it is fun to take control of a ship and fly it about. and in small battles one skilled pilot can certainly make the difference (i imagine anyway, i suck at piloting XD). however, when multiple capital ships are on the field, and supporting fleets, one individual ship simply doesnt matter that much. if anything, focusing on one can easily cost you the larger battle as you miss the bigger picture and get flanked or somesuch. sure, sure, pausing when opening the tactical view mitigates this, but it is way harder to navigate the field to see what is going on than it needs to be. also i think this mode would make the game a lot more enjoyable to a broader spectrum of people; i imagine there are a lot of people who would love the exploration, empire building, rpg elements, ship tinkering, and everything else but are turned off by the focus in combat on your ship and expectation you are flying it. tbh, if i couldnt set my flagship on auto i would never have actually gotten into the game, because piloting is by far my least favorite aspect of it.
my proposal... an option to start each fight in either captain mode (what we have now), or admiral. and my vision for 'admiral mode' goes something like this.
- ability to select any of your ships to get the full ship status in the bottom left like you can for what you are piloting
- ability to target any enemy ship on screen for full info regardless of proximity to your flagship, and without modifying ship behavior
- ability to pan the camera freely within range of ANY of your ships, without needing to anchor it any specific one
- faster command point generation or longer command point duration in exchange for not being able to manually pilot for the fight
- strategies on sliders to change during the battle (with command points), such as overall aggression, retreat hull threshold, and how free to be with limited ammo
- minimap of the tactical stage
- option to slow down time to better see the flow of battle (perhaps costing command points)
- my characters portrait on the ship he is flying in the same style as your captains
edit - shoulda put this in suggestions i guess