And the thing is that you don't need a skill to boost your ships without human officer. You simply buy those officers. And place them in said ships. That's all.
Just out of curiosity, which mod is that interface from?
The Mercenary option is a good point. The sustaining story point cost for Mercenaries has been dropped in half in 0.95.1a. So in my example, 7 mercenary officers is only 3.5 story points and ~420k credits per cycle (albeit without any XP bonus after the 1st payment), which is probably sustainable end game. Not sure how sustainable it would be prior to that.
For reference, my current play through at has the character at level 15 and in cycle 213 (so 7 cycles in), with 8 story points in the bank at the moment with ~12 million bonus XP, plus about 800,000 credits on hand, but a passive net income around 0 (fleet/colony upkeep offset by colony profits). I'm basically at the point of ramping up Ordo farming and exploring the sector for Coronal Hypershunts and the like. I have spent 24 story points on s-mods. Another 16 or so on mentoring/eliting officer skills. Finally another 10 on my colonies. Plus a handful for escapes and other temporary effects. So say 63 story points over 7 cycles, for about 9 story points per cycle.
Assuming I had hired 7 mercenary officers for the last 4 cycles (approximately half the play time), that would have put me back 14 story points and 1.6 million credits.
So while not free, mercenaries look at least doable (with some sacrifices made in other areas of long term growth) on double sized fleets (i.e. 16 ships) to me. I feel like I'd be working extremely hard on the campaign map to sustain, say 14 mecenaries (7 out of 9 story points per cycle given this admittedly one off example), which would happen if you're trying to put 22-25 ships on the field. Although perhaps I'm slow at earning story points. I'd be curious to know what other people's story points per cycle look like.