Both at home and for use in future iterations of the game.
As an example I have the ranks of the swiss army in romansh language listed from top to bottom:
General
Cumandant da corp
Divisiunari
Brigadier
Colonel
Litinent colonel
Maior
Since Switzerland does not have a navy I would use Italian navy ranks for starship command.
Now I could just load the “Italia” theme and modify ground forces ranks to taste, but that would get old right quick and help me none when I next play with Egyptian ranks.
Also what do I do with the shorthands?
A separate file?
If the instructions already exist on this forum (patch notes, most likely) I do apologize for not finding them myself and would be thankful for a link.
Yes, you would need to edit the DIM_RankThemes and DIM_RankThemeTypes tables in the AuroraDB file.
One line in the second table with the name and a unique ID, then one line per rank in the first table. Each line needs a priority, with 1 as highest rank and no gaps, plus the names and abbreviations for the equivalent naval and ground ranks. Set civilian rank to true for the lowest rank. There are plenty of examples in the table about how that works.
However, if you are not used to relational databases, I strongly advise against trying as you could cause errors in your game.
Junior officers if you want them: OF-2 O-2 Naqib OF-1 O-1 Mulazim awwal O-0 Mulazim
Wet and dry forces use the same ranks, which means OF-2 (Naqib) is an army captain and OF-5 (Aqid) is a full naval captain. I started each line with the equivalent NATO codes for abbreviations to give some orientation to other players.
The actual in-game abbreviation is just my recommendation based on Aurora only allowing three characters for each.
Thanks for clarifying that.
I still think my solution for 3 characters is fine and I’d be happy with it, but if NATO codes can display that would clarify things for other players.
Hoping to take advantage of Steve’s generosity, I’d like to add Estonian military ranks as well.
Given that Estonia is a small country, they don’t use the OF-10 rank of bigger NATO partners.
I added “ülem” (“superior” in Estonian) and checked with DeepL, which spits out “Commander-in-Chief” or “Commanding General” when I test “Kindral ülem”.
Good enough.
So please keep in mind, that while the “Admiral ülem” and “Kindral ülem” don’t actually exist in the real world those will be needed when 3.0 rolls around and the Baltic League - headquartered on the planet of Uus Tallinn - takes to the stars.
OF-2 Vanemleitnant OF-1 Leitnant Nooremleitnant Lipnik
Estonian Land Forces Ranks:
O-K Kindral ülem O-9 Kindral O-8 Kindralleitnant O-7 Kindralmajor O-6 Brigaadikindral O-5 Kolonel O-4 Kolonelleitnant O-3 Major
Land Forces Junior Ranks:
O-2 Kapten O-1 Leitnant Nooremleitnant Lipnik
The shorthand is based on Nuclearslurpee’s advice (Thank you) and uses the actual NATO-codes for the Navy and my abbreviated versions for the ground forces.