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[kj1225]

....

It's odd that I was actually thinking this kind of topic earlier.

[sambojin]

Yes, you're right. It is.

[Xantalos]

Or, now that I'm back on the Sword you can just pay me to make you a body!
Oh wait never mind, that caused the whole STAN thing. Yeah disregard that.

[Gentlefish]

I wouldn't mind seeing STAN on-ship

[Xantalos]

I dunno, a Xan-Jim hybrid doesn't sound very cuddly. Invader XIM? ZIM?

[SeriousConcentrate]

Wait, what? What the hell are you guys talking about?

[Xantalos]

Building robot people new bodies. I pointed out that since I was now off Heph, I could do it for a reduced price, but then I realized that the last time I tried something like that it resulted in STAN.
I'm still gonna try building bodies, of course, I just need to try it differently.

[SeriousConcentrate]

I got that part, but...

I was thinking more of Jim-bot's love story. His girl won't know what hit her. Then he can drag her back to the Doktors cave......

Actually, it'll probably be the other way around. The doktor can probably hit pretty hard when he wants to.

I was questioning Sambo too. That being said, I may get Jim his body back later, I dunno. I could go on Black Ops missions if I did, but the synthflesh bonuses are nice.

[Harry Baldman]

Building robot people new bodies. I pointed out that since I was now off Heph, I could do it for a reduced price, but then I realized that the last time I tried something like that it resulted in STAN.
I'm still gonna try building bodies, of course, I just need to try it differently.

You should try getting better medical skills, then use your theoretically unlimited numbers of limbs to conduct awesome surgery without the need for tools. I'm sure you could produce enough urea to keep things sterile, too!

[Nikitian]

I wanted to say that medals as perks would probably be exploitable and abusive, but then I remembered how well-balanced and rare perks are otherwise (like Bishop's Int-to-Crit strikes, learnt from the Doctor), so that seems a fine idea. If not given out to often, and with varying effects, it would mean great deeds have never been so enticing to accomplish
I can't say for the whole medals system, but I think that somewhere around the very top of it could be the Order of Avatar or something, coming with personal Avatar of War. That way, it seems, would be a quite logical and fluff-consistent approach to acquiring one, either instead of or in addition to amassing enough tokens. Have it require multiple earlier awards, exemplary career and then it would really be synonymous to 'being a great warrior'.
Medals as tokens doesn't seem too good, as we sort of already have that now, without medals, and taking it away would probably be undesired. Plus, it'd have to start at three tokens, at the very least, as I can't see much point in 'cheaper' and more numerous awards. Just keep the tokens tokens, I think, and it'll be fine.
Except if we completely rework the equipment acquisition system, of course.

@Xan I wonder whether your flesh imparted to anyone else would keep the shapeshifting properties, and whether it would try and convert other people's flesh to more of its own. Hmmm. Care to try give it a test? I am in a small need of a fleshy hand, and if everything goes smooth, you'll have a good precedent to back your enterprise. And if things go where they usually go with 'Corps... well... I can always keep the Psycho-Dissector on the draw and sever the growth before it is too late. Trust me, I've already done this with a flesh-invading alien lifeform before

[AoshimaMichio]

Medals, if needed, would be basically your avarage achievements. Rewarded from number of specific acts, for example saving lifes of allies, recovering artifacts or other valuable information, other acts of bravery... that's actually all that comes in mind right now. But yeah, medals equals achievements.

Ugh, please, no. Very much no. Please, don't ruin the whole medals thing equalling them to achievements.
1.Achievements are very mechanical. Do X N times, do Y in set conditions, etc. Medals are awarded. Sure, there are those things like '10 year service' medals and all, but overall they are not expected to be earned or acquired. One has to do something outstanding to get a medal, as their award is decided on case by case basis. You cannot just 'Okay, I'll need three more controlled overshoots with a field manipulator to earn the "Controlled Hazard" badge'. You do something, and then you may only hope that other people (mainly your direct superiors) decide that it has been a great doing (note the deliberate lack of 'enough'; once again, no set mechanism for acquiring these) and you've proven yourself worthy.
2.As such, medals have a very certain value to them, intrinsic to them by the very design - people do something worthy, and being awarded for that carries on some of that greatness to the award itself. Achievements, however, often have value by sheer virtue of being assigned value socially; if you feel them cool and interesting - sure, but if you don't, they don't have any value beside which you put into them. Think gold coins compared to modern day paper money. Sure, in all actuality, gold has as little immediate practical value as paper, but hey, at least it's shiny and considered valuable because other beautiful shiny things are made of it. (And that's not even taking rarity into consideration.)
3.And finally, I'm afraid that achievements have acquired a certain negative vibe to them, at least for some people; and for others, while cool, they might not be nearly as cool as medals and orders. Just one more reason to avoid connecting the two.

In my dictionary 'archievement' has this definition: "Great or heroic deed; something accomplished by valor, boldness, or praiseworthy exertion; a feat." meaning it's not something every person is expected to do. So I'm not speaking those shitty generic "holding your hands" game-archievements "Oh my God! You managed to walk two steps without tripping! Here, have an Archievement or two!" or "Kill 20 innocent civilians in 20 seconds or less" (An archievement that Jim already have, btw).
So yes, I fully agree with your points. Medals are nothing more than bragging rights. Just like in real life.

Personally I don't really care about medals either way, this was just my dabbling idea.

On the overall structure: I'd avoid having a rank of 'squad leader'. It's more of a position on a mission, and mixing up the two can result in confusion, so it's better to avoid it.
Also, I don't quite understand it. Specialist/Subcommander people - are we talking of Simus here (let's take her as a benchmark)? Or Adepts in Piecewise's structure? I'm confused again, I'm afraid.

All ranks are more or less mission positions, beside generals. Therefore squad leader is necessary. Call it Seargent or whatever. Those are the people who are trusted to lead small teams when situation calls for such. Lars or Feyri, for example.
Specialist/Subcommanders: Basically Simus, commander of Heph. And maybe Flint. People who would have responsibility to lead entire missions when Generals are not available.

[SeriousConcentrate]

I have to ask this again. Why Jim? It seems like whenever someone wants to reference the veterans, no one ever talks about Ivan, Faith, or Feyri, 75% of the time it's Jim's name that gets thrown out. Xan seems to (or at least, used to seem to) consider Jim a rival or something. RadioControlled literally will not let me quit ER because I play Jim. What the hell is the big deal with Jim? Why does it feel like people are fixated on him?

This was brought on both by Aoshima's statement there, when it seems to me pretty much everyone on I think Mission 5 earned that achievement and I'm sure everyone on what was it, Mission 15(?) earned it as well but the person he decided to reference was Jim, as well as the earlier conversation about Doktor caves or whatever. @_@

[Xantalos]

Truth be told I mention Jim a lot because your avatar is more distinctive than the rest of them, along with his speech color, so I remember him more.
Xan kinda considered Jim a rival? Sorta? Mainly because the threat of him kept dissuading him from killing people.
I dunno. Jim's like the Superman of ER or something. He's the general designed to be the leader of the troops, he's committed the most spectacular overshooty things (what he did to the amp specialist, uppercutting civilians into the stratosphere, etc), and because Faith and Feyri are occasionally prone to comas, and Milno's kinda deliberately unpopular as the black-ops guy, so Jim, as the longest-serving guy on the Sword who's still mostly sane and not part of the crew and popular and stuff, gets mentioned a lot.

[Harry Baldman]

I have to ask this again. Why Jim? It seems like whenever someone wants to reference the veterans, no one ever talks about Ivan, Faith, or Feyri, 75% of the time it's Jim's name that gets thrown out. Xan seems to (or at least, used to seem to) consider Jim a rival or something. RadioControlled literally will not let me quit ER because I play Jim. What the hell is the big deal with Jim? Why does it feel like people are fixated on him?

This was brought on both by Aoshima's statement there, when it seems to me pretty much everyone on I think Mission 5 earned that achievement and I'm sure everyone on what was it, Mission 15(?) earned it as well but the person he decided to reference was Jim, as well as the earlier conversation about Doktor caves or whatever. @_@

Probably because Jim's one of the more human-like characters, plus he's had more positive character development than most, whereas most other people in the HMRC just become unhappier, more damaged and terribly dangerous on top of that. He's very easy to identify with and place as a result, as Milno is generally more one-note, Ivan didn't get particularly developed in the first place, Faith has basically been the same the whole way through, and Feyri doesn't do anything particularly interesting much of the time.

Consider this: of all the characters, only Jim has had a proper semi-romantic subplot, and he, unlike Milno, has explored various avenues of his personality. All this makes him the best candidate for a main character for all others to cluster around, even if these days he doesn't do much of anything. He started from a central position, managed to take part in memorable events despite being dead, and from there many of the transhuman/personal space magic themes of ER (some of the more distinctive elements of the setting, I should note) were introduced through him, also making him the original viewpoint character on these things.

So yeah, when somebody reads ER, for the first half of it (post-Mission 1) Jim's the main character, hence his memetic nature.

Also, Jim's development was more gradual and consistent than Milno's (which was kind of quick and dirty in a lot of ways), which keeps him more consistently interesting over a period of time. Or at least so I would guess - it's been a while since I read all the threads.

[Parisbre56]

3 letter name. It's easier to write and gets stuck in everyone's minds.[/joking]