4 replies to this topic

[Threat Doc]

In the recent Reddit AMA, from May 22^nd of 2014, where we were allowed to ask Russ our questions, and from the transcript at the following link...

http://mwomercs.com/...ions-on-reddit/

... Russ expressed,

”Russ Bullock”]“Let's start over, on I want to hear from you the BT fan and I will listen carefully and weight it along with all the other players feedback.[/b, said:

”

Well, Mr. Bullock, I am here to take you up on that. I apologize that it’s taken me a while to get here, but the last month-and-a-half have been extraordinarily busy for me. The suggestions I’m about to make are primarily for my own Mercenary Combat Command, Armageddon Unlimited, but I’m hoping to do two things, here...

• Give PGI some ideas about what to put into the Merc Corps Headquarters –Unit Creation and Management–, and...

• Allow my fellow Commanders to have examples to develop and delineate things they would like to see in the interface, as well.

For those of you who would decry many of the things I’m about to recommend as being too overblown, too complicated, unnecessary, etc., I would ask you to remember two things, here...

• The suggestions I’m making are based on the needs and care for my own mercenary unit, and...

• These are for Russ to take in, because he is asking for them and said he will listen, and not for you other Commanders to scoff at. Now, any of you who would like to use some of these suggestions for your own units, have at ‘em.

Keeping Records
I’m going to start with the core and most important document for Armageddon Unlimited, the Personnel Workbook that I built from scratch for AU in MWO. This is where I keep the most basic numbers records for my MechWarrior Online players, including myself, and how I determine rank and/or position for them using the most fair means possible. When someone signs up to join Armageddon Unlimited, I begin the induction process in this Excel file, working from an enlistment form we use, similar to those many units use, but perhaps a bit more exacting. Taking the information from this form, I fill out each of the tabs in the Workbook, eventually coming to a total for Promotion Points and Time-in-Service.

What I would like to see is a means of developing an enlistment form for ourselves, where we can place elements similar to those found on our present web-based Enlistment form, so I can take the statistics derived from the Enlistment Form and place them in our Workbook, perhaps as a database in MWO itself, as follows...

Pre-AU
This is where a player’s age and their records from service with former MechWarrior units is kept, and includes the experience they have from both Tabletop and previous MechWarrior and MechCommander games. A Section Points total is derived from this, and averaged against three other sections, not including Time-in-Service, as one aspect of play in Armageddon Unlimited.

Time-in-Service
A MechWarrior’s start date is placed here; if that MechWarrior participated in any of the previous iterations of AU, their records are also calculated from here for total Time-in-Service, and their service continues to count from that point. This tab is also used to give incentive bonuses to Time-in-Service based on whether or not someone takes on a special role, such as a Department (Training Cadre, Intel, P/R, and other positions that will come forward in the future), Department Head (same listings as Department, but this person’s in charge), Lance Leader, Company, Battalion, Regiment, or Brigade Commander, Unit Executive Officer and Unit Commanding Officer. Each of these has a small percentage bonus to overall Time-in-Service because these guys are all expected to put in extra, and if someone takes on more than one role, their time bonus is compounded. Total Months of Service are calculated, here, as well, so I can give out Service Awards as procedure dictates.

Education
Armageddon Unlimited actually has, and has had in limited capacities, for years, a book-learning program, where a MechWarrior can read through these very short procedural chapters, to become ingrained in AUs culture, the depth of the unit, our vision and goals, our operational standards, and get some important training practices out of the way to improve our enjoyment of the game. All of these are absolutely optional to take, but are worth Promotion Points for anyone interested in advancing into positions of authority more quickly. There are programs for Enlisted, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Officers.

Awards
Some awards and/or achievements may be immediately available to the MechWarrior, for games played in the past, for being a member from a previous iteration returning, etc. I will discuss awards in a further posting in this thread. I know it’s been expressed there would be a robust system for ranks, positions, and awards, so I’ll move on and include further notes concerning awards and achievements, later.

Participation
This is where general work with and for the unit (forum posting numbers for AU, MWO, and MWT is recorded; remember, this is one of four aspects of advancement in AU), where points may be awarded for role-playing, acting one’s role in-game, creating something, or just being an all-around good guy and entertaining others, can be put, where overflow points from awards can be pushed to, and more. Kills and game drops (participation in training or combat drops) are recorded and accounted into points.

[b]Promotions
Points for Pre-AU, Education, Awards, and Participation are averaged here in one cell for a MechWarrior, Time-in-Service is totaled in the next cell, and the two are cross-referenced on a pair of charts (one Enlisted, one Officer) to determine if the work they’ve done up to the point of their monthly evaluation is enough for a promotion or not. The system is extremely competitive, and I do not include myself in it, so there may actually be competition. Also determined is the Command Level an individual holds in AU, which would likely be taken care of in the positions/levels/titles you’ve expressed you will allow us Merc Commanders to set up.

For my part, I would like to see an individual able to hold one rank, one or more positions in the unit, and one command level, up to five titles. More on this in the fourth post.

That’s the Armageddon Unlimited Excel Personnel Workbook, in a nutshell. What I would like to see is the ability to manage my personnel in a fashion very similar to what I have in our Personnel Workbook, and the only way I can see that working is if you provide a general merc unit template for folks to do what they want to do, and how, but allow for Commander’s with more in mind to develop deeper means of making things happen; in essence, to be able to design their own Unit Management system from dynamic pieces you develop into the interface. I would love to be able to build a recruitment form in the game similar to the one I have, that when filled out would move into a queue in the interface to be accepted or rejected. On acceptance –after whatever standards the accepting Officer might have are satisfied– the information moves into the main database and populates all appropriate fields, but the Unit CO and XO, the Training OIC, and the Battalion Commander –or designated and approved representative of the Battalion Commander– could go into a form to make changes, grant awards, etc. Indeed, the rank, position, awards structure could be set up for each item added to the chosen complexity of the unit CO to go to various ranks and positions, as deemed fit by the CO through your Management tools system.

There are four posts to my part of this thread.

Edited by Kay Wolf, 10 July 2014 - 07:40 AM.

[Threat Doc]

This is my second post concerning my recommendations in this thread. In the previous post I introduced you to the AU Personnel Workbook, how it works and what I would like to see designed into the Merc Corps Unit Creation and Management Headquarters interface as far as that goes. Please keep in mind I don’t know the difficulties you’re looking at with designing what it is you already have, but I am also trying to provide what I feel would be necessary for a proper unit creation and management system.

I don’t know whether or not you intend to have a TO&E display, such as those near the bottom of the Armageddon Unlimited history page, where we can literally build our own Wartables, or have them built by how people are assigned and moved around. Perhaps, on clicking on a particular Lance, Company, or Battalion icon, it could take us to a more specific unit, zoom us in as it were, for something like what I have on my Battalion pages. From there, a MechWarrior could view their own, or other MechWarrior Service Records, by clicking on the name of the MechWarrior.

Indeed, you may see my MSR, here; I think it would be pretty nice if we could have a means of exporting our records to PDF or Document format, for the sake of printing, perhaps placement on a wall (real or virtual)... MWO is going to be much more than any game or league that has come, before, and I already know much more will be accomplished. Those accomplishments are going to be important, and should be treated as such.

[Threat Doc]

Now I move on to something to do with what is tracked in Armageddon Unlimited, and what I hope you will also consider tracking, in MWO, or allowing me the ability to track in MWO. First, when I build my awards, achievements, devices, and MechWarrior quality brackets (Green, Regular, Veteran, and Elite), I would like to be able to determine any formula or tracked statistical requirement and/or time limits that goes into how each bracket is granted. Below, I outline the awards and achievements for AU, and how they’re awarded. I have tried to match many AUs achievements with those presently available in the game, finding that certain in-game ones can also be used to inform AUs. If these MWO achievements could also be used to inform the granting of awards and/or achievements in the Unit Management module, that would be extremely cool.

First, there is an order of precedence for all of these awards and achievements, found here, and Awards, Devices, and MechWarrior Quality are worn readily on the AU uniform, while Achievements are not. However, Achievements usually build up to higher Achievements or Awards and are based on training and combat, typically, so the ability to allow for a certain number of iterations on a by-award basis would be nice, please?

Tier 5 Awards (Highest Level Awards)
* Medal of Honor – discretionary AND automatic; can be awarded by proper authority, or as a conversion award from five previous awards of Medal of Valor

* Master/Ace Pilot – automatic; one-time award; only awarded through completion of Master Combat Unit Type, Master Gunnery, and either Inner Sphere OR Clan Master ‘Mech Driver Awards; Elite MechWarrior Quality comes along with this award

* Distinguished Regiment Service (unit) – discretionary AND automatic; can be awarded by proper authority, or as a conversion award from five previous awards of Distinguished Battalion Service

As you can see from these, many of our awards are iterative, meaning if you earn a lower Award or Achievement enough times, they may be converted to the higher Award or Achievement. The lower Award or Achievement is removed at that point, points from the accrual of the lower award then go into the Unit Participation point pool in the Personnel Workbook, the higher award is given, and earning that lower Award or Achievement starts over. Certain awards, such as the Distinguished Regiment, Battalion, Company, and Lance Service Awards are unit-wide awards; so, for example, if it’s a Battalion Award, EVERYONE in the Battalion at the time gets that Award. There are other Service Awards (Superior, Distinguished, Veteran, and Basic Service) that are individual awards, not granted to an entire unit or sub-unit in AU.

Tier 4 Awards
* Medal of Valor – discretionary AND automatic; iterates from other awards, or per 25,000 xp in Savior Kills

* Officer Candidate School – discretionary; one-time award for completion of OCS material

* ANCOC (Adv. NCO Course) – discretionary; one-time award for completion of ANCOC

* Distinguished Battalion Service – discretionary AND automatic; can be awarded by proper authority, or as a conversion award from five previous awards of Distinguished Company Service

Medal of Valor has a couple of different ways it can be earned, one of which is by achieving 25,000 total experience in Savior Kills; can those be tracked and used as a metric to assign to awards?

Tier 4 Achievements
* Superior Service (Svc 4; 10 Years; individual) – automatic; iterates from the combination of three Distinguished Service plus one Basic Service

Tier 3 Awards
* Meritorious Service Medal and Commander’s Honor – discretionary AND automatic; iterates from other awards

* Master Combat Unit Type (CUT) – automatic; completion of all basic Combat Unit Type Achievements (not including Reconnaissance or Zero-G)

* Master Gunnery – automatic; completion of Master Weapon’s Specialist Award and 5 previous awards of Sniper Gunnery Achievement

* Distinguished Company Service (unit) – discretionary AND automatic; can be awarded by proper authority, or as a conversion award from five previous awards of Distinguished Lance Service

For this tier, especially for Master CUT and Master Gunnery, and further along for Master Weapons, it’s not the accrual of a number of the same type of Awards or Achievements, it’s the accrual of several individual Achievements. I would like to be able to assign requirements to attain discretionary awards, or those given by an individual rather than through game statistics, and one of those requirements should be labeled Assignment or Grant. Also, there is an Awards/Achievement recommendation system in-place in AU, where a member can recommend someone for an award, but if they are not at the right level to grant the award, it has to go up the chain of command until it reaches someone who can grant or refuse it; these levels could be set up in the interface as easily as who can approve someone to the unit, or remove them from it.

Tier 3 Achievements
* Distinguished Service (Svc 3; 3 Years; individual) – automatic; iterates from the third award of Veteran Service

* Sniper Gunnery – discretionary and automatic; anyone making four kills in a single match or achieving 750 points of damage, or more, earns this, but it may only be earned one time per month

* Reconnaissance Achievement – discretionary AND automatic; one-time award; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also for completion of Recon-related training, and/or also for earning Electronic Weapons Specialist Achievement and an Achievement, Commendation, or Above the Call Medal for a Recon-related mission completion

* Zero-G Achievement – discretionary AND automatic; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also for achieving 25 drop-wins on a true space map (HPG doesn’t count, because the gravity is too high)

* BNCOC (Basic NCO Course) – discretionary; one-time award for completion of BNCOC

* Training Cadre Course Completion – discretionary; one-time award for completion of Training Cadre Course

Tier 2 Awards
* Commendation Medal – discretionary AND automatic; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also converted from iterations of other Awards/ Achievements

* Above the Call – discretionary AND automatic; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also converted from five previous iterations of the Lance Leadership Award

* Master Weapons Specialist – automatic; one-time award; completion of all Weapons Specialist Achievements

* Battle Commander Award – discretionary AND automatic; one-time award; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also for completion of the Basic and Advanced BattleGrid Achievements

* Command Contribution Medal – discretionary AND automatic; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also for accruing five previous General Contribution Achievements

* Distinguished Lance Service (unit) – discretionary; this is the simplest form of this award, and iterates from nothing

Tier 2 Achievements
* Combat Unit Type (CUT) Training Achievements – discretionary AND automatic; each is a one-time Achievement; completion of 25 drop-wins on appropriate environment maps for EACH Achievement

* Veteran Service (Svc 2; 12 months; individual) – automatic; iterates from the third award of Basic Service

* Top Gun – discretionary; inter-unit competition achievement

* Hawkeye Gunnery – discretionary and automatic; anyone making three kills, or achieving 500 - 749 points of damage, or more in a single match earns this, but it may only be earned one time per month

* Electronic Weapons Specialist – discretionary AND automatic; one-time award; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also for achieving 10,000 ECM or C-ECM experience points

* General Weapons Specialist – discretionary AND automatic; one-time award EACH; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also for achieving thresholds in weapon hit percentage over the course of 50+ matches. The idea is to ensure the percentage holds once tracking it has begun, and the thresholds are not yet determined as there is no common threshold set, as yet

* BattleGrid Utility Advanced – discretionary AND automatic; one-time award; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also by completing 15 drop-wins while using BattleGrid to post assignments during the game, or 25 total drops while using it, or completion of the MechCommander 2 computer game. The problem is the lack of known metrics about whether this is a plausible measure or not

* General Contribution Achievement – discretionary; for an outstanding contribution to AU

* AIT (Adv. Individual Training) Completion – discretionary; one-time achievement for completion of AIT

Notice how the EW Specialist requires 10,000 xp from ECM and C-ECM use; this would need to be seen by the game, at least, and accounted automatically. When something automatic hits, and it’s an iterative (non-one-time), the MechWarrior’s Battalion Commander, or higher, should receive a notification in the interface or through email. Also, what would a threshold for each of lasers, missiles, and ballistic hit percentages look like? At present I have 75% @ 50+ matches for lasers and ballistics, and 20% @ 50+ matches for LRMs, but these numbers are not final, and may be terribly off-base.

Tier 1 Awards
* Achievement Medal – discretionary AND automatic; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also converts from the fifth award of Sharpshooter Gunnery

* Lance Leadership Award – automatic; awarded for 50 wins achieved as a Lance Leader (not BattleGrid)

* Jump Master (HALO) – automatic; one-time award; awaiting DropShip game mode; earned through accrual of all four HALO Achievements (L, M, H, A)

* Clan Master ‘Mech Driver – automatic; one-time award; earned through accrual of all four CMD Achievements (L, M, H, A)

* Inner Sphere Master ‘Mech Driver – automatic; one-time award; earned through accrual of all four ISMD Achievements (L, M, H, A)

* First Clan Contact – discretionary; one-time award; first sanctioned contract fight vs Clans; each member coming in contact with Clans

* Old Guard Award – discretionary; one-time award, based on time-period(s) covered; old members returning to AU

* Posthumous Service Medal – discretionary; one-time award; when real-world members have passed on

Tier 1 Achievements
* Mission Top Secret – discretionary

* Honor Corps – discretionary; for fighting with honor; one per month

* Basic Service (Svc 1; 4 months; individual) – discretionary AND automatic; basic award, iterates from nothing; may be awarded for good conduct in the unit, or one per four months of service to AU

* Sharpshooter Gunnery – discretionary and automatic; anyone making two kills, or achieving 200 – 499 points of damage, or more in a single match earns this, but it may only be earned one time per month

* BattleGrid Utility Basic – discretionary AND automatic; one-time award; may be awarded by an individual with proper authority, but also by completing 10 drop-wins while using BattleGrid to post assignments during the game, or 20 total drops while using it, or completion of the first MechCommander computer game. The problem is the lack of known metrics about whether this is a plausible measure or not

* HALO Achievements – automatic; one-time award; awaiting DropShip game mode; accrual of 25 drop-wins per weight class (Light, Medium, Heavy, Assault)

* Clan ‘Mech Driver Achievements – automatic; one-time achievement EACH weight class; Mastery of one chassis type from each weight class (Light, Medium, Heavy, Assault)

* Inner Sphere ‘Mech Driver Achievements – automatic; one-time achievement EACH weight class; Mastery of one chassis type from each weight class (Light, Medium, Heavy, Assault)

* Basic Training Completion – discretionary; one-time achievement for completion of Basic

MechWarrior Quality and Other Devices
* Cadet – All MechWarrior’s should come into a unit as Cadet’s, until they can be properly evaluated by Training Cadre or earn their Green MW Quality

* Green – 20 – 39 points on our MATE (MechWarrior Aptitude/Training Evaluation) or completing Basic efficiencies on one ‘Mech chassis

* Regular – 40 – 59 points on the MATE or Mastery of one ‘Mech chassis (three variants)

* Veteran – 60 – 79 points on the MATE or earning 500,000 XP

* Elite – 80+ points on the MATE AND be recommended by the Command & Staff, and/or completion of the Master/Ace Pilot Award

* Drop Commander Device – completion of the Drop Commander ED OPP and promotion to a Lance Leader position, OR appointment by a Command & Staff member

* Contracting Device – completion of the Contracting ED OPP and promotion to Lieutenant or higher, OR appointment by the AUCO or AUXO

As you can see, I have given all of this a great deal of thought, I have an exacting and fair means of having those with more experience and desire be able to move up and take command in the unit, as necessary, to guide us into a stronger future for AU. I have tried going the simple way, tried means that turned out to require nepotism, or other unfair practices, and throwing caution to the wind, appointing just anyone who gave a spark of an idea that they might be interested in command, into positions of authority, and I’ve been screwed by it every single time. That’s why I developed the systems I have; should they be used for a computer game? Yes, especially when it has the possibility of becoming something much more serious down the road. Why not?

Again, a caution for all others in this thread, that these ideas and the means by which I run my merc unit are not up for debate or criticism, especially if you don’t actually have a better means of operation than this. What I’ve done here comes from more than seventeen years of experience in this community, and my understanding and knowledge, in general, of people, and my 25 years of management experience in the real-world, which means I’ve not found a better way to handle what I believe should go into the Merc Unit Creation and Management system. Thank you for not criticizing or attempting to debate with me about this, ahead of time.

In the end, Mr. Bullock, it would be really nice to have a system that is not so much static as it allows for static elements (scoring, statistics, iteration from other awards and achievements, etc.) to be used in a dynamic design determined by the Commander’s for their individual units.

Edited by Kay Wolf, 10 July 2014 - 07:50 AM.

[Threat Doc]

For my final posting, here, I would like to take a moment to address rank and position within the unit. I feel that, whether you split up the levels available to a unit so you have Rank, Position, and Other or not, the Command & Staff of a unit, anyone with proper authority to do so, should be able to assign multiple levels to an individual. For example, if I have a Senior Sergeant who is a Lance Leader, but also a Training Cadre NCOIC for his Battalion, I should be able to assign all three of those levels to that individual so they may have all of the permissions, responsibilities, and privileges they SHOULD have across those levels/titles. My recommendation is to allow up to five levels, aka titles, to be assigned to an individual, or more if the rest of the community feels there should be more.

In Armageddon Unlimited, we have a rank structure consisting of 13 actual ranks, 5 ranks that can be used to brevet individuals into certain positions before they've earned the actual rank for it, a command level structure consisting of 10 actual command levels, and a lot of positions –many of which were spoken of in the first post– within the unit that can be filled and used, at this time. Being able to assign multiple levels/titles to an individual would be handy, to ensure all of the proper permissions that can be assigned based on their setting in AU can be addressed, and so we don’t have to edit the permissions of each of potentially hundreds of individuals each time a new rank, command level, or position within the unit is achieved.

I think this is it, finally, my last main post, here. Thank you for reading, if you’ve come this far, and I look forward, very much, to seeing what the Merc Unit Creation and Management system will look like in MWO, with or without my recommendations, here.

Mr. Bullock, thank you, especially, for taking time out of your extraordinarily busy day to deal with this, or to whomever you appointed to deal with this. All that I've written is important to me, it comes from a LONG time of unit development, love for the universe and the game, and I will appreciate anything that might be placed into the Merc Unit Creation and Management system. I would like to reiterate, however, that though all of these systems might end up existing in that/those module(s), the Unit Commander should be able to begin with the most basic of information, and then morph their individual Headquarters into whatever form they would like.

Again, thank you.

Edited by Kay Wolf, 10 July 2014 - 09:14 AM.

[Threat Doc]

What can I say, I take my 'Mechin' and unit command seriously, hehe.