Though I would love to see flagships, I have to admit that in any implementation they take more effort then assigning XP to fleets (assuming that fleet persistence is already given)

So contemplated a bit how that could work:
Assuming that we are still trying to motivate the game in the direction of combined fleets, and flagships are not an option:
1. Admirals receive XP as before, but are now assigned to a fleet instead of a ship (fleets have persistent designations and history but no XP)
2. Admirals are produced, and have a per-requisite tech+building: Fleet Command
3. Fleet Command is a unique building that provides a free admiral when built and enables the planet to produce new admirals. It also has a very high upkeep cost to pay for all the personnel and equipment
4. Admirals gain level with XP. Each level provides mayor bonuses to ships classes below CS level, and minor bonuses to CS (but no bonuses to super weapons)

Lore wise: the admirals never actually leave the command center and can thus take control of any fleet in the Galaxy within a fixed time-frame (5-10 Turns). Fleets are also only a logical entity so they can be re-assigned if the player wants to

The above would also delay the arrival of the first admirals till early-mid game, limit their numbers and circumvent possible issues regarding the AI managing their admirals

Drawbacks: It is hard to justify the existence of admirals when they are already disembodied from the ships as we have the fleets which work the same way. Assigning XP to fleets does not hold that much potential role-playing wise though, and is harder to control (with tech and building)

Another issue that came into my mind regarding fleet based XP is a concept I have read about the game early on and which still seems to hold true: every event in the game is represented on the map (like when Phidi colonists are transported due to diplomacy deal, or mercs are bought). Considering that the main focus of the game is on tactical battles, a fleet based XP mechanic disconnected from the tactical battles and the actual ships on the galaxy map might be conceptually a less fitting approach


Was also trying to imagine a module based approach: A system type module containing an "admiral" would go in a similar direction I have originally proposed but with added limitations and micro MGMT (maintenance of separate design schema, production, positioning and such)

Well good point on the 'everything happens on the map' stance, and the game tech also implies that at least in the early game communication range is limited (which is why you need to research techs to order your fleets in deep space), so that also means that the 'admiral can really command any fleet' issue might not jive with it.

Ok, so let's go back to the idea of the Admiral is 'physically present' on a ship, so I'll ask the dumb question of 'why only capital ships'? It still seems to me that this is limiting the scope of officers too much; it pushes that game experience back to the mid/late-game when most of the mechanics are introduced up front, and also artificially splits the ships by mechanic, where before all the differences where inherent (and visible) in their stats, slots and equipment. I understand the concern about early game XP farming but I'm not too bothered by it; the AI can be given some XP or can just get a little better at clearing the map themselves (indeed, they seem better than they used to be over the last few builds).

Actually it might be better to back up even further and figure out what sort of bonuses the admirals are actually going to provide. Is it fairly bland stuff like +5% accuracy and +5% shields? It might be interesting to assume something different; I've often wanted a formation planner, maybe it is the admiral that allows you to re-position ships before battle? And/Or the admiral allows you to pick the starting range of the fight, allows you to set up a flanking squadron or two? Maybe the admiral allows the fleet to be re-ordered anywhere, regardless of location (though that makes the communication techs less important). I think maybe if the advantages the admiral gave were not straight up numeric %% modifiers there would be interesting results.

-Will

The reason why only CS get the admirals and with them: XP and none of the benefits is to further mixed fleets:
- In the early game there is a balance of ship types. Each hull type has a mix of hard-points that make it suitable for a specific role within a well rounded fleet and none of them call fill all of the roles
- When Capital ships (Battleships, fleet carriers) arrive, they change this dynamic. Though they are less efficient to produce, they are much more convenient to use due to the horrendous shield recharge rate which is not significant for a small ship but changes the dynamic of a battle when above 600.

Example:
A typical Human Heavy Cruiser cost about 65% less production and metal then a Battleship, but can deliver 75% of the later armor, shield and the same amount of heavy, medium and PD weapons - 2 missile slots.
So why would we even produce Battleships? Well on the one hand, the fleet losses offensive power more rapidly then a fleet composed from large ships only but even further emphasizing the mechanic is: the shield recharge rate, that nets 50% more for a battleship, thus in an actual battle it feels more powerful and picks out smaller ships before they could wear them down

The player can still wear down capital ships with a well balanced fleet geared against them, but the engagements are micro-heavy and quickly become boring as the player is constantly fighting 2-12 battleships and nothing else (except for the occasional Fleet Base(s) included during invasion) and needs to continuously refill the lost ships

That is why I would address all of these issues with one strike:
- CS would now have a clear fleet function like smaller ships and super weapons have - they are very useful to produce as support craft that make everyone around them better (but not themselves) while still bringing a punch
- Pre-CS ships can still be produced making Galaxy Map MGMT more interesting and not just endless looping CS, or micro-managing anti-CS production, as they get more competitive against CS (when accompanied by an experienced CS)
- Tactical battles get more interesting as the mixture of opposing fleets is more varied

The above would only add to the functions of capital ships and make using pre-CS ships more convenient instead of an exercise in micro
Admittedly the AI needs to be thought to send escort ships with their CS, but that is not a huge leap in AI logic from the existing behaviour

Admirals in my concept are simply a logical designation of a CS that has reached level one, and is thus supplying fleet bonus.

They help to identify the CS with the help of the admiral's image (thinking on Empire at War as reference - see example images below), but are not an entity of their own and thus do not need micro-management: a player can ignore the mechanic fully and still receive some of their bonuses

The reason I would tie the admiral (bonus giving entity) to the CS itself is to:
1. Streamline the whole mechanic as much as possible and avoid the need for additional game mechanics to be created only for the sake of the above
- No admiral MGMT GUI needed
- No admiral allocation mechanic needed
2. Avoid early game farming. The early game is already in a sweet stop right now. Adding self-contained admirals would not help to fix anything but might break the existing balance

Or this:
If we already tie admirals to ships, it might as well be done for CS only for all the above and previously mentioned reasons.

The reason I think the bonuses should be of dull numeric nature is to avoid further complications with new mechanics.
Formations, and the likes do sound interesting but considering the available capacity, there is only so much that can be programmed/changed

There are of course alternate ways for decreasing the dominance of capitals from the mid-game on:
- Slice base shield recharge rate in half
- Dramatically increase costs and/or maintenance for capitals
- Only allow torpedoes to be mounted on non capital ships (to function as anti-CS weapon for non CS vessels, while capitals already have heavy mounts for this)
- All of the above

But the above could run into the danger of making CS class useless,

The idea instead is to create a scenario where both benefit: Capital Ships get their unique function and below-CS class ships get beefier so that with a small advantage in numbers, they too can tackle large ships with the right leadership

A limitation to the scenario might be the amount of art that can be produced for the admirals, that is why I was originally thinking on numbering CS ships, but that does not seem viable.
Limiting the admirals "presence" to only capital ships that hit at least Level 1 might solver this: as the CS with the highest XP will always be the flagship automatically, this would naturally hold back the amount of ships that can act long enough in such a role that they hit the necessary XP requirement. E.g.: If the player has 12 CS, but only 3 fleets, only 3 of these 12 ships will actively collect XP, so that 6-8 images might be sufficient even for a large map

The restriction to CS is again a bonus here: the number of admirals is not only limited by the start of their accumulation time, but the easy farming opportunities will also be depleted (raiding Harpy nests gets much more nasty later on and a couple of missile destroyers will not cut it). They are also naturally hampered in their XP accumulation speed being tied to their ships: takes more time to get to the action all around the map.

Well I still think is a heavy-handed way to solve the fleet composition issue, assuming that is even an issue the game needs to fix. I think we're coming at this from two different directions; you want to use admirals as a way to resolve a perceived balance issue with fleets, I'd prefer to see admirals be used to inject additional character and story-telling elements into the fairly anonymous nature of warships as they currently stand. I don't think we can reconcile these approaches, but I don't want to stop you from refining your ideas.


-Will

Other possible applications of admirals in line with the concept and their benefits:

Reworked pirate raids:
1. Pirate leader: Bloodfangs the 3rd is assembling a fleet... the guy is represented on the map as an admiral keeping in line with the games base principle
2. The first ship spawn is a capital ship with the above admiral and potent EXP and thus fleet bonuses but with no escorts
3. The capital ship is equipped with high-level tech to offer an incentive for the player to confront and capture it
4. With each turn leading up to the raid, the pirate fleet grows but with only non-capital ships and the lowest tech-tier (basic shields, lasers, rockers, and LOTS of Boarding guys). Although these ships would not present a threat in and of themselves, they are buffed with the admirals ability
5. Result: player is motivated to attack the fleet as soon as possible not just to prevent a stronger attack, but also to make capturing the capital pirate ship easier and reverse engineer its tech. If the player waits too long, the screen of buffed up escort ships will make it extremely difficult to capture the capital ship intact and survive the engagement- player will be motivated instead to take out the capital ship as soon as possible to debuff the small vessels

Considering that I haven't seen these guys for a couple of games now I guess they are deactivated due to balancing reasons: the above might provide a solution for that

This is also feasible from a lore perspective as the overwhelming amount of pirate ships will actually be of low-tech as they should, the exception being the CS of the pirate leader itself (lets say these are rouge admirals hijacking prototypes:))


Reworked Marauder mechanic:
1. Gremak would generally get a faction bonus when it comes to admirals. Since their Command Cruiser is available relatively early in the game, they would get access to admirals early as well (hosting admirals would be the perk of a Command Cruiser fitting to their name).
2. Marauder faction uses Gremak ship-set so the above applies to them as well (no changes)
3. Generally this leads to Marauders getting admirals first (expect for other Gremak empires if any are in game)
4. Amount of Capital Ships for each Marauder faction is to be limited to a single vessel and it can only be a Command Cruiser (Thus can even be issued to the faction automatically after a dynamic timer runs out: no AI scripting necessary)
5. Contrary to AI lead empire fleets, Marauder fleets have a high win ratio and extremely high ship survivability ration, thus their admirals are allowed to increase in XP and level up
6. At any time, there is always only a single fleet attacking from a specific Marauder base, thus the admiral sees a lot of action and probability of leveling up is almost ensured
7. Thanks to their admiral, Marauder fleet do not need to boost high level of tech or large ships to be a factor in the mid nor in late game. They can stick to producing cheap small vessels to increase their single blob of raiding fleet lead by a high-level admiral
8. The player only needs to cut the "head" of the Marauder fleet to considerably decrease their combat threat. Once the admiral is lost, they will need time to rebuild and level up again before they can pose a considerable threat
9. Left unchecked, a Marauder fleet lead by a high-level admiral and dozens of small ships can raid even a well fortified system, thus the player is not all that happy when Marauders are raiding enemy territory
10. Optional: Bribing Marauders is only available when an admiral is leading their fleet. When admiral is bribed/or as a separate deal: the fleet can be sent against another system. The player could directly select their target on the galaxy map and thus send a formidable force against a competitors home or critical system without declaring war
11. Optional: Marauder Admirals have a very small chance of forming their own empire after each conquered planet (if not many Gremak factions are present yet on the map). In this case, both the fleet and the newly conquered planet become assets of the new empire and the admirals image will be displayed when dealing with the new empire on the Diplomacy screen -immersion pour

Just imagine the sneaky smug face of the former Marauder admiral - now an emperor of his own domain, and having to deal with him after he has pillaged the quadrant and enslaved so many citizens...

The above would lead to a more logical Marauder mechanic and buildup of the threat level (something that is also partially deactivated currently due to balancing issues).

No longer would Maraduers be running around with a number of advanced battleships (only Command Cruisers), leaving the true military grade hardware to be produced by actual empires, while still packing a considerable punch when left unchecked

The player has logical and fun interaction with the Marauders and has the option to disrupt their threat level buildup for a longer period of time (currently they just happily produce battleships when loosing the fleet: there is no buildup to their threat level).
Instead, the player can choose to target the admiral, and even sacrifice a fleet to achieve the single goal of eliminating the one target that gives the largest boost to their fleet power (just like how you keep those green-skins in check