Hi all, I'd like to preface by saying I get why people are thinking that this is better being one MOS, and such.
Just to remind people, that's exactly what the Rangers have been for quite a long time. You went through standard recon training, then got specialised training based on your Regiment.
The difficulty was that I always felt a lot of the skills were pretty non transferable, and the Rangers were doing so many things it was hard for players to understand intuitively:
Rikugun Rangers - Doing lots of raiding, terrestrial combat behind enemy lines, survival training. Could be a qualification but it takes a few months of training to acquire these skills and currently there's a bunch at Area Army level who have professional readiness for when they're needed. They're very much insert, blow up infrastructure or bases from behind, then disappear and extract. You're expected to fight stronger forces with your lighter equipment in fairly head-on engagements until you're able to withdraw.
Rikugun Scouts (page yet to be submitted) - JTAC types. Sit on the frontline with high powered scopes, but a lot of the time skulk around behind enemy lines in small groups but avoid enemy contact. Expected to call in fire support from unseen areas. They use very minimal, lightweight equipment with no resupplies. Lots of snipers. Special Observers. Not sure if this could be a qualification, given it's something they should be constantly deployed doing during conflict. We can chat about how this works with SAINT but I imagine they work closely together. Difference being they're not doing intelligence work explicitly, it's as much giving regular platoons supporting fire or sitting on hills without moving for days.
Fleet Scouts - Basically people who dive off the edges of Fleets and scout ahead or around for X many km or LY. They do so to spot any hazards, points of interest or enemies. They feed these back but their primary usage is to last-stand, delay tactics or such to buy the Fleet time to position once they find something dangerous. They get trained especially on how to do this. They also learn space survival, which is very different to planetary survival. Given this is pretty much a full time role, I don't know if there's any question of it being an MOS. We can chat further about how this works with SAINT.
Border Guards - System Garrisons. The submarine service in a lot of ways. Basically put in border systems with old, almost obsolete starships because they're not expected to see much combat. Have extra skills to cope with bits of their ships breaking down and things. Expected to do similar delay tactics to Fleet Scouts but fighting from a ship is probably quite different to unsupported in a scout PA? Maybe I can merge this with Fleet Scouts.
Star Army Insurgents (yet to be submitted) - Deploy to enemy-occupied planets to organise, train and arm resistance movements in readiness for a Star Army invasion force.
I'm hoping that all of these can be shown in setting, although certain ones like Insurgents will need a plot focused around planetary recovery (like Essia or Hanako's World) for players to really want to make one.
I'm pretty open to suggestions on how to handle this, but I tried having it all under Rangers and it just served to confuse people about what exactly Rangers *did*, because they have these 4 different roles inside.
P.S. The only one of these MOS' I expect to see on naval plotships is Fleet Scouts. The rest are for Rikugun, 4th Fleet type or Hanako's World type plots.
