Observations About POs Post-Fire Missions and a Serious Suggestion

[FGRSentinel]

To be honest there's one reason why I'm so much in favor of the FO idea: most players, including people who play CIC roles, have little to no experience as a PO and look down on it.

This might sound like a bit of salt, but think about it: good POs are often much more capable of gauging when an evac is needed than most people think, sometimes moreso than the CIC staff. As a PO, I've had it happen on Prison where comms went down and I stepped off the dropship to head towards the cade line (not too far away) to say it's time to go, then heard the dropship take off because the CO remote-launched it, dooming everyone on the station to death because the FOB was breached through Tcomms.

Personally, if CIC players took the time to actually learn which POs are capable and give more autonomy to the good ones, as well as actually trying a few rounds as PO rather than parroting the whole "PO is easy, it's just pushing two buttons all round" thing I'd be willing to accept oversight from them. As it stands, however, I'd rather have a role that lets capable pilots manage POs.

[scsnv]

Oh, didn't see that you finally put this in. I was expecting it in the USCM subforum, probably. But you're definitely better at vocalizing the whole FO idea better than I am, so I'm glad you're putting it forward.

My one question is, in your opinion, whether or not the fourth PO spot should be taken up by the FO (basically decreasing POs from four to three), or if it should be its own spot entirely. This is of course bearing in mind the intelligence update (which includes the fulton business - not that it requires two people) and some of the potential features which Neth has kindly clued us into.

Edit - the idea of a Bay Manager/Commander/Officer (or whatever other name you want to attach to it) which would include the tank is actually an interesting idea as well, though I know FGR would probably much rather see the FO idea implemented.

I would maybe even go as far as to place the IOs/intel gathering under their charge as well, call them "Operations Officer" or something like that (though OO sounds disgusting), and place them third in the chain-of-command after the XO. I think there's a bunch of different ways we can go about it, and I would say most of them would work. It's all about striking a balance between functionality and appeal I guess.

[popjin]

Honestly, I don't think we even need that many POs. Add a PO chair in the middle, and 1 PO can fly one ship.

So then we can have 1 PO per ship and an FO, who can work out of the hanger control bubble, assuming they add more features to those dropships. In a pinch, the FO can override control of the dropships and fly from the hanger control bubble or whatever.

[adrenalinetooth]

1. Make separate jobs: Transport Pilot and CAS pilot. CAS pilots have the training to operate the CAS attachments. This stops childish in-fighting with other POs on who gets to do CAS.

2. Make seperate fabricators: One for transport, one for CAS. Only CAS pilots can touch the CAS fabricator, only transport can touch the transport fabricator. This makes sure your points aren't stolen by some transport pilot wanting a bunch of spotlights, and also prevents PFCs from soft griefing you.

[Ketrai]

Sup

Probably out of all people, you expect me to reply here.

Job on this is not yet done, see Gunship mode and AA.
As for FO role - it will be there, eventually, when marines will have proper hangar and tech (like fighters and shit) and a2a combat is even assumed to happen.
Transport PO's are currently the bane of the PO role. And so is the amount of PO's. I think making just 2 PO's or having 4 PO's man 2 fighters and 2 dropships might be a better idea.
As for supplies. I'm still thinking about making req spawn ammo for the dropships.

Also, I call dibs on CAS every time I get to do it, and I'm probably good at it. What we need is probably to bwoink bad CAS pilots that do mistakes like you shown. That mistake is akin to making supermatter loose - grief by malicious decision not to learn shit.

We can have a talk about this later

Just be a bit careful about making the game too reliant on support fire. It doesn't add anything to the round for anyone but the PO and SL/JTAC. Nothing is fun about it for xenos to get hit by uncounterable fire they can only run from, or being even more reliant on the boiler as the only counter to prevent such memes.

IT isn't fun for the marines on the ground either. They get to shoot less xenos, namely the ones you kill. And much worse, the powerful FF tends to ruin rounds, as cas is powerful enough to outright gib marines with direct hits.

[FGRSentinel]

Oh, didn't see that you finally put this in. I was expecting it in the USCM subforum, probably. But you're definitely better at vocalizing the whole FO idea better than I am, so I'm glad you're putting it forward.

My one question is, in your opinion, whether or not the fourth PO spot should be taken up by the FO (basically decreasing POs from four to three), or if it should be its own spot entirely. This is of course bearing in mind the intelligence update (which includes the fulton business - not that it requires two people) and some of the potential features which Neth has kindly clued us into.

Edit - the idea of a Bay Manager/Commander/Officer (or whatever other name you want to attach to it) which would include the tank is actually an interesting idea as well, though I know FGR would probably much rather see the FO idea implemented.

I would maybe even go as far as to place the IOs/intel gathering under their charge as well, call them "Operations Officer" or something like that (though OO sounds disgusting), and place them third in the chain-of-command after the XO. I think there's a bunch of different ways we can go about it, and I would say most of them would work. It's all about striking a balance between functionality and appeal I guess.

In my opinion, four POs is a good number right now since it means the CAS pilot can have a copilot along as a paramedic and Transport can have a backup pilot in case the main one is bald, cryos, or gets killed. As it stands, I've found myself drifting towards FO-like duties as PO and just step in whenever the transport comes up with the PO(s) dead or seriously wounded.

On the other hand, Neth talked about this on here and it sounds like he plans to add a fairly large department with an FO-like position in charge of it eventually: things he said he's considering include adding two strike craft (probably fighters, but I'm personally hoping for a fighter/bomber) to bring the number of craft up to four (making four POs the bare minimum to fly all the craft at once) and support personnel to help manage and maintain the ships. So at this point it's more a matter of when, not if, a FO/AO position is added.

Also, the FO idea I proposed here is based off the real-life Air Officer position on US aircraft carriers: they're responsible for overseeing maintenance and flight operations on the carrier and serve as an air-traffic controller within a certain area of the carrier. In real life, the AO (or "air boss") is fourth-in-command of the ship and has the rank of Commander, but is often close to being promoted to Captain, at which point they can serve as the CO or XO on a carrier (as the CO and XO both hold the rank of Captain on an aircraft carrier). There's actually a saying that while the ship is the COs, the planes belong to the AO and the pilots are just borrowing them.

Honestly, I don't think we even need that many POs. Add a PO chair in the middle, and 1 PO can fly one ship.

As above, four is currently what I consider the ideal number for the sake of redundancy and to allow medevac to happen without the CAS PO leaving the cockpit.

1. Make separate jobs: Transport Pilot and CAS pilot. CAS pilots have the training to operate the CAS attachments. This stops childish in-fighting with other POs on who gets to do CAS.

I mean, if that change was made, nobody would pick to be Transport Pilot unless they wanted to sit on the dropship playing bus driver. Some of us POs are fine with it, but I hold no delusion that splitting them between two roles would do much other than maybe leave transport with no pilots or CAS with nobody to take over if the CAS pilot goes SSD or gets brigged for some reason.

[Steelpoint]

I disagree with splitting the Pilot job into two separate roles.

If you wanted to try and make a """fair""" system you could aim for some convoluted code system where people are assigned to either transport role or cas role at round start, their selection is based on what they got the last time and the system tries to give the current rounds pilots a fair shake of the sauce bottle based on their prior pilot rounds.

[scsnv]

Also, the FO idea I proposed here is based off the real-life Air Officer position on US aircraft carriers: they're responsible for overseeing maintenance and flight operations on the carrier and serve as an air-traffic controller within a certain area of the carrier. In real life, the AO (or "air boss") is fourth-in-command of the ship and has the rank of Commander, but is often close to being promoted to Captain, at which point they can serve as the CO or XO on a carrier (as the CO and XO both hold the rank of Captain on an aircraft carrier). There's actually a saying that while the ship is the COs, the planes belong to the AO and the pilots are just borrowing them.

Bearing in mind that this is a 100% fictional military. It doesn't hurt to stick relatively closely to current military structure/doctrine, but hypothetically we could do whatever the hell we want if we think it'd be better for convenience/functionality. As for FO being placed in the chain-of-command, I wouldn't place them too terribly high. Assuming they're made a LCDR/department head (which I don't personally agree with; I'd rather they be a LT, but if flight updates expand the roles significantly I would change my mind), my idea of a chain-of-command would be CE>CMP>FO>RO, after the XO.

[FGRSentinel]

Honestly I doubt people would like it if we made this too much like the real-life US Naval command structure, if only because if Neth goes through with his plans Almayer will probably be upgraded to/replaced by a carrier and in the US Navy someone can only be the CO of a carrier if they were an aviator. I doubt many people would like having "must know how to do CASEVAC and transport flights" added to the requirements to become a CO if that happened. I'm mostly just saying "this is where I got the idea from" rather than saying I want it organized like a real-life aircraft carrier.

[scsnv]

Fair enough. Although I do believe COs should be acquainted with/reasonably competent at just about every role on the ship, from an RP/backstory perspective they shouldn�t have to have pilot experience. Though I know you weren�t suggesting it so much as mentioning it.