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[sambojin]

The whole risk/hazard classification is a bit pointless. With overshoots, unintended consequences and just general mucking around, we're all hazards.

I'd go something like Sambo gunner/melee 1. It gives all the info you need. Two main specialties and how many missions you've been on. You could have Madeup amp/medic 4 for instance. Keeps it simple, gives an idea of how useful they COULD be, and doesn't arbitrarily divide stuff with pointless cutoffs.

The generals could then add to the number if the person was either particularly helpful, levelheaded, or had a useful skillset and equipment package, or subtract from it if they were dicks on the last few missions. Easy. Generals aren't numbered. They're not in the system, they ARE the system.

Back to pointless conspiracy theories, I've got an idea that Sambo's backpack generator isn't just a crappy generator. It's a highly efficient one with other stuff jammed in there. Deadly stuff.......

[syvarris]

The thing is though, your chance of overshoots/critfails doesn't correlate to your tactical intelligence.  The... uh, guy in M14 who flashbanged his team, was someone who would be ranked as a 'risk'- he made some poor decisions even after the MC stopped.  Early Faith/Mesk might have qualified too, because they had a habit of either ignoring or outright intentionally killing their patients.  Xan's a good example as well, even if he had a decomp, because he makes a lot of rash decisions, and he's violent and selfish.

I'd suggest four ranks, outside general:  Risk, for dangerous people; Grunt, for newbies or people who perform just 'okay'; Operative, for people who perform particularly well; and Leader, for people who have the skill of an Operative AND lead well.  Then append missions survived number to it, going by skills learned rather than mission count; The anomolous planetoid, for example, would give two.

A grunt-11 still obeys an Operative-2, but can happily order a grunt-6 around.  Risks never outrank anyone, even lower ranked risks.
^{_{If you want them to sound more badass, shift operator and below down a rank, then add specialist below leader.  Grunt/Operative/Specialist/Leader/General.  Same thing, but cooler.}}


As for role... simple names are nice, but really inconsistent.  What do you call Milno?  His 'role' on the wiki is 'Honey Badger', which tells you nothing.  I can't really think of anything better, though.  Gunner?  Flying Brick?  Jack of stats?  All of those leave something out.  Maybe primary weapon/suit/secondary role?  Con/MKIII for Milno, Uncon/Syn/Medic for Faith?  Maybe a lack of role would be better, honestly.


@Swordsmith in on-ship
Thanks for working on the weapon statistics page

Firstly, might I suggest breaking up your action into seperate numbers, like this?

How well do these murder?
1.Bulletgun
2.Shocky tazey
3.Alien death boner
4.The completely overkill gun

It makes the questions easier to understand, and easier to answer.  It also makes it more obvious to you how much work you want him to do- that paragraph you have, if you get useful information, is gonna require four paragraphs of answer.

Secondly, we already know everything can kill a human pretty well.  Exactly what they do to specific parts of the body is more nebulous, but also less important.  Armor tests are generally more useful, because it's a binary 'you can or can't hurt this'.  Also, our current lineup of armor (Longcoat, Milnoplate) is kinda weird because it's like using a type III vest and tank armor as your two standards.  I've been meaning to research what's common in the UWM, but, well, other Heph stuff has taken priority.  That might be a more valuable action.

[Gentlefish]

I think Rank and Roles fit the feet of ER pretty well.

Sure you have a position in the heirarchy, but you managed to earn a name for yourself in such a way that you earned a badass (or smartass) title for your role.

[kj1225]

Maybe people who fit multiple roles could be aces. Maybe in front of it the thing they're especially good at. So, combat ace for someone who's good at a lot of things but really shines in combat.

[Hapah]

I think some kind of standardized or semi-standardized role system wouldn't be a bad idea. The people that have picked crews for missions would probably benefit from being able to tell at a glance what someone is good at, or what they're aiming to do (and if one of more of you would like to weigh in, by my guest!)

Maybe people who fit multiple roles could be aces. Maybe in front of it the thing they're especially good at. So, combat ace for someone who's good at a lot of things but really shines in combat.

Personally, I'd lean more towards just using multiple role names with some kind of separator. If I was a good Gunner and a good Medic, I might list my role as "Gunner/Medic". Keep it simple and clean, much like Paris said he intended in his first post after the idea was raised.

Also, Pancaek mentioning rank on the on-ship thread gave me an idea. How about ARM has a system of four different ranks?

First would be generals - we already know who they are.

Then there's adepts - people who are trusted not to blow themselves up, and generally known to be competent at what they do. Sort of like Lars, Skylar, Maurice, Thaddeus, that sort of thing.

There's also newbies (or privates, or rookies if you prefer, or some other term) - people who are unknown quantities and haven't proven themselves in any particular way.

And finally, there's risks. People who hurt themselves or others routinely, but come along anyway for some reason. Overshot specialists probably go here.

Thoughts? Maybe there could be a rating based on certain qualities (exploration/public relations/general competence/etc.), or something of that nature? Not that it's necessary, it's just that it seems like if people are playing at being a military, there's probably some need for rank, if only for cosmetic purposes.

I'm gonna put my vote in the "nay" column. I've outlined some of my concerns below:

-There is (obviously) currently no system in place to decide when or how people would rise through the ranks, or even what the ranks are. Does it take one recommendation from someone higher than you? A percentage? What if someone is being ranked down, who decides that? Where should the discussions and votes take place? Who is going to do the book-keeping on it (it won't be PW)? How much real power will higher ranks have over lowers (i.e., can higher ranks get Steve to zap lowers? Dock pay?) What person or persons will mediate the inevitable squabbles(again, won't be PW)? These are questions that all have answers, but you'd probably want to map them out before they are needed.

-There is the very real possibility of someone going on a power trip and cracking down on everyone under him/her, justified or not. That one player might be having a blast playing Dictator for a Day, but it will probably make everyone under them miserable and/or rather pissy. Is this acceptable, and if not, what system would you put in place to stop it?

-At the end of the day, this is a game. Speaking personally, the odds of me taking orders that I don't agree with from someone that I don't respect, in a game, is very low. The day we start getting an hourly wage for playing ER is the day I'd consider getting behind a rank system where people can give me orders.

In a nutshell, I believe that respect must earned, not given out via a rank. If Lars asked or told me to do something, for example, there's very good odds that I'd do it (and I would at the very least consider it): he has proven himself to be a reasonable, level-headed, and competent individual and has earned my respect as a result. If Lerman ordered me to do something, he could kiss my ass! No respect. This is, rather conveniently for me, basically the system that we already have in place. I think Ranks would add bloat with not much real added value, and would inevitably end up causing tempers to flare and hurt feelings. I've got no appetite for any of it, personally.

[yobbo]

agree with Hapah on ranks.

and i'm completely against categorising players as "risks" in any shape or form.

[Xantalos]

agree with Hapah on ranks.

and i'm completely against categorising players as "risks" in any shape or form.

While I do agree that it'd probably end up as a clusterfuck of the resident Hammerer trying to pulp people for 'disobeying a military superior', there is demonstrable reason to label people as hazardous to their teammates, either through consistent incompetence or just well ... me-ness. 

[renegadelobster]

So, I'm re-reading some of the earlier on ship posts and am at the part where Feyri is dueling the AM. Did anyone ever price out the Am's Kinetic shunt suit?

[Xantalos]

Wasn't that just the standard kinetic shunt?
If not, 'expensive as fuck' covers it, I think.

[Gentlefish]

Wait Feyri duelled the AM? Link?

[renegadelobster]

This is where it starts: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=108083.150 And this is where pw says that it is a kinetic shunt suit:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=108083.200

[Xantalos]

Observation: the AM had, at a point in the past (since the VR version of her is outdated) a +5 to Uncon and a +1 to Exo.
She's no doubt gotten better since then.

[Gentlefish]

Wow that shunt could be fun.

[Parisbre56]

@Hapah: I thought we were adding ranks more as a flavour. As something we could call ourselves when we want to sound official. I don't think they would have any in game implications. A system where you have perks, votes, orders and other silly stuff like that based on rank would be overly complicating things.

EDIT: The roles came from this, my attempt to help the Generals organize before RC made the wiki. Check the people spoiler. Sure, it could use some optimising, but I think you get the general idea/intention.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=108083.msg4562693#msg4562693

[Harry Baldman]

@Hapah: I thought we were adding ranks more as a flavour. As something we could call ourselves when we want to sound official. I don't think they would have any in game implications. A system where you have perks, votes, orders and other silly stuff like that based on rank would be overly complicating things.

I had it in mind as a flavor thing as well, hence why I formulated it after the basic distribution of player character general authority. It doesn't really change anything, but it certainly is informative and official-sounding.

I'm gonna put my vote in the "nay" column. I've outlined some of my concerns below:

-There is (obviously) currently no system in place to decide when or how people would rise through the ranks, or even what the ranks are. Does it take one recommendation from someone higher than you? A percentage? What if someone is being ranked down, who decides that? Where should the discussions and votes take place? Who is going to do the book-keeping on it (it won't be PW)? How much real power will higher ranks have over lowers (i.e., can higher ranks get Steve to zap lowers? Dock pay?) What person or persons will mediate the inevitable squabbles(again, won't be PW)? These are questions that all have answers, but you'd probably want to map them out before they are needed.

-There is the very real possibility of someone going on a power trip and cracking down on everyone under him/her, justified or not. That one player might be having a blast playing Dictator for a Day, but it will probably make everyone under them miserable and/or rather pissy. Is this acceptable, and if not, what system would you put in place to stop it?

-At the end of the day, this is a game. Speaking personally, the odds of me taking orders that I don't agree with from someone that I don't respect, in a game, is very low. The day we start getting an hourly wage for playing ER is the day I'd consider getting behind a rank system where people can give me orders.

In order:

- It doesn't matter at all. It's more of a form of classification rather than a hierarchy - a version of the rather silly 'veteran' classification, only based on demonstrated competence rather than mere seniority, since the two may certainly not coincide in certain cases. Nobody decides anything, and you can call yourself whatever you like. ARM's an irregular operation, after all. The only point of instituting a system of ranking is to provide legitimacy and unified structure to personal claims to various titles should people feel them to be needed - and I assume they would be needed to more successfully assert authority over non-ARM mooks we meet and provide a level of formality mere names can't match.

- The system in place to stop this would be that everyone points and laughs at the funny person, since the titles (except General) have no privileges coming with them, then they go about their business the usual way.

- As mentioned, you don't have to. It's just a form of universalizing and legitimizing titles and reputations.

and i'm completely against categorising players as "risks" in any shape or form.

What kind of monster would ever refused to be called "Hazard Ninth Class of the Allied Revolutionary Movement"?

Note: somebody should really make the 9 or 11 or 12-point scale of hazardous events an official thing.