I need more captains captain! I don't have the captains!

[Thiosk (OP)]

Theres a dearth of officers in the military.  I need more captains!  I've been mass recruiting to drive promotions-- thirty, fifty, one hundred, TWO HUNDRED but it still just doesn't seem like enough.  And of course I get the idiots with no crew training rating.

Am I doing this right?

[Narmio]

I often have the bulk of my ranking officers retire from disuse before I really need to field a sizable navy.  Then, when I do, there's nobody but green junior offices in the entire empire!

I was wondering whether creating a bunch of 'fake' teams and task groups at the start of the game to preserve quality officers would be useful.  Then when you field a sizable navy, disband the Not Actually A Geology Team and Task Force Lying To The Budget Office you've got your top brass!  They might need to take some serious phys-ed to get back into shape, though...

[chrislocke2000]

Was having similar issues until I discovered that when you design a ship you can set the minimum grade of the officer. Its a couple of tabs across in the design section, sorry can't remember exactly where off of the top of my head. Change the setting from captain to LT Commander and you are set. You can then leave your officers bumbing around in the survey ships and haulers early in the game and have the fresh and ready to pilot the heavy stuff once you start building. It also means you don't need 50 captains to manage your ships.

Another quick win is to quickly set up a sub command in your task force with a few ships so you can then quickly appoint people to the fleet command positions as well

[dooots]

Its under the DAC/Rank/Information tab in the class design window.

[Father Tim]

The other solution is to turn off the 'up-or-out' behaviour - sadly, it's bugged and the option that is supposed to do that, doesn't.