Removing the current captain is an especially good precaution when doing some of the missions or activities that involve switching to spacesuit where player really does not want any kind of accidental ship movements (like when rescuing ships stranded in the middle of a minefield).
Another useful case is to avoid constantly coliding with the captain in the transporter room or at the pilot chair when frequently switching to spacesuit (for example the various laser repair missions).
The current process for reassigning (demoting) the captain is somewhat involved - it requires opening up comms with the captain (or talking to them directly), selecting "Work somewhere else for me" option, then right-clicking the current ship, selecting the role from the drop-down menu, and finally clicking the assign button. This can also become a slightly frustrating experience if the ship is currently docked at a larger vessel, since it becomes harder to select the correct ship due to overlapping icons in the map.
On a related note, it would also be nice if the player were able to quickly promote the best crew member to captain on the currently occupied ship without having to resort to opening up the map menu. This would improve the flow when player has wrapped up the activites that required the ship to be operated fully manually in the first place.
To make both of these processes faster/simpler, it would be nice if a couple of convenience dialog options and buttons were added to the interface:
- A new dialog option should be introduced to dialogs with captains that tells them to step down and join the service crew of the ship they are currently piloting.
- A new item in the context menu for captains (opened either via information tab or via Personnel Management menu) should be added that tells them to step down and join the service crew of the ship they are currently piloting. This could optionally also be implemented as a button in the Information/Crew tab in the map menu (right next to the promote button in current interface).
- A clickable button should be added in some shape or form to the cockpits of all ships that would result in best crewmember being promoted to Captain (similar to the button currently available on the Information/Crew tab).
- An input control should be added that would essentially act as a toggle for this activity - demoting captain to service crew if present, and promoting best fitting crewmember to captain if no captain is assigned.