X-COM THINK TANK (Out of Character Discussion about X-COM and the Series)

[Adrammalech]

Do we already know who the charcters like the engineers and scientist are?

If you mouse over your own post, the Edit button is right next to your post time. Using it will keep people from getting miffed at you for triple posting.

Speaking of Soldier life, has there been any plans about bunkmates, last season was fine although I agree I might have over done it with room members, I would say there should be a limit of max: 4 people in one room. Or we can make it that everbody gets there own room. Personally I do not care, but if we do make bunkmates they should be chossen randomly by someone who the post a list of who bunks with who and such. I think that sounds fun tell me what you guys think. Also its a great opurtunity to meet one another I mean even if we can only post one journal per vid. I bet we can make this work fine as a private conversation in the background that doesnt need to be posted. Anyway I will shut up now since I was only curious if there have been made any plans.

I would think that everyone would be in one room, isn't that how barracks are classically done? Maybe men and women would have separate rax, but I would think that's as far as privacy goes when it comes to sleepytime. I'm a writer in real life, not a soldier, so I'm hardly an expert.

 

[Thenlar]

Speaking from my own experience... it depends. Resources, construction costs, etc etc. The ant-farm view of the base shows a pretty well-developed facility, no hodge podge combat zone Forward Operation Base (FOB) here. Obviously, they've built for permanence.

Funding plays a big part of it, too. We just don't really know, relatively to other militaries, how much XCOM gets. My guess is a lot.

Then again, they are building underground, so cutting out more rooms for people will take more space, so we should take that into consideration.

Now, a giant single room (known as a squad bay) is very uncommon. It's used in basic training, and as far as I have been, the training facilities for combat arms. Actual base living is more akin to dormitories. I've been in temporary housing which was 6 Marines to a room for the junior enlisted folk. Permanently assigned troops get better quarters, you'd look at 2-4 per room. For XCOM, with "elite" troops, with a lot of funding, and some space considerations... 2 per room seems the most likely to me. You roughly halve the space requirement, but still give reasonably good privacy. Each person you add further saves less and less space. You'd still have a single large bathroom facility shared among many people (probably still 2 separated by gender in 2015. No BSG unisex bathrooms).

Now, of course, rank hath its privileges. At a certain level of experience, I'd say you could reasonably expect your own (rather small) room to yourself. Taking rough parallels to American military, that'd be around the Corporal or Sergeant level in XCOM (I'd go with Sergeant). Officers tend to get nicer stuff, but normally, you wouldn't get promoted from enlisted ranks (Sergeant) into officer ranks (Lieutenant and above), but whatever, it's a video game, we have to make some considerations (though I used to use the Warspace Extension mod that renamed every rank and fixed that problem). Probably around Captain you might get a room that has a private bathroom, and just more general space. Any Colonels ought to have multiple-room quarters.

Source: Former US Marine.

 

[Dragonivon]

The ranks soldiers progress through are Rookie, Squaddie, Corporal, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Major, and Colonel.

I'd propose for XCOM purposes, their housing has a mathematical progression that works mostly by doubling the comfort per respective rank. For instance...
Rookies are 8 men to a 'newbies' room, the walls adorned with wallpaper appropriate for a baby. Not a very big room either but they are new, they get the low totem bunking and pretty much are treated as the pink-clad lemmings they start off as anyway. Yes, there is less than subtle hazing in XCOM. They have a weaponry rack near the door but with all the same weapons since they have no specialization there's no need to bother really assigning specific weapons to the rookies.

Squaddies get sent to four-man bunking areas, with a bit more room but still not exactly what we would call luxurious. They do get the first personalized weapons rack near each of their beds since by now they all know which weapon will be 'theirs' in case of emergency.

Corporals are in standard two-man dorms. Same benefits as Squaddies bunk but with a computer workspace to further interface on the intra-base communications network and to review intel from previous missions to perform better next time.

Sergeants get their own quarters, though pretty spartan quarters because they are a Sergeant and they don't need namby pamby things like luxury. These are the first quarters with their own bathrooms, though very small and tending to be the same type found in the highest esteemed prisons. Only slightly dented.

Lieutenants get their own quarters with a small workspace attached for doing paperwork and whatnot. A sleep-in office with a few amenities.

Captains are definitely a tier up with private quarters, workspace, living space, and even storage.

Majors have much the same layout as a Captain's bunk but on a larger scale.

Colonels have the best rooms of all with a space for their live-in aide, armory, trophy wall, and more. Rank hath it's benefits.

The downside to ALL of these is that all are designed to be quickly cleaned out and refitted inside an hour in case their occupant dies and the space has to be reassigned to the next person being quickly promoted up the ladder. I'm hesitant to go into more detail as to how things work according to rank in my mind's eye, but perhaps this will make some sense to others too. At least until we salvage enough alien sleeping pods and then everyone just gets to bunk in alien sleepcoffins until they are ready to be shot at next.

 

[JuliaMaluca]

So in order to get a good night's sleep, I have to seduce the commander? He'll probably have a big enough bed...

(Ugh. Even thinking about that... noooooo. I feel like a cougar stalking a kindergartener...)

 

[JuliaMaluca]

I wonder if there is a chance to get this "common room" feeling by setting up a chatroom or suchlike. Different time zones might be a problem, but maybe saturday afternoon/evening? Just to get to know each other without actively searching out one and pm'ing him to "meet accidently".

 

[Adrammalech]

Colonels have the best rooms of all with a space for their live-in aide, armory, trophy wall, and more. Rank hath it's benefits.

The downside to ALL of these is that all are designed to be quickly cleaned out and refitted inside an hour in case their occupant dies and the space has to be reassigned to the next person being quickly promoted up the ladder. I'm hesitant to go into more detail as to how things work according to rank in my mind's eye, but perhaps this will make some sense to others too. At least until we salvage enough alien sleeping pods and then everyone just gets to bunk in alien sleepcoffins until they are ready to be shot at next.

I think colonels having servants and gilded cabinets would begin to alienate the lesser ranked people.

 

[Thenlar]

Rookies are 8 men to a 'newbies' room, the walls adorned with wallpaper appropriate for a baby. Not a very big room either but they are new, they get the low totem bunking and pretty much are treated as the pink-clad lemmings they start off as anyway. Yes, there is less than subtle hazing in XCOM. They have a weaponry rack near the door but with all the same weapons since they have no specialization there's no need to bother really assigning specific weapons to the rookies.

I think institutional hazing would be pretty unlikely. Most militaries already spend a lot of effort attempting to eliminate it.

I wonder if there is a chance to get this "common room" feeling by setting up a chatroom or suchlike. Different time zones might be a problem, but maybe saturday afternoon/evening? Just to get to know each other without actively searching out one and pm'ing him to "meet accidently".

Well there's also this OOC thread for attempting to arrange conversations. I like the idea of a chat session, though I expect weekends to typically be busy for people.

 

[Dragonivon]

I think institutional hazing would be pretty unlikely. Most militaries already spend a lot of effort attempting to eliminate it.

In CommanderOdd's army all Recruits start off in BUBBLEGUM PINK armor. As their combat armor. In the battlefield. I'm thinking hazing is pretty darn valid.

 

[Sarge-Pepper]

I think, as funny as it is, i could offer a few serious changes to Dragon's humor.

Rookies - Dorm style bunk beds, lockers for a minimal amount of stuff. Probably 6 to a room.
Squaddies - 4 to a room, same amenities, maybe closer access to shower (They'll tell you it was by design, but it was an accident.)
Corporal - 2 per room, Desks for paperwork and files.
Sergeant - 2 per room, walls to separate the rooms, small personal kitchen, and shower.
Lieutenant - 1 per room, Something akin to a bachelor's bedroom, bathroom, and personal shower, and kitchen.
Captain - 1 per room, Slightly larger rooms from LT, features a small office space (read: Closet)
Major - 1 Per room, Larger than Cpt, Office is larger, assigned a personal Aide for help with personnel and assignments, closest equivalent to a living room.
Colonel. - 1 per room, Same as Major, larger, but with a "Window," personal amenities, several aides, most likely in charge of specific area of expertise (Training, logistics, etc)

Keep in mind that this is a very large facility to house everyone and keep around the clock operations against the aliens going. The actual game features a "Squad" type approach, but the base probably houses several dozen teams just like this one to head out to deal with the worst threats. We are literally guarding the world, so you can expect a constant stream of recruits, non-stop noise of skyrangers lifiting off, troops training, etc.

 

[Dragonivon]

I think, as funny as it is, i could offer a few serious changes to Dragon's humor.

Rookies - Dorm style bunk beds, lockers for a minimal amount of stuff. Probably 6 to a room.
Squaddies - 4 to a room, same amenities, maybe closer access to shower (They'll tell you it was by design, but it was an accident.)
Corporal - 2 per room, Desks for paperwork and files.
Sergeant - 2 per room, walls to separate the rooms, small personal kitchen, and shower.
Lieutenant - 1 per room, Something akin to a bachelor's bedroom, bathroom, and personal shower, and kitchen.
Captain - 1 per room, Slightly larger rooms from LT, features a small office space (read: Closet)
Major - 1 Per room, Larger than Cpt, Office is larger, assigned a personal Aide for help with personnel and assignments, closest equivalent to a living room.
Colonel. - 1 per room, Same as Major, larger, but with a "Window," personal amenities, several aides, most likely in charge of specific area of expertise (Training, logistics, etc)

Keep in mind that this is a very large facility to house everyone and keep around the clock operations against the aliens going. The actual game features a "Squad" type approach, but the base probably houses several dozen teams just like this one to head out to deal with the worst threats. We are literally guarding the world, so you can expect a constant stream of recruits, non-stop noise of skyrangers lifiting off, troops training, etc.

This framework makes a fair bit of sense to me. Though I still contend the Rookies bunks will have a few pacifiers and baby mobiles around just as a bit of ribbing from the other ranks. Consider it incentive to do well and get out of Rookie rank. As we start to have some advancements in rank we might want to try figuring out who's bunking with who. Not that the soldiers would stay in their bunks long for anything other than sleep, but it would be good to know.

I would contend that the bulk of inter-personnel interactions would be at the exercise room, company bar, recovery room, or recreation room (all plainly visible in the antfarm) for the soldiers at least. Scientists of course will be whipped at the hamsterwheel of science by Dr. Vahlen and only allowed to talk to each other between discoveries or when CommanderOdd sells off too much materials again and they have to listen to Dr. Vahlen screaming instead. On the other hand engineers will let the fabber do most of the work and catch up on old episodes of 'Shlock Mercenary'.

I look forward to seeing how people work this out into the story as the episodes begin, it should be HILARIOUS.

 

[JuliaMaluca]

On the other hand engineers will let the fabber do most of the work and catch up on old episodes of 'Shlock Mercenary'.

I look forward to seeing how people work this out into the story as the episodes begin, it should be HILARIOUS.

I'm waiting for the first cartoon in the restrooms, depicting Commander Odd as Shlock...

 

[Thenlar]

While soldiers certainly get into more than a few practical jokes and black humor, I don't want to play in a game of Hogan's Heroes, either. There is such a thing as military discipline, and baby mobiles and bibs as permanent fixtures are not conducive to good morale and discipline. Again, we're supposed to be the best soldiers that Earth can offer against the alien threat. No operator is going to put up with that for long. Sure, not all of us are recruited for a military background, but the hardened criminals/assassins/whatever aren't likely to put up with it either.

Odd would really be Tagon, wouldn't he?

Ryan certainly won't be spending too much time in his bunk area, anyways. Not enough space to hide his stash of trade goods and black market alcohol (way better than that swill provided in the bar).

 

[JuliaMaluca]

Do I want to wonder what you are cooking up there to make that alcohol?

"Commander, the soldiers are taking alien parts back to base!"
"They can take whatever they damn well like!"
(quoted from memory)

 

[ChristopherOdd]

In CommanderOdd's army all Recruits start off in BUBBLEGUM PINK armor. As their combat armor. In the battlefield. I'm thinking hazing is pretty darn valid.

Purple this season.

 

[Thenlar]

Do I want to wonder what you are cooking up there to make that alcohol?

"Commander, the soldiers are taking alien parts back to base!"
"They can take whatever they damn well like!"
(quoted from memory)

The Sectoid eyes are an important binding agent in the hooch!

Ryan's not some amateur shipborne brewer hiding an illicit still in the back disused engine room. He's an importer. It's a legitimate occupation! Besides, the alien parts would be for selling, so he could get real stuff, anyways.

 

[too_spooked]

It's happening

 

[Discopanda]

It is?!

 

[too_spooked]

It is?!

Yep ^^ All Chris has to do is review the remaining few applicants and we can nearly begin!

 

[JuliaMaluca]

Anyone else refreshing his browser every minute while staring at Chris' youtube page?

 

[Adrammalech]

Confirmed for refreshing.