Why is transfering pilots so difficult?

[Gregorovitch]

Or is it just that I'm a dimwit and I can't see the obvious easy way to do it?

I need to transfer a pilot from one of my ore miners (who apparently learn their piloting trade PDQ it seems) to a new Mercury so I can set it off auto-trading. And I want to put the Mercury's current pilot on the ore miner to level up. I recall the ore miner to Albion Prime Warf so both pilots are in the same dock. OK. Now I find the ore miner pilot and hit comm/work somewhere else. I pick the mercury. I try to pick the pilot job....but I can't, it's not listed. I figure this is because the Mercury already comes with a pilot so no vacancy.

I try to move the Mercury pilot....but there doesn't seem to be a way to just move them off the pilot position into a crew position.

So I think, OK, I'll move my ace ore miner pilot to be a crew member on the Mercury first, and then replace the pilot with them next. So I go through the same routine selecting IIRC marine for their job this time. But although they leave the ore miner they do not turn up on the Mercury's roster. They appear to have scarpered. WFT?

So, anyone know how to do this properly?

[Gregorovitch]

Well I think I've answered my own question as to why it's so difficult.

When you transfer a, say, three star pilot to another ships as, say, a marine or service crew in preparation for making them captain then then their number of stars seen on the new ships crew roster will be zero (unless they happen to have built up expertise in that role). This makes them very hard to recognise because what you remember about them is their number of pilot stars, not their names.

What you have to do is navigate down the tree Personnel->Crew->Full Crew List->Marines(e.g.)->Recruits(e.g.)-><crew member name>. Then and only then do you get to see the full list of skills for the crew member in question. That is six nodes of the tree that need to be clicked open to get to the required information plus one for every crew member you've got to try before you find the right one which is best described IMHO as

Long term I think this needs to be looked at long and hard, but in the short term I suggest that swapping pilots is such a common thing to want to do (because minimum pilot skill requirements for certain roles etc) that an additional short cut option to simply "Exchange Pilots" between two ships will significantly ease the pain.

[Socratatus]

Tell me about it. I have only just figured it out.

Things to do in game should be about as easy as it would be to do if in real life. So if I wanted to transfer a guy from one place to another, it should be as easy as phoning him up and saying, "Please go work there as this!" Then leave him to get to doing it. I don`t mind ferrying him if he can`t make it, but it`s way too roundabout right now. Too many hit this menu, then that menu routine to do very simple things like communicate with someone on your own ships.

[Tiger313]

Here's a funny for you. Assigned someone as pilot for my starter ship, but when walking back to the ship she got stuck quite a bit of a distance from my ship still. Figured she'd be in if I'd get in, couldn't see her from the cockpit, so I undocked and flew halfway across the galaxy, docked somewhere, got up out of the chair, no replacement captain! No idea where she is now, but I cannot fire her either. Funny how that works...

[Triu]

Glad you figured it out OP, but yeah it'd be nice for an exchange pilot option, as moving people to crew first is quite uneccessary.

[thanos]

Another regression from Rebirth, unfortunately.

In Rebirth: Contact ship's captain. "Work somewhere else for me". Select other ship on the map. Done.

Why, oh why, did the above change?

[Socratatus]

You know what it reminds me of?

Government redtape...

X4: "You want this personell transferred to your other ship? Well, Sir, just sign here and here and here, then go to the Transfers Department and sign 3 forms there."

Me: "And I can then get the guy moved?"

X4: "Yes, straight after you go to the Ships Department and sign 3 more forms for him!"

Me: sigh...