"With that, I hope you all remember your training here on Anaxes, cadets. The Empire has provided you with the best education available, and you are sure to find it invaluable on your first commands. But no amount of training can really prepare you for the horrors of the war you are about to enter. I fear it will not be long before you will lose many of the friends you made here. I already shutter at night thinking about how many of my classmates have died at battles we all know. Endor. Eriadu. Thyferra. And too many others. There is no point in hiding it from you cadets. You are graduating in the Empire's darkest hour. But this is also an opportunity. Should you show skill, bravery and inventiveness in your commands, you will quickly find yourselves being promoted over old timers like me. I hope you waste no time climbing the ranks. The Empire needs all the talent it muster. I can only hope that one of you will be brilliant enough to save it." - Captain Teren Rogriss, speaking to a graduating class of the Imperial Naval Academy, 6 ABY.
The first of the Empire's unique game mechanics is the Rank system, which replaces the fleet upgrade system used by the other races in Sins of a Solar Empire. Already having the infrastructure to field large fleets, the Empire does not need you, the player, to construct more of them. What they do need is for you to prove that you are a commander competent enough to be trusted with the very expensive units in the Imperial Military. And the way to get this trust is, of course, to get promoted.
There are seven ranks to be earned in Interregnum, the first being the lowly Lieutenant and the last being the prestigious Grand Admiral. Each increase in rank will increase both your fleet supply and your command capacity (how many capitalships you can field), though it will also require more resources to maintain the larger forces under your command. In addition, many ranks provide bonuses that are not just related to your fleet size. Many units and technology, including all Imperial Capitalships larger than the Victory-class Star Destroyers, can only be built once you reach a certain rank. The higher ranks like Grand Admiral also provide small bonuses to things like how fast your capitalships level up, as you are able to share your experience with the captains of your ships. While the combined fleet and command tree makes it harder for the Empire to build large numbers of frigates and cruisers early on, the ranks are balanced so that it is a bit cheaper to reach the rank of Grand Admiral than it is to get all 16 fleet and command upgrades like the other factions must do to max out the size of their military.
How exactly will you increase in rank, is it just overall damage to enemy ships? Secondly, will it become available and then you select it or is it just given to you? As, rather obviously, the latter may well cripple you when you do not wish to expand. Pretty much answered my own question there didn't I. Oh dear haha
Sadly it is just researched like anything else. There was no way to tie it into combat performance, and even if there was that might cause problems for econ players in team games. I haven't decided on the final requirements but it needs to cost something so that it won't be unbalanced compared to the other races. I may also add something like needing a certain amount or research already conducted, so you're basically allowed to gain rank as your sector of space becomes more advanced.
Ah well, it is still a wonderful concept. Adding all important depth to each faction so they don't feel like clones. :) Thank you for humouring my questions as well, I don't like to ask too many for fear of imposing but I am thoroughly looking forward to Interregnum.
That's too bad cus it would make more sense if it's based on your skill in combat to command larger fleets just as cpt Teren Rogriss described. But I love what you did anyway. If ranking would be related to in game performance it would change the game entirely. Now that you brought this up it's too bad stardock never came up with this. I love your work more and more with every update of these cool features. So this is Empire only, or will the other factions have something similar?
Well even if I could get it to work like that, there would be a real risk of the Empire turning into a rush faction. An early victory would get them promoted and let them get the biggest fleet quickly. An early defeat might doom them before they really get started. It would be cool but hard to implement in a balanced way.
The Imperial Factions are the only ones that will have the combined fleet and command tree, if for no other reason than the rank systems the Alliance and New Republic use are not as well defined. Rest assured though, they will have their own unique mechanics in other areas.
Cool to hear. I love this unique approach. It makes it worth while to play all factions. I'm more an empire fan but with every faction having their own speciality it makes it word to play all of them.
Of all the mods and even the RTS game empire at war I always missed the fact the rebel alliance doesn't posses star systems (just a few at max). They kept moving from base to base trying to stay away from the empire while getting aid from allied systems. I always missed this in the games and mods currently available. Where the empire needs to search a vast area for the rebel alliance and the empire struggles to defend their big empire from sneak attacks. Ofcourse you era is post palpatine and the situation is different there.
Very interesting concept, i like it.
Instead of Grand admiral, you could perhaps keep it as Grand Moff :3 (Admiral is a Moff, right?)
A Moff is a civilian. The Moffs and Grand Moffs are the level of government directly beneath the emperor. By the NJO, the Grand Moffs council is the ruling civilian government, but they technically seem to answer to Grand Admiral Pelleaon.
No. A Moff is a civilian official, basically a governor that has been appointed to govern a sector. Anyone who has been given the rank of Grand Admiral has worked his way up the ranks of the Imperial Navy. Of course often times the duties of Moffs and Admirals overlap, which is why Moffs have a rank insignia so that the chain of command is clear.
If necessary a Grand Admiral can order a Moff over matters of planetary governance because a Grand Admiral is of a higher rank hierarchy, a bit like in the US military an Admiral is a higher rank than an army Lieutenant General, even though they are of different services and would not normally interact. Likewise a Moff could order a Naval Captain to protect his sector because a Moff outranks a Captain. It is not clear if a Grand Admiral or a Grand Moff is of higher rank, however their rank insignias have the exact same number of each type of square, just in a different arrangement, so my guess is that they are equal, like a US Navy Admiral and a US Army General.
The reason I did not use Moffs is that they do not have as many ranks. Officially there appears to be only Moff and Grand Moff. I suppose I could have used Planetary Governor and High Moff as well, but there is no clear rank insignia for them to use for the icons. The military has more ranks and I think is what most people care about with Sins, so I am using that.
Wasn't High Moff just a made up rank by the imperial warlords after the wall of the emperor?
God star wars lore makes me confused sometimes...
Wall as in Fall.
I need to sleep more
Basically yes, it was not an official rank. I was just pointing at at most there are 4 ranks of civilian government I could have used if I stretched it, which really isn't enough for this. The military ranks have a lot of problems as well, mainly a lot of different sources show different rank insignias, or a character called a certain rank has the wrong insignia. I was very confused trying to get this right as well, and I'm sure someone will tell me I have the wrong icons for a certain rank when this is released. But that is Star Wars, the important thing is that it gets the point across. :p
Also if you really want to be a Grand Moff, it would be quite easy to just change the text when this is released. Alternatively, Grand Moff Ardus Kaine will be one of the factions you can join as the Imperial Warlords, the Empire's "Rebel" faction, as well as one of the player pictures you can use.
That is good enough for me.
And about the right ranks, the one in your avatar can also be taken as a Grand Admirals insignia, and the Grand Admiral one you have now is often found on Grand Moffs.
I can't wait to try this mod out!
Actually no, it is clearly a normal Admiral Insignia. The expanded universe, if not the films, has been pretty clear that 6 red squares above 6 blue squares is a normal admiral (you can see it is the 5th rank in Interregnum). Grand Admirals and Grand Moffs both have 6 Blue Squares, 3 Red Squares and 3 Yellow squares, so they are easily confused. But the Grand Moff has a full blue bar at the top, as shown here, rather than the 6 blue squares all to the left. Static4.wikia.nocookie.net
Look, in your avatar the colours are reserved, Red on Top, Blue on bottom, when again in the pictures for this mod the Blue is top and Red on bottom.
Starwars.wikia.com
You see now why I am so confused?
Hmm, yes it appears the colors for all the Admirals except the Grand Admiral got flipped around. Not sure how that happened, but the Grand Admiral insignia is correct. It's on the page you linked. The alternate logo shown is just an Admiral insignia with 14 squares instead of 12, perhaps they guessed that was the insignia used until we got an official one.
And your avatar has the alternative logo (zoom in and you can count 14) :P
Also, discussing Star Wars and WW2 german tanks at the same time really makes my head hurt.
I think that's an artifact of the small image size. This is the original image and there is clearly 12. :p Static1.wikia.nocookie.net
That's it, I'm blind. Recounted the ones in your avatar and got 12 now...
A good nights sleep really helps :/