Been playing a Aurora 1.13 game for a bit now. It's more than 65 years in, and - with the Invaders at the doorstep - both my navy and my commercial traffic has gotten hot and heavy. Fortunately, Aurora's wonderful navy organization system has really come to the rescue, allowing me to hide most of my space-farers and focus attention only on the fleets that need it now.
Here's the complete organization of the Confederation Navy above the fleet level.
Command level suffixes are still in flux, but they are approximately:
SHQ - Rank 1, highest (this and the next level are often not present, especially in the early game)
GHQ - Rank 2
HQ - Rank 3
Ops, or Operations - Rank 4, the equivalent of a rear admiral
Com, or Command - Rank 5 (used only if subordinate fleets do not have fleet command positions)
TG, or Task Group - Rank 6 (usually not used)
The top HQ has always been of Industrial type; this is very much a realm focused on economic development and the extra bonuses to mining and terraforming are mighty helpful.
Three construction HQs include active building projects, the fleets accepting all new orbitals, ships, and fighters, and some miscellaneous fleets.
Three logistics commands add a few bonuses, but this seemingly innocuous category is the one I probably spend more time in than any other. Haulage is huge for the Confederation.
Five mining HQs deliver some hefty bonuses to each of 2500 orbital miners. With a total multiplier of something north of 2.5x, it is conceivable that I might be abusing the game just a teensy little bitty bit. Buy, hey! I don't have Captain and Commander-rank HQs adding another two multiplicative bonuses, so cut me some slack, judgers. I also don't stack Sky Marshals (except with the top command, and maybe I should change that HQ to General now that I have several SHQs).
The Naval HQs are the most intricate. Four Rear-Admirals (rank 4) split up almost all my warships between them, and have three higher HQs to multiply bonuses - especially Tactical and Reaction - on top of theirs. Their commands are:
Expeditionary Operations: Used when we're concentrating offensive force on a single theatre. The battlefleets, escorts, supports, scouts, and transports all go here. More than one of these commands will be present when we have multiple major operations happening simultaneously. Additional commands (based at a nearby planet) would also be used if an expedition might otherwise leave the command range of a naval HQ.
Front-line Operations: For military fleets I need to keep close tabs on. If a number of such fleets need to coordinate (say, I'm defending a system), then I would set up multiple front-line operational commands, labeled as convenient.
General Operations: The grab-bag command. If I don't need to keep tabs on it, and it's not static defence, it goes here. My troop transports, ready reserve, and patrols all spend most of their time hidden away in this box.
Protective Operations: If a fleet is defensive, and it's within range of the main naval HQ, it's tucked away in here. Unless it gets attacked; then I will need to coordinate its actions with those of other fleets, which is what Front-Line Operations is for.
Protective Operations includes two sub-commands that allow stacking additional bonuses for minor fleets without rank 5 (Commodore) fleet commanders.
Patrol HQs are used for all monitoring ships that benefit from high bonuses to Engineering, and also for whatever warships are outside the range of the Naval HQ system. At present, this remains a short-range game, so I currently only have one planet with Naval HQ centers, and have not spread out my navy command range enough to cover all possible operations.
Four survey and four terraforming HQs stack bonuses for fleets benefiting from them.
Finally, a set of Unassigned HQs allow me to make sure that especially promising senior leaders get jobs (and therefore don't quit young), without requiring me to give them a front-line position right now. This reduces the number of times I need to re-organize.
