Revised : 27 Sep 2021

Each settler is assigned with a Role to play out in mars-sim.

As of r4847, there are 17 types of roles : 3 heads, 8 chiefs and 8 specialists.

While the Job of a person narrow the type of tasks one may perform, the Role of a person is a hierarchical position inherited with duties and responsibilities as well as special privileges.

In a settlement with 4 or more people, a Commander will be appointed as the head of missions and operations.

If a settlement has 9 or more people, it will elect a Sub-Commander role.

If a settlement has 17 or more people, it will elect the Division chiefs -- the exact number of which is based upon the # of specialist positions and the size of the population.

Note that a division chief is the one best fitted within its specialist role.

The rest of the members will fill up to be one of the 8 specializations.

As of r4847, the 3-Division specialty scheme is no longer being used and the 8-Division specialty scheme is being adopted. The number and the type of specialists and its corresponding division chief will be proportional to the number of population.

For a settlement with 51 or more people, a Mayor will be elected for administrative work.

Note: The role of a President is in RoleType class but has NOT been put into use.

The ChainOfCommand class is responsible for tracking and (re-)assigning roles as well as handling the election.

At the start of the sim, if the Commander Mode is chosen, players may create a commander profile and designate a commander manually.

If Sandbox Mode is chosen, a settler who has the best Role Prospect Score of a role will be elected.

During the simulation, if a head role or a chief role is vacated (e.g. if someone passes away), it will be re-elected automatically.

Note that RoleUtil is responsible for figuring out which role a person should get, based on the role prospect score.

The high the score on a role, the better the person is equipped to do this role.

In r5047, we apply a improved algorithm in method findBestRole() in RoleUtil to find the best role for a person.

We also add findBestFit() in RoleUtil to to find the best person for a role as it iterates over everyone in a settlement.

This way, it lets each specialist role be filled at least once before filling another person in the same specialization.

A person's job primarily affects one's role. Behind, a person's Prior Training would modify this score.