Prometheans can't be heads. Cease this racism! /s

[ChirpGoesTheBird]

Prometheans have an agelock of 1-5, and have to be 25 to be heads. I think this is self-explanatory.

[Wickedtemp]

On one hand, the age limit for Heads is something that I personally enjoy, because it puts a stop to "I'm your Captain. I worked my way up from Cadet to Officer, then I began my succesful career as the Head of Security, and furthered my career once again and now, here I am... Also it's my twenty-second birthday today, WOOH!"

I understand that some characters happen to have super amazing "quick-learner" abilities from when they were used as a genetic test subject for all of their childhood, but...honestly, I'm not sure a company would put a twenty year old in charge of a multi-billion/trillion dollar research establishment. Even if they had those super amazing learning powers, they'd still likely be young and impulsive, in the eyes of the Heads at Central, choosing the older and more experienced crew would just be the more believable choice. It's the little things like this that makes Virgo a "high-roleplaying" server. We have a "realistic character" rule, if a character could reasonably fit within the lore of the server.

Now, with that said... Since Halo and Fallout both are things that exist in the lore, honestly, a Shinobi from Naruto would probably fit somewhere in there too, as well as Star Wars, the Lego Indiana Jones, and Space Jam. A person who's able to learn skills at an inhuman pace would be considered to be mundane and boring in a world of deathclaws, synths, Master Chief and The Covenant. So, despite the fact that I do not like "underage" characters in Command, the only reason against them that I can see at the moment is that NT would, in all likelihood, hand the job to someone with more experience.

So... Yeah. My two cents. Consider myself neutral.

[ChirpGoesTheBird]

On one hand, the age limit for Heads is something that I personally enjoy, because it puts a stop to "I'm your Captain. I worked my way up from Cadet to Officer, then I began my succesful career as the Head of Security, and furthered my career once again and now, here I am... Also it's my twenty-second birthday today, WOOH!"

I understand that some characters happen to have super amazing "quick-learner" abilities from when they were used as a genetic test subject for all of their childhood, but...honestly, I'm not sure a company would put a twenty year old in charge of a multi-billion/trillion dollar research establishment. Even if they had those super amazing learning powers, they'd still likely be young and impulsive, in the eyes of the Heads at Central, choosing the older and more experienced crew would just be the more believable choice. It's the little things like this that makes Virgo a "high-roleplaying" server. We have a "realistic character" rule, if a character could reasonably fit within the lore of the server.

Now, with that said... Since Halo and Fallout both are things that exist in the lore, honestly, a Shinobi from Naruto would probably fit somewhere in there too, as well as Star Wars, the Lego Indiana Jones, and Space Jam. A person who's able to learn skills at an inhuman pace would be considered to be mundane and boring in a world of deathclaws, synths, Master Chief and The Covenant. So, despite the fact that I do not like "underage" characters in Command, the only reason against them that I can see at the moment is that NT would, in all likelihood, hand the job to someone with more experience.

So... Yeah. My two cents. Consider myself neutral.

I completely agree with you.
But their age is locked at one year through five years.
So they quite literally can't be heads, even at their very oldest.

[Scree]

tbh I dislike the agelock mainly because we've had characters that literally started out as assistant, then through events on the station over 2+ years of play have proven themselves to be competent in command, and have been in command before ICly only to get locked out of it because a number on their character setup screen isn't big enough.

And then some dipshit with no command experience or ability whatsoever rocks up, enters a bigger number (while leaving the rest of their records completely blank), and woohooo look at me, I da captain now. Bow down before my lack of punctuation or uppercase while I come out with bullshit tryhard faux-military crap over the comms and barge into literally every department.

It just seems a raw deal for the folks who ICly roleplay out working their way up the ranks to wind up getting the short end of the stick while the people who leap into head positions purely for the sake of wanting to be the Main Character Ultimate Badass Hero The Station Needs can do so simply by leaving their character on the default settings.

[Wickedtemp]

All someone would have to do is bump their age up to 23 or whatever it is for Heads of Staff. I don't know what it is for Captain, if it's different. And while the different jobs and such are easy enough to learn within a week of the game, OOCly, on an IC level you can't just learn surgery in a week. It takes years, medical school, degrees, it takes time. It just doesn't make sense for someone to learn surgery, chemistry, robotics, engineering, Research/Dev, Command, and Security and detective work all within a single year. The Head of Staff age minimum was already a thing anyways, now it's just mechanically enforced.

Sure, someone could be super special and powergamey by giving their character knowledge implants or something so they know every department and have their character be a teenager, but even if they KNOW how to do things, that doesn't mean they'd be given a Head job as a member of Command. So...

Pros:
• Prevents powergamey "I'm an 18 year old Head
Of Security!"

• Prevents nonsensical backstories, "I'm a former CE, I was a combat engineer who worked on vehicles in the field and I went on many succesful missions, I came to NT and worked my way up from Tech Assistant to CE and now I'm a Captain! Also my twenty-first birthday was last week."

• The Head of Staff age requirement (I believe it's 23) is actually fairly low and generous anyways.

Cons:
• Some people may have to bump their characters age up a year or two.

• I can't be a 17 year old Captain who gets arrested for possession of alcohol as a minor.

---

So... Yeah. Pretty much sums this up. And for those of you freaking out over "Oh god how do I explain the fact that my character just aged two years?!" not a big issue, really. Just tell people who bring it up in LOOC, "I had to change X's age a few years." and nobody will care. It's really not that big of a change to make.

EDIT: As for Prometheans... We have a "relative weight" system. Why not do the same with age?

[Scree]

All someone has to do is completely retcon their character background.

'kay.

YOU may not care, but other people will. The existing problems/backstories you bring up are already covered by the realistic character clause. Having an absolute hard rigid limit is no-fun-allowed for some misguided crusade for immersions, and while you've not been privy to a lot of those discussions, quite a few people have come up with interesting and solid reasons for why their characters are the way they are.

Personally, I find a retcon wherein someone spontaneously ages three years a lot more jarring.

Especially considering the fact that this is penalising people who bother to actually create characters rather than just randomnaming on the default settings.

[Molenar]

Gotta agree with scree on this, I have a character that worked through the whole science department after starting as assistant, plot things, interactions, building the character along the way and in the span of a year or so was promoted ICly to RD, at 21. after another large chunk of working for it with the characters that were really active then, and events, and just generally knowing how to handle it IC, was made to captain at 22... but now, presently i just have my age set higher, but it still bothers me, cause i just jumped three years to keep my previously earned position available. could i skip it, sure, but it feels more immersion breaking to me, to instantly have those years skipped rather than playing through them naturally.

[Tasald]

I agree that the age lock is bad for older players, and that haveing it does make it harder to have quality heads of staff, seeing as those are becoming fewer and fewer in supply. How ever it doesn't change that with or with out it, people will play charecters, accedently or not, that are completely useless or ucqualified for those positions. As far as haveing to "mechanically" increase your age, who cares? Like seriously, just wright in your fluff section or medical records how old you want them to be, there's charecters that claim to be thousands of years old, you can't put that in the age section. Keeping this on the topic of the age thing though, I don't see any point in haveing it in the first place, but I also don't see any reason to take the time to remove it. It's just "a thing".

[Vorrarkul]

The reason to take the time to remove it is because of this thread, some people obviously have an issue with it. And I've seen people use 'relative' ages for their thousand-year-old characters. For example, someone's character is mechanically 35, but is actually 35 _hundred_ years old, or something.
Lucina is younger than the age limit, even after I artificially inflated her age to represent her taking the time to get some medical schooling. She was ICly promoted and will probably raise an IC ruckus about the newly enforced age restrictions taking her rank away.
Rylee is also just under the age limit, and while less likely to complain about it, earned her head positions ICly.
The reason to remove the age lock is the same as some people use to try and keep it; for immersion purposes.

[Tasald]

I still don't see how some one can claim to be "icly promoted" to any head role other then hop captian and "maybe" hos. The four heads that don't stay one the bridge are all carrer jobs, something you go to collage- university's to get all your qualifications. Sure a scientist might have some school to get sent to this station, and a surgen or Doctor better have a Ph.D., but the other aspects of those departments, I feel, are something that should take years to qualify for. Yes there are people that get a Ph.D. At 21, but at the same time they have almost no social or management skills at all. Now I'm not saying it would take three years or even one, but I do know that old shyness/ social anxiety habits die very very hard.