Oolite Bulletins

I've been playing LB's Assassins OXP for some time now and just now it struck me. The player is referred to as Brother XX (where XX is the player's name). Now my one big bugbear is that you, as a player, are referred to as Commander XX (as above) which for me sounds a little peculiar, "Greetings, Commander Captain Hesperus....". I don't know why Elite/Oolite uses Commander to describe the 'rank' of someone who is essentially a lone trader/mercenary/bounty-hunter/pirate/etc. since the rank of Commander, in naval terms is second-in-command of the ship (although in my case, I think the bank has more say on my ship than I do...). A modern day analogy would be like someone who owned and ran their own business, but was continually referred to as the 'Deputy Manager'.

In the code for the mission texts, it has the phrase: while in LittleBear's Assassins it's: What I would like to see is a little more in the way of personalising for your commander savefiles. Would it be possible to implement a [commander_title] variable that could be added to the savefile so that rather than you might with the code "Greetings [commander_title][commander_name]" get: or even ?
What does everyone else think?

Captain (President-for-life) Hesperus

Erm...

PEDANTRY ALERT!!!

Dictionary.com wrote:

com·mand·er /kəˈmændər, -ˈmɑn-/
Spelled Pronunciation[kuh-man-der, -mahn-]
–noun
1. a person who commands.

The, there's also

Wikipedia wrote:

one crew member on each spacecraft is designated as Mission Commander. The Commander is the captain of the ship, and makes all real-time critical decisions on behalf of the crew

Cmdr. Maegil wrote:

The, there's also

Wikipedia wrote:

one crew member on each spacecraft is designated as Mission Commander. The Commander is the captain of the ship, and makes all real-time critical decisions on behalf of the crew

Yeah, but that's NASA, not GalCop and besides it says "The Commander is the captain of the ship....". It is the broad labelling I'm referring to. If the [commander_title] could be implemented, then you could be 'Sir Wayne-Bobbitt' or 'Sergeant Winkel' or even 'космонавт Nejevsolov'. And it could even show progression through various missions. For instance, as you advance through the missions of Assassins.oxp, your Guild rank rises. If this could be implemented then the [commander_title] could be tied to [guild_title], so you could receive messages for 'Grandmaster Killalot' or 'Cutthroat Graven'. It could even be applied to hails from police ship when you assist: "%I police thank you for your assistance, [commander_title] [commander_name]"

Captain Hesperus

Uoah! I don't know what overcame me!

Well, I have to vote for the fishes, as though I'd like to have differenciated titles, they only would have any value if you earned them.
For instance, I'd like to be awrded points by the Tharg menace and Navy OXPs, and be treated according to my rank; or if in Assassins, start as an accolite, pass through Brother and finally become a Grand-Master...

*EDIT*: Due to wifi problems I posted too late... I see that we were talking about the same thing after all.

You start as holding no rank at all and are thus addressed as a mere Commander. The first rank is novice and only then are you addressed as a Brother of the Guild. It would be a quick search and replace to do it with Random Hits, so I have. There is no way to get an input from the player though. I've made the first entry in descriptions:-
You'd have to change it manually to Captain or whatever (just in this entry in descriptions) and the OXP will send you messages as Captain Jameson rather than Commander Jameson.[/code]

I've noticed you have a thing about the term Commander, and I don't really get why Commanders can be in command of a ship (it says so in my OED!), and besides, it's part of the Elite tradition, no?

I agree that having the ability to grant the player different "ranks" would be cool, but I don't see a problem with having Commander as the default title.

Roberto wrote:

I agree that having the ability to grant the player different "ranks" would be cool, but I don't see a problem with having Commander as the default title.

I'm not against tradition and I agree Commander would be fine as a default, but at the same time, I'd like to have a commander who isn't 'just another Commander' (not an intentional pun, another_commander! ). As avid players we 'get into the character', and I see this as being a step further in that direction. I don't mind if it was an 'advanced option', I certainly wouldn't like to see it as a requirement, but I'd like to have *the choice* as to what title my character has. And, if this option could be created, then the possibility exists that as you complete missions for the military, or which ever other clandestine organistaions you hire yourself out to, this can be reflected in the manner you are contacted. Is that such a bad thing to want?

Captain Hesperus

Not at all - you just seemed to be taking issue with the term Commander in general.

I don't know why Elite/Oolite uses Commander to describe the 'rank' of someone who is essentially a lone trader/mercenary/bounty-hunter/pirate/etc.

It is the broad labelling I'm referring to.

Roberto wrote:

Not at all - you just seemed to be taking issue with the term Commander in general.

I guess I do. I suppose this really follows on from my previous rant about naming your ship. I've always enjoyed the idea of having an individual character in a game and although Commander Hesperus is the traditional (and present) title of that particular savefile, I'd still like some parity with my online alter-ego. I had always assumed that the Commander rank was military in origin (naval in particular) since all 'Jamesons' are graduates of the Lave Academy and therefore members of the Reserve Navy. I assumed the reason for this rank was so that when they are called into action they are squadroned with and given orders by a de facto Captain from the Regular Navy. This, however, wouldn't suit Hesperus as a) he's a highly independant young feline and b) a coward deep down. The concept of accepting the 'call to action' is as alien to him as Goat Soup Mousse a la Creme. More like he would launch with the rest, then fall behind crying 'Engine Trouble' before witching out the moment the red lollipops appear on the scanner. This doesn't stop him bolstering his ego with a spurious title and the fact that every GalCop official and police officer calls him 'Commander Hesperus' makes his ears curl and raises his hackles to no end.
I mean, we can pretty much alter the universe (in game terms), so why not please a little grey kitty with a name change mod?

Captain Hesperus

I reckon it's a smoke screen from the Cap'n, it's really the uniform he doesn't like, being a vicious spam assassin, he probably prefers the more butch Village People style of outfit!

I had always assumed that the Commander rank was military in origin

Possibly, but just as the term "Captain" can be applied to the person in charge of a fishing boat or a ferry, I don't see a problem with calling the commander of a non-military spaceship, er, "Commander". In any case, a career-military hierarchy that started at the rank of Captain would be pretty daft...

*EDIT*...especially when you consider that the head of the Navy is "usually a serving Admiral or Commodore". That would make for a pretty small navy! (Incidentally, I think the notion of a mere Commodore commanding a navy spread across eight galaxies, with multiple sectors in each, is a bit ridiculous - I'd therefore advocate deleting "or Commodore" from that Wiki page!)

I take it just as another point on my side, that GalCop and the Galactic Navy are a fairly low-profile thing.

Anyway, I understand Hesperus. As his game-character is named "Captain Hesperus" (as opposed to just "Hesperus"), he will inevitably be addressed by all mission-screens as "Commander Captain Hesperus", and this is just plain stupid. And if it were just "Hesperus", he would be addressed "Commander Hesperus", equally wrong.

So I think it's fair for those of us who like to play a character that is not a "Commander", to be addressed properly by the game. I don't think that breaks Elite-legacy, but brings a little more variety. Although I don't have an idea right now how to realise this game-wise.

OXPs could use custom titles now couldn't they? If assassins stored the rank as a variable in the save file then it could easily use it in the communications.

The next step would be to add a 'default' title to the save file and have the core game use it and automatically update it as your number of kills rose.

It does break with tradtion a little bit though...

Meh - I'm not convinced. An OXP that displays additional rank info for any organisations you join (including perhaps the Galactic Navy) - fine. Cool, actually. Forcing the core game to have GalCop list/refer to you as "Captain" or "Lord" whoever when you haven't earned it - not cool, IMO. Whatever else we are, we're all commanders!

It'd be like writing to the government demanding that they refer to you as "Lord Protector So-and-so". Some civil servant might laugh and roll their eyes at how "wacky" you are, but you're still gonna be plain old "So-and-so" on your tax forms/polling card. Suck it up

As a point of note:

In the Royal Navy, both Captain (Cptn) and Commander (Cdr) are ranks.

However, Commanding Officer is the term used for anybody who has command of a vessel. It is essentially a job title.

So you could be a Lieutenant, but if you had command of a minesweeper (for example) you would also be the Commanding Officer (C.O.), but not a Commander (Cdr).

You would also not be a Gentleman, but that's another story.