The insignia in the main series was a decision outside Roddenberry’s hands… William Ware Theiss made that.
I suspect the lack of detailed ranks in the pilots was (IRL) a simple costuming decision. In setting, I just treat it as a failed experiment in demilitarization of the fleet uniforms.
Oh, and for comparison, NOAA uses USN rank insignia.
Yesterday, Reputation.
We finished an Adventure Yesterdy and I as GM would give the Reputation System a Shot and I don’t call it a succes.
Further Explanation:
The Adventure has a spacebattle ad the End of the Adventure and the Players faced of in their Constellation Class against a B’Rel and a old D7 Battlecruiser and luckily survived after an Evening of bad Rolls, their Conny took 6 Breaches.
There to determind how many casualties they took I rolled six Callange Dice anf for every Effect on crewman got killed and for every explsion 10 Crew get Injured. It resulted in 4 KIA and 30 WIA.
Reputation:
I made up following Numbers
They get 3 Dice: Followed Orders and Directives, Helped saving lives and Helped to sign a peace treaty.
They got one bad Influence for the 4 killed Crewmembers (as the Number was randomly determinded by me)
The following happens:
Our Doctor who is a Lt. Commander with a Reputation of 12 rolled and the Dice showed following 13, 15 and 17. After reading the Rules again and again we came to the conclusion that the Doctor will lose 4 Reputation.
The Captain wo is Captain with a Reputation of 12 rolled 12, 15 and alos 17 and will lose 1 Reputation as he scored one succes, so the Difficulty was reached but he hit his responsibility. Or will he loose 3 Reputation, as the 15 and 17 are alos don’t succed?
Or should I have calculated the difficulties for every caracter Different?
Like following example:
The Doctor:
Gets 4 Dice: As he followed orders and regulations, saved two dignitaries from dieing from poison, helped in the Peace Process
Complication: 0
The Captain
Gets 2 Dice: As he followed orders and regulations, helped in the Peace Process
Complication: 4, as for of his Crew got killed
The First Officer:
Gets 4 Dice: He followed orders and regulations, helped in the Peace Process, helped saving two Dignitaries
Complication: 0
The Security Officer:
Gets 2 Dice: He followed orders and regulations, helped in the Peace Process
Complication: 0
So, were is my fault?
Here Is what I think you have to do:
Also, I don’t think every crewman killed counts for 1 negative influence. Only Main or Supporting characters count for 1 negative influence individually. 4 Crew killed and a bunch wounded should be 1 negative influence total, although that is my personal interpretation.
Plus, your rolls were pretty bad, so this is definitely a thing that can happen.
Our Doctor who is a Lt. Commander with a Reputation of 12 rolled and the Dice showed following 13, 15 and 17. After reading the Rules again and again we came to the conclusion that the Doctor will lose 4 Reputation.
That seems correct for the bad roll. Maybe the superiors thought the doctor could have done better.
The Captain wo is Captain with a Reputation of 12 rolled 12, 15 and alos 17 and will lose 1 Reputation as he scored one succes, so the Difficulty was reached but he hit his responsibility. Or will he loose 3 Reputation, as the 15 and 17 are alos don’t succed?
The Captain’s Reputation remains unchanged. They rolled one success for one negative influence. So no change. Rank Responsibility only comes into play when you do not hit the “Difficulty”.
I believe this is the method that is supposed to be used.
Everyone who contributed to saving the Dignitaries would get a positive influence (I see you chose one per dignitary), One positive influence for Acting under Orders, if the peace process was with an Enemy that would be an additional positive influence.
As far as the KIA on the ship, unless it was determined that an already made supporting character died, then no negative influences would be gained from their deaths. (4 random crew from a crew compliment of over 60… The list specifically calls out main or supporting characters. If none of the main or supporting characters died, no negative influence.) Or, you could rule it as 1 negative influence for the 4 unintroduced characters.
Also, as for me, I would rule the negative for the crew being solely on the Captain and/or First Officer. (Or spread it around if it’s determined that a security or medical staff died. Everyone gets one…)
(Apparently @Shran and I agree, and he ended up finishing his post first. 
)
Thanks for the fast and detailed answer. We will redo the Reputation roll next week at the beginning of our new adventure.
That’s actually a good point. Because these are the burdens of command.
Exactly. It was a space battle with the captain in command of the ship. Now, if a crew member dies on an away mission, whoever was the ranking member in charge of the away team would get the negative.
In that regard I am not sure that I would make the Captain also have to deal with that especially if the character was not present, but… that is one of the disadvantages of being Captain. Anything negative brought on by the crew (deaths/dishonorable actions/disobeying commands) would impact the commanding officer.
I think this should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Sending personell on away missions is quite a normal thing and, to quote famous captain Rafael Martines (USS Sally Ride): ‘Risk is our Business’. It’s up to the leader of the away team, as they are in charge, to face the consequences of loss of lives. But if the captain should have known better (e.g. for the leader of the mission and/or the deceased was known to be particularly reckless or unfit for the job for whatever reason), then the captain, too, is to blame.
In my D&D groups, at the end of an evening, I always ask the players what they think: For which actions/scenes do they think they deserve XP?
I intend to do something similar coming to reputation. I think I will ask the players about the acts that could positively/negatively affect their reputation. I intend to retain the final say about the rolls, though.
That works on me. The loss of four points of Reputation seems a little harsch.
I had never heard that before, interesting.
I also agree with Shran and SSiron for their interpretations, although I would need to look again at the rules for rep loss on a missed die.
The other thing I do with mine is consider other factors that could provide influences. The list in the book is good, but not necessarily extensive, or inclusive of all situations.
On the side of the life loss, I’m pretty sure that the wording is something along the lines of “directly responsible” - so I personally would say that those losses were only applicable for the ranking officer. Theres also an opening for debate about if their actions actually caused the loss of life, or whether they actually directly resulted on lives being saved?
Since the Captain is always responsible for whatever happens on her ship, does that make the Captains reputation fall because she ordered the officer into the situation?
As I suggested earlier: Only if she should have known better. 
Given that part of the officers test involves being able to make a decision that results in someone dying, and some of the binding principles of the federation, I don’t think an officer dying is always a negative for the captain.
If you’re flying along and a bird of prey declokes and shoots you, killing a member of your crew, that isn’t going to reflect negatively on you. Equally, being ordered into a combat situation adds an expectation that there may be loss of life. That also shouldnt reflect negatively unless the loss was caused by the officers negligence etc.
On the other side of the question, if the first officer was leading an away team, or the captain was otherwise engaged when a situation arose, the most officer of higher seniority would be the one under question if there was loss of life.
At the end of the day, in the real world equivalent i expect there should always be a question asked when life is lost over the idea of responsibility
Think about the bridge officer test that Troi took in Thine Own Self. The goal was to specifically order one person to their death to save others.
You would have to look at the bigger picture to determine whether crew dying is negative or not. Maybe the captain could have ordered evasive maneuvers instead of attack patterns at one time, thus potentially saving a few crew. This is of course highly speculative, and that is exactly where the roll comes in. The roll represents the Admiralty looking at the captain’s report and analyzing the situation. Maybe they analyze it wrong because they weren’t there, but there’s nothing you can do about it.
This is isn’t rule confirm, so I want to know what do you think about it:
Instead of losing a rank, I would like to use something I called ‘Black Marks’. If the reputation would be reduced to the point of demotion, the PC wouldn’t lose a rank, but gains negative reputation (the Black Marks), which would increase the difficulty of interaction with other UFP personal.
I think in such a case a commanding officer should be removed from his post and should be banned from any leading position until his reputation has improved considerably, but he should not necessarily be de-moted - there is always some boring task at some remote desk for people who seem just not hopeless enough to demote them and may still deserve a chance to get back on track.
I don’t think, that the UFP posses something like penal units? Or could be a temporary assignment at Section 31 ok?
A penal unit, no but “you” could be transferred to a admisitration post on a very, very important Scrapyard for 10 to 20 years…
I think, Section 31, if it exists, couse thier Members and don’t take Transfers.
An officer could and should be cashiered if he/she is incompetant.