RNAS Ranks

[wafu_vasco]

Just a thought for what might be an easy win...

 

At the moment, the career mode is - in my opinion - very clever. It's clever enough to recognise whether a British pilot is Royal Navy, or British Army - and then from April 1918 accurately amalgamates this into the new RAF. The medals reflect this, being limited to RN or RFC respectively. So, I guess there must already be lines of coding in place for the game to know whether a pilot is RN or RFC.

 

So - why not do the same with the ranks? The ranks at the moment are RFC, even if the player is in a naval squadron. Would it be possible to add naval ranks?

 

Only four should be required - Flight Sub Lieutenant, Flight Lieutenant, Flight Commander and then Squadron Commander. These were based on the surface fleet RN ranks of Sub Lieutenant, Lieutenant and Lieutenant Commander which, in turn, were equivalent to the British Army/RFC ranks of Lieutenant, Captain and Major. 2nd Lieutenant was equivalent to Midshipman in the RN, but this was not used in the Royal Naval Air Service. Flight Commander was still equivalent to an RN Lieutenant, but had a star on the cuff above the two gold stripes of naval lieutenancy.

 

Likewise, NCO ranks would equate to Senior Ratings in the Royal Navy, but these were exceptionally rare in aircrew. To be far more representative, players should begin their careers as Flight Sub Lieutenants. However... if this would cause problems for when players request transfers to other squadrons and there isn't an equivalent rank, the ranks of Petty Officer and Chief Petty Officer would be the equivalent of Sergeant and Flight Sergeant. By the time of most of the Flying Circus career mode activity, RFC NCO pilots were also very rare; the vast majority of pilots joined the front line as 2nd Lieutenants, but I digress. 

 

So, in conclusion - and I do hope this helps - please consider adding bespoke RNAS ranks as a really easy win for better historical authenticity.

 

Option 1 - Historically Representative

 

Squadron Commander

Flight Commander

Flight Lieutenant

Flight Sub Lieutenant

 

 

Option 2 - More Ranks to Align with other Services in Career Mode

 

Squadron Commander

Flight Commander

Flight Lieutenant

Flight Sub Lieutenant

Chief Petty Officer

Petty Officer

 

 

Or finally Option 3. - exploiting the full array of ranks represented by RN Lieutenant, but would probably be more complicated than it is worth...

 

Squadron Commander

Squadron Commander (Less than eight years seniority - represented by two gold stripes and two stars)

Flight Commander (two gold stripes and one star)

Flight Lieutenant (standard two gold stripes of RN lieutenancy)

Flight Sub-Lieutenant

 

 

Hope this is worthy of consideration! 

 

Edited September 21, 2024 by wafu_vasco

[RNAS10_Oliver]

This was an annoyance of mine with the Rise of Flight career. In that, there was no distinction and pilots were transferred from RFC squadrons to RNAS squadrons and vice versa. I confess I've not used the FC career beyond Day 1 and noticed the non-RNAS ranks continued to exist.

 

Worthy consideration IMHO.

[LukeFF]

We would need to split up the UK squadrons into a new database for something like that. The code was never meant to have multiple air forces under one country as originally conceived in RoF. 

 

It's something that will be addressed with Korea.