Promotions...

[Orchestration]

I been playing my current game for a while now, the game is currently in July. I have done LOTS of missions and killed hundreads of Aliens. However none of my people ever seem to get promoted >_<

 

Most are Able Seamen, I got a few Ensigns and 1 Lieutenant. She has 25 Missions and 32 kills.

 

1 Ablse Seaman has 24 missions and 42 kills. How do I get my guys promoted?

[Zombie]

Promotions are one of the things people always ask about. No doubt, as it sometimes seems random or doesn't even happen. There is a method though.

 

When you hire an aquanaut, his/her rank starts out as "Seaman". All a Seaman needs to do is go on a mission and engage an enemy somehow (shooting at it with a gun or throwing a grenade) and they will automatically be promoted to "Able Seaman". So far, it's rather simple. But now it gets tricky. To become an Ensign, you need 5 or more aquanauts and the most experienced Able Seaman is promoted. To become a Lieutenant, you need at least 11 aquanauts. The most experienced Ensign is promoted from this group to fill the spot. The rank of Commander requires at least 23 aquanauts and the most experienced Lieutenant will be promoted. Finally, when you have 30 or more aquanauts the most experienced Commander is promoted to Captain (the highest rank).

 

In short, if you are worried about promotions, hire more aquanauts. That should solve the problem really quick.

 

Here are some scribblings I made of the situation a while back. Since the number of aquanauts is capped at 250 units, we can calculate the total number of officers possible. Of course, there will only be 1 Captain so that stays the same. There can be 10 Commanders, 22 Lieutenants and 50 Ensigns. Adding them up, we have 83 officers out of 250 total units. That's a 33% officer mix (or 1 out of 3 aquanauts is an officer). Interesting. Now to verify it.

 

- Zombie

[Bomb Bloke]

What I'd like to see is an Apocalypse game with a commander. My calcs indicated you'd need more then 100 units. And that's no small number for that game.

[Gimli]

Zombie, do you know in which order the Aquanauts are promoted? Let's say you have an Ensign with 20 missions and 30 kills, and an Able Seaman with 20 missions and 40 kills. Now personally I'd rather my Able Seaman gets promoted Ensign and then because of higher stats to a Lieutenant. Is that how promotions work? In other words are the lowest ranks promoted first or higher?

[Bomb Bloke]

Promotions are given out according to experience. He who does the most actions gets promoted first. Attending missions has no effect on the matter.

 

I'm almost sure the Able Seaman would get the full promotion. Almost.

[Azure]

Actually, the manual is very specific about this-> at the end of the description of each rank, it reads: "if a position is vacant, the best available [insert next lower rank] is promoted." [pp. 54-55]

 

In Gimli's example, the Ensign with 20 missions and 30 kills will be promoted (assuming no other Ensigns have more experience), then the Able Seaman with 20 missions and 40 kills will be promoted (assuming no other Able Seamen with more experience). Note that the Able Seaman has a better chance of being promoted because if your staffing levels just crossed a new threshold making a new rank available, you also probably increased the number of lower rank slots available (2.2 Ensigns per Lieutenant, 4.6 Ensigns per Commander) and the promotion of existing officers leaves an extra slot open at their previous rank.

 

I don't believe I've ever seen an aquanaut 'skip' ranks unless there were NO surviving officers of the intermediate rank...but it is possible to 'jump' in stages. For example, if Gimli has been keeping 8 Aquanauts (1 Ensign, 7 Able Seaman/Seaman) and he hires 2 more, then if they survive their next mission, one of the Able Seaman will be promoted to Ensign (2 Ensigns, 8 Able Seaman/Seaman)...if he then hires more Aquanauts, then the freshly promoted Ensign may be promoted 'ahead' of the first Ensign IF his experience count is higher.

 

Azure

[NKF]

It is sort of a mix of first come, first served promotion and the actions in combat help determine how the promotions are handed out.

 

As mentioned, the first promotion is automatic when you perform at least one experience earning task. But to improve from there on upwards, experience (from the last mission, by the way, not current experience) is looked at (or is used as a tie breaker if there are equal ranks). This might only relate to improving from Able Seaman.

 

And yes, if new higher ranks are made available, the soldier with the next highest rank (i.e. underneath the new position) will get preference.

 

It might not seem fair for a person who only did well on the first mission, got the rank of ensign, and then did nothing for the rest of the game only to climb to the highest rank.

 

- NKF

[Zombie]

Here are some scribblings I made of the situation a while back. Since the number of aquanauts is capped at 250 units, we can calculate the total number of officers possible. Of course, there will only be 1 Captain so that stays the same. There can be 10 Commanders, 22 Lieutenants and 50 Ensigns. Adding them up, we have 83 officers out of 250 total units. That's a 33% officer mix (or 1 out of 3 aquanauts is an officer). Interesting. Now to verify it.

Bingo! I just did some testing on this and indeed it holds true. 1 Captain, 10 Commanders, 22 Lieutenants and 50 Ensigns are the max number of officers possible in TFTD. Checked it in EU too and it's the same officer mix.

 

For the really elaborate test, I purchased 250 soldiers and stuffed them all into one base (EU: Collector's Edition). The first mission that came along was a Terror Site, so I sent an Avenger with 26 Rookies in. Unfortunately I forgot to bring pistols along so my guys were stuck with Laser Rifles. (Didn't matter though as it just took another mission to get the results). Anyhow, it was Sectoids and Cyberdiscs so 17 of my men got a shot and a kill. When they returned from the mission, the ones that did the shooting automatically got promoted to Sergeants - totally skipping the Squaddie phase.

 

The next mission that came up was another Terror Mission (Floaters and Reapers). Nice. And this time I equipped my full load of 26 new rookies with normal pistols and went to town. Everyone got at least one shot in during the mission. After it was all over, the 26 guys who went on the mission were promoted to Sergeants. The 17 Sergeants from the previous mission were promoted to Captains. Onward it went until I had the predicted officer mix.

 

What I might do next is to let each soldier shoot an alien once and not kill it. Then get the rookies back to the craft and abort. Basically, avoid killing aliens. I doubt this has any effect on the promotion system but you never know. And as usual, all my soldiers were complete clones to avoid stats from interfering.

 

- Zombie