Just more generally - it feels to me like "what officer is this ship assigned to" ought to be a more long-term decision and that shuffling officers around to optimize for a specific encounter - no matter how clean the UI - is just fundamentally annoying. This is, of course, subjective.
Ship limit is set to 30. Pilot limit is set to 8(about). It means game is set that player has about
4 ships for one Pilot. It means >> this setting and fact that pilot make significant boost
player should switch pilots for eevery encounter to achieve best combination of CR ready ships with pilots. I thouth that it is the part of game by design.
Also there was topics on this forum complaining, that Pilot skills are too stiff so when player change ship types it takes ages to grow a neew piilot. It all say, switching pilot to a ship is common action so shouuld be supported by UI. Player's ,ain character is encouraged to switch several ships per encounter, hired Pilots should be treated similar. Lets
think about hired Pilots like they are main characters of other (online) players, but temporary are controlled by AI.(... actually, this makes me wonder if going through officers might not be a nice way to bring back a different take on crew veterancy. Having the officer gain XP *on that ship* along a separate track, with some kind of basic bonus to ship performance... hmm. And you'd lose it/it'd take a hit when the officer is swapped out.)
Well, I am sorry. Exact opposite is needed, pilots need to be more flexible. Dont make game narrow, so player choose all variants of his play-style in the beginning, then fallow rails. Rather offer options, variants, which could be explored anytime.
Imagine situations : New ship founded, new fleet skill obtained, ship lost, ship is zero CR, ship is mothballed becouse of low crew, specific mission needs (yes, the Secret missions again), face other type of opponents which is better to counter by other ships, .... . All these situations need
ADAPTATION. To
make game playful, is better support adaptation gameplay, rather then create rules enforcing stiff fleet from start to end. The Call_reinforcement screen could be the comfortable place for drag&drop Pilots. When combat start or in the middle. When a hired Pilot get shot down, it takes 10s cool-down then he become available to be attached to a new ship and call in as reinforcement again.
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Out of topic -
Veterancy I was rather thinking about Common_crew(current) and Technicians (new_veterans). Where veterans are crew who ads some
non-combat bonus (maintenance discount Kitchen Chef, fuel saving Engineer, CR recover speed Mechanic, cargo space Logistic, Navigator +1 burn speed, ScrapYard Master +10% salvage, .... many types of specialists >>
a card collection type of mini game ) for a price(extra salary like 200coins each per month). So you might collecting those bonus crew in combat (man of the hour); or find one in a bar; or in a frozen pod; or in a planet comm center. Important dinamics >> these vets count towards crew headcount. Also Vets can die like any other Common_crew OR (prevent save scum feature) - veteran do not die by accident(combat), but stay for a year then leave (basically same rule as merc, but no option to prolong contract so it creates a dynamic of continuous changes). Veteran_crew are not forever like pilots. Then those veterans can have a coldown to get familiar with ship, like a week, then they add bonus. Cooldown prevents hot-swap, but allows change ship.