Hello Steve!
First off, thanks again for the amazing work you are doing.
Recently I have found a "new way" (for me) to play Aurora and it is slow, tasting each 5 days pulse, creating a diary with the events, roleplaying the characters situations, the orders from the goverment, giving background to each of the steps I take, etc. This is a very slow pace for the game, in 15 hours I have advanced 27 years or so, but I found that incredibly the game gets a new level of deep and complexity.
Thanks to this diary I am creating (in an excel, of course, hahaha) I can follow the careers of the characters. I always have considered the characters in the game as a key feature of Aurora and it gives to the game a new level that no other game, of this style, has (maybe rimworld or dwarf fortress are at the same level). I really love how you implemented the characters, the careers, the records of their achievements, the medals and how they affect to the characters career, the traits...
When I learnt how to "include" all this in a somekind of diary and background, the histories crossing different characters started inmediately. Rivalries, families and dinasties, using the promotion score to find the best and more capable officers when graduate, friends, etc.
I say all this because there is one thing that is a bit annoying (I don't know if that is the correct word, excuse my english I'm spanish). When a character dies, he/she automatically is removed from the database and I can't take a last look to his profile and remember all the things he/she have done in the playthrough. Now, with my diary, I have a lot of things and with a quick search I can remember the most important events related to the character, but I would really love to take one last look to the profile and get a pic for the records on those best and more reknown officers.
I understand that keepin all the characters in the database is insane and will affect dramatically to the performance, so I have though that you could implement somekind of "Grace Period" of, for example, 30 days pulse (for those who plays with that pulse), before the character is removed. I am not programmer and don't know if it is possible or it is a crazy thing, but that would allow to those crazy players like me, that are following the careers of the officers, to take one last look to the profile and give that small though as final tribute to the characters that have been starrings of the history for many years.
What do you thing? Is it possible?
Thanks!
PS: Yeah, it is possibly the same as the feature that includes extra weight for custom installations in ships without in-game benefits and not many players will use it... but, you would make some of us very very happy