Revising the Rank System

[Xavier]

I think adding First Lieutenant is definaly possible. We then have Lieutenant-Jr, Lieutenant and First Lieutenant.

[Aramond]

I’ll certainly put my vote in for First Lieutenant. I see them as being the ones actively trained for a command role. They could also be the first ones to be moved from ship to ship when the need arises for there to be an XO mid-shift. This would again be as part of the training, as it would allow them to observe different command styles. RP-wise, they wouldn’t have any more power normally than a Lieutenant.

[Jemel Eahain]

i like the sound of lieutenant first grade as well, you could add a second grade as well if there was space for it, so officers who dont want to work to command still have a couple ranks to work towards,

captain lieutenant just dosnt sound right to be tbh.
making battle group commander a rank rather than a title i dont think feels right, tbh fleet captain sounds more like a title than a rank but we wont get into that lol.

we could make it so being promoted to lt commander is not such a big jump in terms of the group, up until now it was the start of the senior officers and were you are expected to do more in the organizing of the fleet, but what if we stopped that and it was more to do with the departments heads and ship captains that went to the senior officers meetings etc more or less bringing back a command staff, once apon a time the department head were picked from non command officers this had to change due to officer numbers but it would not be a push to go back to that, i would not mind handing the training department over to the right person, a records division i think is needed to maintain our records etc and keep the ship rosters etc upto date

lastly van leigh brought up seniority i liked his idea in essence
we typically have 2 types of ship commanding officers captains and commanders, why dont we assign seniority pins to these to groups, gold silver and bronze captains and gold silver and bronze commanders, officer can be promoted up or down the pins depending on there performance and or blowing up ships etc, inactive officers dont have a pin so are bottom of the list of seniority of there rank

[Matsiyan]

For consistency I would prefer Lieutenant Senior, Lieutenant and Lieutenant Junior. Russian airforce used to do that 🙂

Aramond: I thought the point of this was explicitly not to use this rank for those on the command track, though I can see that getting confusing.

[John van Leigh]

We can decide on the names later, I think, once the basics of the new system are properly decided upon. But I agree: the names of the ranks have to be as clear and unambiguous as we can manage.

[Adele Mundy]

Agreeing with sorting out the basics first, names are cosmetic; even so, if there is a change, then how about changing the word order too:
Junior Lieutenant, Lieutenant, Senior Lieutenant
or
Third Lieutenant, Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant.

[John van Leigh]

So far, we’ve been through three main ideas:

1. Adding a lt rank below lt-cdr
2. Increasing standard command rank to Captain and standard XO to Commander
3. Bypassing seniority for Captains

Is the consensus that all of them are workable, or just a combination of two of them would be better?

[Blaze Strife]

My opinion:

1. Go with it.
2. Doesn’t have to happen immediately, we’ll see how we like it.
3. I think this is a must.

[Adele Mundy]

1. is a definite yes
2. is probably unnecessary, and can happen gradually if needed
3. sensible solution, yes.

[Matsiyan]

1. Is okay, though it really only defers the problem for a few months, but that does allow for more attrition 🙂 are there criteria beyond time-in-grade? Does someone headed for Lt.Cdr. Have to go through the grade?
2. I would avoid this if possible. The feel at present is good.
3. I don’t exactly understand the proposal, but yes, seniority needs to decay with absence. Skills do atrophy with disuse.

[John van Leigh]

I’ll go through 3 again.
We divide the command rank. All people ranking Captain gets a grade, although the title is purely cosmetic, as was done with every flag rank in the napoleonic-era RN. The grades are decided on an ad hoc basis, so that a captain with less seniority going by date-of-rank can be effectively above a more senior captain.

Doing so allows, for example:

a. An inactive captain can be placed in the lowest grade, placing less senior but more tactically current ones in posts pertaining high command
b. A captain who proves able at handling single ships but not so much at a higher level, or is not interested in such tasks, can be placed lower to someone who is junior but capable or interested
c. Allows for sanctioning ship losses without rank-demotions being involved.

[Matthew Vaj]

1. Sure
2. I’d say having CO’s at least ranked commander, maybe not captain though. Matsiyan made some good points on that earlier.
3. Sounds good.

I also agree with all of Jemel’s comments.

[Matsiyan]

I agree with Jemel too except that the traditionalist in me wants the divisions to be red, white and blue rather than metals 🙂

[Adele Mundy]

Blue at the mizzen…

[John van Leigh]

I like the colours more as well, not only because of the aesthetics and tradition (which is good for me too), but because or something more practical: how easy it would be to mix up gold and bronze at a glance.

I feel that 3 is useful because the senior staff does have a tendency to become more stagnated than the junior officers, and that’s to some degree unavoidable: promotions are given mostly as new posts are being created, and that happens either because their occupant leaves (and they can be back with full rank, becoming an issue), or because logistics call for a new post being created anew, such as a new ship being deployed or a department rearranged. Adding flexibility to the staff lets us work better despite this.

My main concern with a new lt rank is that, if the rank is intended to solve stagnation for full lts, lieutenants that are candidates for senior rank will be stuck there with the lieutenants that intend to remain there. The problem won’t go away, it’ll just be easier to disguise. If we accept that much, I’m all for it.

Idea 2 allows for something similar. Right now there’s no real distinction between Captain and Commander. Yes, captains are senior, but the expectations being different for each just plain don’t cut it: commanders have to perform in lieu of a captain way too often. If we divide the command rank (and for this is irrelevant if we divide Commander, Captain, or both) the seniority difference will be observed regardless, and we get a free rank we can use to free stagnation anyways.

The idea of making a lesser jump from lt to lt-cdr is probably unworkable without major changes, though. The jump is not, I think, the result of a conscious design choice but rather an artifact of senior rank being assigned on an availability basis. Senior officers are expected to be major factors in organizing the community and leading in combat, and also have access to information that it’s not always clear how much we should be revealing. To soften up the transition we would need to open some day-to-day planning to the senior lts, which gives us this problem: letting the senior candidates in makes a lot of sense. Letting the officers who desire to remain as senior lts, on the other hand, doesn’t: they already made a choice not to advance into senior rank, and we’d be throwing their way a lot of responsibilities they already rejected.

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