("but our princess is in another castle!" :p )

I just made RA for the first time the other day, and suddenly I'm being subjected to this every time I talk to an NPC.

"I have a mission for you, Rear Admiral, Lower Half."
"Well done, Rear Admiral, Lower Half."
"What can I get you, Rear Admiral, Lower Half?"

It's like tribbles screeching - ignorable, but incredibly annoying. And just when I thought I could ease off a little on the grind, after finally getting out of wallowing Exploration Cruisers and into my sleek new Sovereign; now it looks like I'll just have to keep going until I hit the cap and Vice Admiral, which sounds much better.

(Actually, if I had my druthers, I'd prefer to officially stay a Captain while enjoying the privileges - T5, etc - of higher level. Picard didn't need to be an admiral to command the Ent-E. But I digress.)

I understand that it's probably simplest to just let the game use one variable for rank everywhere. But is there any way the conversation scripts can be changed, or a substitution added, so that NPCs address you as simply "Rear Admiral" or even "Admiral", the way sane people would?


EDIT: For that matter, are privileges tied to rank or to level? Would it be possible for a "Captain 20" to fly T5 ships, at the cost of not having top-level skills or spending skill points that would get him promoted to RA? And if so, could I respec and/or petition for my character's level to be reset thus?

As an old Navy guy, I can understand your frustration. With the Admirals that I deal with occasionally, we always refer to them as Admiral, regardless of how many stars are on their collar. Cryptic ought to find a way to change the scripts so they come out at Admiral each time, vice Rear Admiral and or Vice Admiral. PLus come to think of it, it is how Star Trek always treated their Admirals in the movies and shows also, so there is a canon source for making the change.

Not only that, but there is established etiquette for how to address Naval officers. There is a formal address, which would be the full rank, and an informal address used in everyday speech.

According to that, the correct address is "Admiral" regardless of which Admiral level rank.

I totally agree that the NPC's should use the informal address in conversation and whatever Cryptic has to do in order to support that they should do.

It is immersion-breaking because NOBODY talks like that.

This is true, in the US military, there is often a difference between the title someone is introduced with, ie is, "this is Lieutenant Colonial Shmidt," and the title they are addressed by, "how may I help you Colonial?"

I believe, by US Naval tradition, Lt. Commanders are usually addressed simply as Commander, so if they are going to start addressing Rear Admirals by their common form of address, they should do the same for the L. Commanders.

Not to be a butthead, but is Colonel, not Colonial. That what the Brits used to call the guys who lived in teh 13 Colonies

Don't you mean "Not to be a Rear Admiral, Upper Half"?

they did that in TNG. Picard referred to Riker and Data as Commander more than once.

Maybe they can add a little "Adress me as: -" scrolldown menu in your character screen, listing all your IC ranks (Starfleet and Diplomatic) as well as a generic 'admiral' that overrides the default rankgrab? That should appease those of us who cling to our four pips as well.

And then they just need to add a title for the Ensign rank, as for some reason it seems they overlooked that one.

Actually it's been mentioned Commadore is being saved for a fleet title.

yea i find it annoying, too