I do not get it. Any of it.
I am playing 1. 9. 5 and it is my first ever game of Aurora. I assigned (basically at random) an Earth Administrator and an Academy Commandant and clicked the 'Automated Assignments' checkbox at the start of the game. Other than the occasional notice like 'As a result of promotion, Aiden Morgan was relieved from command of TFMR Albatross' none of it seems to matter and searching the forum has not provided much information.
I assume 'Promotion Score' is something like XP. I have a Vice-Admiral with 1627 points who appears to never have done anything but get promoted every few years. Where did the Promotion Score points come from? I have a Commander with 1615 points, another Commander with 226 and a Lieutenant Commander with a promotion score of 629 who was created 17 game days ago.
Random starting promotion score when first created? So who gets promoted and why? I can understand how officer bonuses affect gameplay but what game mechanic does rank affect?
I can create a medal called "Participated in the Great Us versus Them War" give it a zero promotion score modifier and manually assign it for role play reasons, but personally: no. I could give it a positive promotion score modifier but what game mechanic reason would I want to do this? There are a list of automatic medal conditions, so I am thinking one medal for each condition. But then I am wondering why those medals do not exist by default? Why would I choose to create only some and not all of those possible medals? What game mechanic impact does an officer discovering 1000 system bodies with minerals have? Why would I wand to assign a medal and encourage the promotion of that officer? All I have seen so far is that rank promotion removes people with great survey bonuses from my survey ships and replaces them (or not) with people with lower bonuses.
Help!