Unit-wide Announcements / Headquarters
FTS Rollout: Policy Changes for Ranks, Up-Tiering, Ratings

Captain Korean Falcon

Commanding Officer
UNITAF

You will be aware that Unit Command has been actively tracking the rollout of the Future Training System (FTS). While rollout is ongoing, we want to ensure that we are reactive to the impact on the changes from LTS to FTS and that the impact felt is gradual, this also allows us time to work on issues that crop up. One thing we’ve discussed at length recently is the impact on our Recruits, both in terms of promotion speed and access to slots, but this also will impact Regulars too.

In short, in some cases FTS progression is slower than we would like. We have a number of initiatives that Training Command and the dedicated training teams are working on to iron this out, and we’ll continue to make updates to the way we conduct ratings, the weights etc, in due course.

Today we are announcing a number of reactive policy changes to address this:

With immediate effect:

1. FM/BP-236.V2.02 - Enlisted Ranks

   • Recruits will, until further notice, be promoted according to the LTS promotion requirements.

     • Waived the requirement for Tier II Core Infantry until 13/04/25

     • Promotion now requires 20 combat and 4 practice hours.

2. FM/BG-242.V1.05 - Tiers and Up-tiering

   • Up-tiering in Core Infantry is now permitted from T-0 instead of T-I, up to a maximum of 2-tiers.

   • Up-tiering in all other areas is now permitted from T-0, instead of T-I, however when up-tiering from T-0, only permitted up to a maximum of 1-tiers (1UP).

   • Recruits may not up-tier into non-core infantry roles above Tier I

   • These are significant changes to ORBAT policy and may be temporary or permanent.

     • Previously in FTS roles Tier-I was required in order to up-tier.

     • Previously in LTS roles at least some practice hours were required to up-tier.

   • Manual assignment rules still apply, so in the case of a slot still being vacant after all of the above NMQ from reserves still applies.

3. Capped skill ratings: Unit Command understands that in some cases ratings have been capped to ‘Beginner’ or ‘Developing’ in practice scenarios, Training Command have confirmed there should be no such cap to the ratings which can be achieved under practice scenarios, this has been communicated to all Training Teams and will be committed to policy in due course.

4. FM/BG-408.V2.00 - Getting ratings on your skill card

   • The policy/guide on ‘Getting ratings on your skillcard’ has been updated to better reflect recent system changes.

5. FM/G48 - Introduction to Skill Cards

   • This group has been updated, and we will start to add this to the top of all skill cards, so it is more visible when using the system.

6. FM/BP-237 - Non-commissioned Ranks & FM/BP-238 - Commissioned Ranks

   • Promotions to and from non-commissioned and commissioned ranks now require the same Good Conduct in Grade (GCIG) requirements as that of enlisted ranks.

   • 6-months is added to the combined active time in grade (CATIG) promotion requirement of any person without GCIG holding a rank covered in these policies.

Potential future changes:

As mentioned above, we are continually reviewing the systems and your feedback is loud and clear and we’ll continue to discuss it and observe the impact of all tweaks.

We are considering still the following:

• Limiting the observations used to determine any given rating to the last X observations, this change will serve to make it easier to progress by phasing out older observations and better reflect more recent ones. This is something we have observed specifically within Core Infantry.
   
• Giving the ability to self-assess certain skills, potentially with a Quiz style system built into the Force Manual, especially where the skill is theoretical, or has a low-chance of being observed.
   
• We will monitor the impact of the ORBAT policy and slotting changes and if required, prioritise slots exited to vacancy in order to combat slot trading, should it occur. To clarify, taking and vacating a slot in order to ‘trade’ it with somebody else, who wouldn’t have acquired it ordinarily without assistance of the up-tiering system should be considered an exploit and will be handled by J2/PC should it be identified in the logs under the Code of Conduct (Article 1.4: good sportsmanship and integrity). This is uncommon and so low priority from a development perspective at this time.

Thanks again, if you have any questions about these changes, do let us know on Discord.