changing its behavior just caused other parts of the game to behave strangely. Now you need to go through the game's code looking at everything that used to use $player_rank and decide if it needs to be changed to $level_rank or left alone. Again, a huge mess.
While I'd love to have this feature, when I actually think about it, it's probably a lot more work than we give it credit for. I can't see Cryptic dedicating that much work to such a small thing.
Explicitly, other players simply not part of your narrative. They are never referenced except in PVE intro dialog. Granted, reframing everyone as Captain would make a group narrative easier to construct. But, given that some of us do like playing the part of a hands-on, Kirk-style Admiral, a change for the sake immersion (for a select group of people) would directly interfere with other people's narratives. You get a bit of atmosphere while someone else's story is ruined. That's not a fair trade-off.
The rational compromise is simply to implement a "preferred rank/title" option for dialog, not change global ranks. That way, people who enjoy the current story arc aren't interfered with while Captain purists have the full control they need for themselves.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I dunno my whole armada begs to disagree.
We also have our admirals within this armada, although most of our characters are of below captain rank.
Removing the option to play as an admiral at this point is stupid. Not giving us the option to be called the rank we choose, also stupid.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Should simply remove it all together and instead use the player titles instead of player rank.
Currently missions use the rank, this means it is a simple swap of a variable in the code... if it was coded right or even half right... heck, 1/64 th right and it should still be this way.
Is the easiest change to provide the desired effect.
Agree with the post, the suggestion and the cut of the OP's jib. This is a long overdue QoL change many have asked for.
I have always and still support it.
The problem is that making Captain the highest endgame rank is too controversial. If the game was in Beta or even in the first couple of months after launch when the level cap was 45, then such a change would be acceptable. However, some people like being an Admiral and will be extremely pissed off by being demoted to Captain after being Admiral for years. Fleet Admiral is pushing it and it would have been better for Admiral to be awarded at level 60 instead of level 50.
If I remember correctly, Star Trek Online before Perpetual failed miserably and Cryptic took over was supposed to have us go up the ranks before we could finally gain command of a ship. It is more realistic for a Lieutenant to do various tasks on a ship under the command of a npc captain, but it is certainly not as fun as getting command of a starship in the first hour.
Being addressed by our chosen titles (which includes all the ranks for those who want to use them) would be optimal. Both in terms of giving players greater freedom for roleplaying and in making various unlockable titles more valuable as rewards.
I don't want to address your ferasan as anything.
Whether Cryptic would "need" to please that part of the playerbase is a decision for them to make. Personally I don't see any logic in wanting to display a title you don't want to be known by. Even though fact is very few players will ever see your title and even fewer will care.
I'd expect we do have God and Super Saiyan running around ESD. Likely more than one. They are not reserved names. Having them as titles would make little difference.
And why is it that "running around ESD" has become shorthand for "I object to other players' freedom of choice for no good reason"?
Well, yes. But lots of players/forum posters use "X running around ESD" (where X can be anything the person doesn't like) as if it was an actual argument against allowing other players to do X, and I was wondering how the phrase came to be used as such.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
I support this comment 100%.
I understand that. But I still support the suggestion.
And I feel a viable compromise is the suggestion to have NPCs address you by a chosen title.
So yeah, I totally understand the points made against the suggestion. I still fully support the suggestion almost every time it comes up.
It's just something I want.
They said that about the T6 Connie though. I obviously subscribe to the Galaxy Quest mantra: Never give up! Never surrender!
Captain is a position as well as a rank.
YES! And that kind of creates another suggestion ... changing it to address people as captain regardless of rank because of that very point you make.
Then ranks can stay where they are and everyone can get called Captain, kind of like they do in their own communications with the players offline.
Kirk was a special case, Decker was a commodore, Ross did not command the ship he was on, he was on a flag bridge and commanded the fleet, the Actual captain of the ship ran the ship.
And when did Janeway command a ship when she was an Admiral? Last I checked she commanded Voyager as a captain till she got home, got promoted to Vice Admiral and taught tactics at the Academy last I knew of.
Most admirals didn't command the ship, they just rode along. Infact in TWoK, Spock would of been well within his rights to tell Kirk "Ok you gave my my orders, now go sit there twiddling your thumbs while I command my ship and get you to Regulus."
Infact Kirk told Spock to do just that. Spock out of friendship and knowing how much Kirk missed the chair told him to take command.
In TMP, Kirk was temporarily demoted to Captain to take command of the Enterprise while Decker was temporarily demoted to Commander. Had Decker survived the encounter, Kirk would of gone back to Starfleet command and Decker would of taken his rightful command. And IIRC, it wasn't long after the events of TMP Kirk handed the Enterprise over to Spock.
Also, if Admirals flew around in captain's chairs, why did Kirk tell Picard to never get promoted out of the captain's chair? Cause he knew A. Picard would miss it, B. it's harder than hell to get back in that chair. Only reason Kirk got back to where he wanted to be, he finally got demoted back to Captain and given back a ship. Kirk should of never taken the Promotion that took him out of that Captain's seat.
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
The T6 Connie made cryptic money, this is a Space Barbie request. Unless they make it an unlock in the C-Store, I highly doubt they are going to do it for you.
"Kicks horse again"
Can't we just create a T7 Connie thread and make the forums go up in flames?
I say just wear captain pips or stripes or whatever, use the "captain" title, ignore the NPCs calling you "admiral," and carry on enjoying the game.
This proverbial dead horse has been thoroughly beaten into a dead horse purée by now. lol
tell that to Admiral Nelson, injured in battle and almost killed on several occasions and finally killed at Trafalgar while commanding HMS Victory, as an Admiral he had a more colourful career at sea then some captains.
he was a true hero.
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.
My character Tsin'xing