Dumb newbie mistakes to avoid

[vorpal+5]

yeah!!

Do you bother putting one commander per fighter, if you have spares?

[Paul M]

After my initial experience with the Starslayer FAC I use one commander with initiative 170+ for each Flight (group of 3 Starslayers).   Since I really don't want a person with a low initiative value being commander I limit (usually) the number of commanders to 1.   In a few cases temporarily a commander gets assigned while waiting for a ship to finish building or something.

I'm not sure you are asking me in particular but so long as all officers have initiative 170+ I would not object to more officers in the flight.

[serger]

I use officers to train nearly each battle fighter crew (especially for beam/kinetic ones), but usually I transfer them to newer fighters, when my wing is ready to fight. As for battle - one squadron, one officer (missile squadron in Aurora don't need an officer at all, but I just set them there for RP; beam/kinetic fighter and boarding assault dropship squadron or flight will really need a commander with high initiative skill).

[vorpal+5]

But what about Fighter combat bonus from commander? If there is a single commander for a squadron of 12 fighters, I guess only the commander's fighter would get the bonus?

[Paul M]

The Starslayers are FAC (Fast Attack Craft) not fighters so for me it is not a relevant consideration and based on experience what is more critical is that your commander has the imitative so the enemy moves first otherwise you will never close to the range of your weapons on the enemy.   Under the assumption you are using weapons with <100K km range.  For missile armed fighters this is likely not a consideration.

My suspicion would be that only the fighter with the commander gets the bonus.   In any case I would likely have my fighters broken down into flights (3-6 fighters) and each of those having a commander.   There is no obvious reason not to give fighters a commander if you have them available and unemployed.   Worst case they die a heroic death...give how efficient Aurora ships can be at missile defence and a fighter is basically a slow, slightly more robust missile I give them a snowballs chance in a blast furnace of surviving long in close quarters combat.  The NCN has lost their EW/SAR pinnaces fairly regularly when they get mixed up in combats.

[serger]

Yep, fighter bonuses are just for own fighter, not for TF. I usually have 1 or 2 squadrons of interceptors with my best junior fighter officers as commanders. But those fast interceptors are big and expensive - I use them more as elite PD guards, not as fighters per se. In addition, good fighter officers tends to get their promotions quickly, so there is a little RP possibility* to set them at all fighters, while weak junior commanders just are not strong enough to bother.

(*) default ranking systems give no such possibility at all, since there are no junior officers there

I hope C# Aurora will have more sane bonus mechanics.

[serger]

UPD.
In my last campaign I tried to set "realistic"* promotions off, add junior ranks down to Pilot Officer, build large fighter wings and train a mob of fighter pilots, holding them without promotions. Even for me there was too much micromanagement with a miserable battle effect.

(*) I put this word at quotes, because there is a little realism, when you have 23y.o. captains, 24y.o. generals, 26y.o. Admiral of the Fleet... and 21y.o. senior sectoral administrators, after all.

[TCD]

UPD.
In my last campaign I tried to set "realistic"* promotions off, add junior ranks down to Pilot Officer, build large fighter wings and train a mob of fighter pilots, holding them without promotions. Even for me there was too much micromanagement with a miserable battle effect.

(*) I put this word at quotes, because there is a little realism, when you have 23y.o. captains, 24y.o. generals, 26y.o. Admiral of the Fleet... and 21y.o. senior sectoral administrators, after all.

Top tip- right at the start of a new game do a "replace all" commanders. If you choose a reasonable number of generations then you get reasonably aged commanders.

[serger]

Yep, I do exactly that. My words above was exactly about those commanders, that was born by "Replace All" (80y).
The problem is not with max age. The problem is with min age. Min ages in Aurora are not reasonably at all. It cannot be fixed by the player with "Replace All" button. More of that, starting ages are always 21 for all scientists and civilian administrators, so you can press this button 100500 times with 100500 parameter number - it will change nothing at all for them.

[vorpal+5]

How do you abort a Fleet Training exercise?

[serger]

The same button (Start Task Force Training / End Task Force Training).

[Dr. Toboggan]

Is there a way to delete commercial (i.e., shipping lines) ships? The only way I've found is to create another empire, spawn a ship near them, and blow them all up.

[Iranon]

I believe you can still impound them by towing them (tractor beam).

[Dr. Toboggan]

I believe you can still impound them by towing them (tractor beam).

How? I can't select civilian ships through the orders menu, so I don't know how I'd go about doing that.

[serger]

Civilian harvesters are accessible through the orders menu. Other types are not.