Quote from: bankshot link=topic=11800. msg139594#msg139594 date=1596662100

Quote from: Platys51 link=topic=11800. msg139555#msg139555 date=1596563923

The biggest issue I have are promotions.   I spend half an hour to carefully arrange my officers where they will provide most value, yet in next 20 minutes half of them are out of post with nothing to replace them. 

Promoted officers should just stay assigned on their current task if there is no useful replacement.   Like, let us tag a skill ship will check for its captains and no captain shall be promoted unless there is an officer available with such skill above some set threshold. 

Another way to reduce micromanagement would be to allow auto assignment rank ranges for ships.   As far as I can tell auto assignment will only pick officers with the lowest permissible rank to fill a position.   So it only picks LtCDRs for my terraforming and mining ships, CDRs for survey ships, etc.    We can up the minimum rank with the Senior CO check but that doesn't expand the range, it just moves it up one rank.   If we could also specify a max rank for auto assignment that would alleviate a lot of the "promoted and relieved of command" spam.   Internally they can be relieved of command but if they are still in the permitted rank range they can then be immediately re-assigned unless they are better suited for another position.   

And as a side note - it would be nice to allow science officers/XOs/etc.  to be something other than LtCDRs, as long as the commanding officer is higher ranked. 

Yet again this is a problem you facing only because there is a lot of hierarchy missing in many people's game.  Without being too preposterous if you don't have the correct structure in place there are some roles will never be filled.  If you have one admin and a fleet you will always end up with Ensigns and or Cadets filling roles and these are promoted at light speed causing the problems many of you are facing.  If you have a structured admin command set for a fleet with a CO you will end up with all ships in that fleet using a grade less then the CO and if you have modules on it you will have at least 3 grades on that, let's say Cadet Ensign and Lieutenant.  That structure will need at least a Captain as Commander and if that is part of another Admin Command you will go up to Major and potentially you can keep building up from there.  Another important thing is the Priority to set on ships.  I honestly set only 2: one for military ships (higher priority) and one for commercial ships (less priority) so that at least my military is always set up right.  I may change priority only for survey ships as I may want them to have the right people assigned especially if I have not found any aliens yet.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I've found out that if you do not hit the reassign naval button the admin command grades just get higher and higher without checking what is inside but just remembering the latest highest grade.  If you reassign the officials then even the admin command grades get readjusted considering the ships and the fleet grades.

Why the above is important? As said at beginning the biggest problem is the auto promotions, however if you have admins set up for Major on an Admin which would actually require an Ensign to run that assignment will be hard to fill for long as a Major will get promoted, this will reduce a lot your micro management because if you'll assign a Captain that will last as long as he lives or the actual Admin or Fleet level outgrows him.

Finally I agree there is a lot that could be done in terms of promotions and such but still you need to step up your level of details in a game like Aurora to your organization as well otherwise you'll end up with a detailed game on some parts and completely shallow on others.  However, I am happy with Officers jumping from ship to ship so that when they finally have reached my Logistic Admin Role and Ribbon I can see they spent some times Tugging s**t or moving s**t on some cargo on Tau Ceti for years.  It makes me think they have earned that spot.  But I understand that's me only.

In my game so far I had to manually promote officers only twice and that is because when you have them from the start most of them will retire and or get promoted all at the same time as they spawn all with same age (21) but the more you get in the more the age will be variegated and will require less and less maintenance.  Later in the game you will have more ships (this is also why you should spend some time at the start and use your building points), more admins, more components etc.  Still some manual promotions will be done but it is not as bad as some users are describing to be honest.  I think this problem affects only those who have played fast and short campaigns and when the event I just described (multiple officers leaving at same time) occurs they get annoyed and think it is a problem with promotions etc.  I think this will be easier to solve having the officers spawn at start with more realistic age.  Also nobody start from bottom and then rise up, there should be an intake higher in numbers where 70% are cadets 15% ensigns 10% Lieutenants and 5% Captains for instance and these grades should be out of the pyramid scheme (1,2,4,8,16 and such).  I would keep that limited to the highest ranks which make sense as you still require a sort of chain of command in place.

Again I am not saying the current system is right or even that I am right, I am just saying it's not that big hassle or problem one could think it is by reading some posts (not only here) or at least not in my games.

The biggest issue I have are promotions.  I spend half an hour to carefully arrange my officers where they will provide most value, yet in next 20 minutes half of them are out of post with nothing to replace them.

Promoted officers should just stay assigned on their current task if there is no useful replacement.  Like, let us tag a skill ship will check for its captains and no captain shall be promoted unless there is an officer available with such skill above some set threshold.