Would definitely not start a flamewar over your suggestion. I explore a lot because that the part of the game i enjoy, well not the surveyship micromanagement but the discover new system and mine them. I dont find much fun in the war mechanism against the AI, so usually I completely turn off the AI, meaning I never use warships.  I simply like to explore and extract resources build colonies, expand population, etc. I just the way i like to play, and that require a lot of surveyeing because i never meet any ressistence and use a lot of resources very fastly.

Oh, I see, my apologies for assuming how you want to play. Your best bet is to probably follow the example of other players who build large, extremely long duration survey ships that can largely operate on their own.

On the bottom right you can search for commanders by their skills.
So you can limit your search to LCDR's and pick an ability for that specific position on a ship.

But yes searching for commanders should be audited 

Hi all, I can't remember how many years ago I last actually had a ship fire at something, and it seems that I've forgotten stuff.

I've just had a lone spoiler attack my commercial fleet based at Earth, where I had a Monitor ship and an STO based. At first nothing fired back (spoiler was in orbit so in range of everything) - but then I manually toggled enemy to hostile (who knew - it was killing ships!) and the STO engaged, but the Monitor not. What might I have forgotten to do in order to get the Monitor to fire? I attach the monitor specs, but I don't think I forgot any of the basics (weapon, FC, PP)

Denethor class Monitor      2,618 tons       106 Crew       404.6 BP       TCS 52    TH 15    EM 0
286 km/s      Armour 3-16       Shields 0-0       HTK 26      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 2-7      PPV 17
Maint Life 7.12 Years     MSP 193    AFR 27%    IFR 0.4%    1YR 7    5YR 100    Max Repair 50 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 48 months    Morale Check Required   

Rolls Royce Hobbit II M-NPE-125T15 (1)    Power 15    Fuel Use 87.69%    Signature 15    Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 7.8 billion km (316 days at full power)

Lockheed Kinetics Firestreak 20cm HCG V40/C3 (2x4)    Range 128,000km     TS: 2,000 km/s     Power 12-3     RM 40,000 km    ROF 20       
Lockheed Kinetics Pepperpot 10cm CDCG V40/C3 (1x4)    Range 40,000km     TS: 2,000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
GE Narrowbeam BFC-AM R64-TS6000 (1)     Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 6,000 km/s    ECCM-0     84 69 53 38 22 6 0 0 0 0
Marconi Spark BFC-LR R128-TS2000 (1)     Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 2,000 km/s    ECCM-0     46 42 38 34 30 27 23 19 15 11
Hitachi Power PBR R5 (2)     Total Power Output 10    Exp 5%

GE Broadbeam  AS18-R100 (1)     GPS 1000     Range 18.5m km    Resolution 100
Ferranti  AS41-R100 (1)     GPS 5000     Range 41.4m km    Resolution 100

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Warship for auto-assignment purposes

When designing survey ships I prioritize minimizing the demand on my most valuable resource, i.e. time. I end up building ~10k-ton ships including both geo and grav survey modules, a jump drive, long endurance, a science dept, and 3 to 4 box launchers with slow 1b km range probe missiles that I use on planets that look too nice to be uninhabited. I turn these ships on auto so they survey points/bodies, then look for a new system requiring grav survey, with standing orders to return for refuel/overhaul if they hit deployment time or go below 30% fuel.

This results in a largely automated capability that slowly but surely expands the borders of known space with little input from me, other than sometimes reassigning one to a specific system of interest.

What would be the best way to remove these commanders?
The problem is that I find no way to focus the left tree on the commander to remove.