CYBRN4CR
02/19/10 06:31 AM
71.236.221.45
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Hey, got a question for y'all. 
I'm curious what gunnery/piloting values are reasonable for Inner Sphere military ranks. This is important as I want to make sure the pilots of my merc unit have gunnery/piloting values appropriate for their rank.
I've read somewhere that 4/5 pilots are equal to regular pilots. If this is true, if my merc unit recruits a mechwarrior from the pool of mechwarriors seeking employment, is it safe to assume that, on average, the mechwarrior will be a 4/5?
What about Green pilots? Where do they fit in? Are they akin to trainees still learning how to pilot the darn thing called a mech? Or are these the recruits fresh out of mech school that go to join the job boards and militaries of the Inner Sphere? If so what are their gunnery/piloting values?
Again for Lieutenants, Captains, Colonels, and Brigadier Generals. How many years of service do mechwarriors have to be in the regular military (or merc unit) to attain these ranks? What are the gunnery/piloting values for them?
What if my merc unit specializes in sniping mechs at range? Think of regular snipers in the military today. If this is how pilots in my unit are trained, what bonus in gunnery/piloting would be reasonable for my units, along with their rank?
There is a lot I don't know about this, so I need some help if you are kind about it. 
Thanks. 
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Zandel_Corrin
02/19/10 08:31 AM
203.208.78.129
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Those skills cannot be equated to rank due to the political nature of the ranking system and the fact that some of the greatest generals couldn't fight to save themselves.
Consider steiner military b4 the fed suns... anyone with money could buy a high rank even if they were no good.
Now the Dracs might be equatable and the clans certainly are... ditto merc units because in all cases you don't get high up unless your good.
But all the rest would be hard to equate.
Galaxy Commander
Zandel Corrin
Night Dragon Clan
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CYBRN4CR
02/19/10 10:07 AM
71.236.221.45
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Lol at the Steiner comment. That is so true 
Well, all I'm looking for is a rough approximate, barring politics and RPG life paths, etc. Just the sheer value of slugging it out, and living long enough (and being good enough) to earn the rank. For someone like that, all else out of the equation, what would their gunnery/piloting be at each point of the military ladder? 
If it helps, this is the approximation I have. But the rule is, no chewing me out for the values I give, as they are just approximations and I am willing to change them.
Assuming my merc unit recruits an average mechwarrior off the for-hire boards, I assume the mechwarrior is a normal 4/5. These pilots are placed in my Arrow IV mechs because they don't get much action where a high gunnery value is necessary. As soon as they rack up enough kills (by now I think they are Corporals in rank) they train in TAG spotting while running in light mechs, which I hope justifies a -1/-1.
Now, since my unit trains in long range sniping, gunnery will start to move faster than piloting, but not before the scout pilots train in ERPPCs. Once they get good enough, they are worthy of being P.I.G.s with a -1/-0 bonus, and are allowed to pilot the unit's medium sniper mechs. By now I think they would be Sergeant Majors in rank.
Once the P.I.G.s get really good at what they do, they move into officer status, slowly working their way to Lieutenant. This process is reflected with another -1/-1 bonus. Here they get the unit's heavy sniper chassis.
After that, any higher ranks (Captain and Major) are further continuations of this pattern, with the warrior getting better and better as they advance in rank. Around Captain rank, I gave a final -1/-0 bonus, and around Major I gave an -0/-1, resulting in a 0/2 pilot after all the strife.
My Lieutenant Colonels, Colonels, and Brigadeer Generals are all similar to the stats of the Major. But then these ranks only apply to my characters, and in some cases are more like the Steiner issue you brought up. But that's beside the point.
Any good? Or should I let the numbers drop at a slower rate? 
Example:
Private 4/5 Arrow IV
Corporal 4/5
Sergeant 3/5 TAG scouts
Sergeant Major 3/4 Snipers
2nt Lieutenant 2/4 Lance Leaders
Lieutenant 2/3
Captain 1/3 aides to characters
Major 1/2
Lieut. Col 0/2 lowest character rank
Colonel 0/1
Ace/Brigadeer 0/0
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Karagin
02/19/10 01:02 PM
80.149.45.102
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The are skills, they don't really have a military Rank, some sergeants are going to be better mech pilots then officers, others may not be.
Skill sets don't automatically give you rank, I know plenty of people who can fix tanks or trucks or know a weapons system front to back and all the neat things there is to know about it and they can't lead ants to a picnic.
Merc units follow traditional military scales, you start out as nothing and you move up or you don't. Even in a real military the officers learn from the NCOs, even with schooling they don't know everything and if they are smart and want to last long, they will listen to the NCOs and learn.
Same would be true in the BT universe, just because you have a skill set, doesn't mean you are going to be top dog.
A green pilot could be anyone, from a retrained truck driver to a cook who is needed to fill a slot.
Officers normally are one of three times:
School trained, ie they went to a military academy. Think West Point or Sandhurts. They have the training, but they are still kept in check by the NCOs of the units they end up in.
For LTs (both 2nd and 1st) most getting promoted means they have a slot open, aka a job available, 2 to 3 years could go by before they are promoted, some can pulling it of in two years getting bumped up on to 1st LT, others not so lucky. Then once they reach captain, they are either going to be on a staff for a few years, then sent out to command a unit for normally two years, then get moved to another command. So say 5 to 6 years before they see Major. Then most Majors end up on staff, doing the command schools and other things. The higher in rank, the more time it will take. The more schooling you need and the more ability to show you know what you are doing, now this doesn't all ways work but in theory that is what is suppose to happen.
IF your uber elite unit, which it sounds like you want to make, I suggest you stick with one or two "elites" and have the rest be mixed of veterans, average and green, is always training and always taking missions, they yes they could be higher in skill levels and have the 0/0 pilot and gunnery, BUT and understand this part, that is NOT likely to happen and would be very RARE and UNHEARD of.
Not all of the Dragoons are elites, highly trained, yes, but not all are elite or crack warriors, same is true for all the other merc units.
But it is your game, your group, I suggest you scale it back and trying to stay with in some form of reality, leave the uber units and crazy skills to TPTB (the powers that be, aka the writers.) and work on building up your reputation and skill set as whole unit, not just a single group of "Immortal Warriors".
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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Karagin
02/19/10 01:06 PM
80.149.45.102
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Sorry have to disagree, mercs have crappy pilots and gunners and all the rest as well. Just because they are mercs doesn't give them any thing special to gain rank through their skill set, not without having to really impress the others in the unit and then how ever the merc unit does promotions and IF they have slots then they might promote the new guy or the guy who has been their forever.
Clans use the skills to get rank, but they have to use it to keep it as well, and anyone can challenge the holder of the rank, and a single mistake will be fatal to one or both.
The Combine has a promotion system as well as birth gives rank, but they don't just hand a mech to anyone either, and when they do, ie the Chain Gangs, it is for one reason or another and normally for the betterment of the Combine as a whole.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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KitK
02/19/10 02:26 PM
204.83.49.140
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Why don't you just use the Total Warfare rules on 271, 273 to generate the unit's gun/pilot skills?
Or, modify it by generating x number of skills (say 12 for a company) and distribute them how you want.
Or, use the rule, but set a couple of your main characters arbitrarily per your back-story.
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CYBRN4CR
02/19/10 04:59 PM
71.236.221.45
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Well, I have 6 characters out of a total of 108 mechwarriors (a standard non command lance regiment). This means the rest of the 102 mechwarriors have to have sensible gunnery/piloting values lest I truly be a munchkin out to have nothing but uber pilots and whatnot. And even then of the 6, I want to be sensible; giving gunnery/piloting values that reflect their skill gained through time of service (with only one exception, and that's the one that pilots the LAM).
I suppose I could roll the results, and arbitrarily set a -2/0 over the result to factor in the training if they are veteran pilots and above, and then assign rank to fit the necessary roles. Would that be a better way to go about it?
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KitK
02/20/10 11:41 AM
142.165.26.253
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You roll 26D to determine Green, Regular, Vetern, or Elite. Its weighted toward the green/regular end.
Then you roll 16D for gunnery and 16D for piloting, again scaled to make higher skills less probable.
So, I fail to see how you are going to get an uber-munchkin unit out of that process.
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Karagin
02/20/10 12:28 PM
79.206.25.119
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If he adds in his modifier of the -2 to the rolls his likely to get better pilots
If he is so worried about it, then he should go with all 4/5s and a few 3/4 and call it good.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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CYBRN4CR
02/21/10 08:51 PM
70.62.49.254
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Well, all in all, this has taught me that rank realistically does not correlate with skill, and that it's better to just determine pilot skills and assign rank based on the needs of the unit. So thanks, everyone for your input. It really put things into perspective!
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KitK
02/25/10 04:28 PM
128.233.93.203
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So, this discussion got me motivated to try programming Excel again to preform this task, and I suceeded this time. (No laughing if you are a programmer  )
It sets up a regiment (27 lances) by creating a lance, randomly giving it an experience rating, and then randomly assigning each pilot slot a Pilot/Gunnery skill. It doesn't assign mechs or sort the lances by experience.
If you round to the nearest integer it does really well, keeping the regiment's Pilot/Gun at 5/4. However, +/- 0.2 seems to make difference in how many high or low skill numbers you see.
The one run I manually sorted out to see what I gotten gave 3 elite lances, 5 veteran lances, 11 regular lances, and 8 green lances. With 70% of the regiment at regular and green I could see a whole lot of missed shots happening as well as falling over! Actually, the green units' gunnery skills came out better than I expected with a lot of 4s. There are two 7/7 green pilots though...who hired those fools! LOL
KK
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Karagin
02/26/10 03:17 AM
80.149.45.102
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The same guy who got you the discount on LRM rounds too only find out that you got illum rounds instead of HE rounds.
Karagin
Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher can prove anything.
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