Crew

Note that enlisted ranks are NOT covered in this image.
The first row covers the NCO ranks while the commissioned
officers are featured on the 2nd and 3rd row.
The fourth row is for admiral rank officers

***"You are a captain in an evolving, dynamic ship that hundreds of people call home. They adapt to you, and grow with you as you fight alongside them, and if you suffer losses, you’ll feel the loss that comes with that"***
The Mandate is intended to have a very strong focus on the crew under your command, with crew members gaining experience and being able to be promoted through the ranks, possibly all the way from enlisted to a Captain in their own right.

You will start off with a skeleton crew of around 30-50 crew on your initial Frigate.

The crew on your ship is divided as follows:

* ‘Enlisted’ make up the bulk of your crew and are the seaman, able seaman, petty officers etc that run your ships
* They are led by non-commissioned officers (NCO)
* On larger ships the non-commissioned officers may report to an intermediate level which are the commissioned officers who in turn report to the Captain

As the crew gain experience, they will become more efficient and candidates for promotion. Each section has 5 subdivisions within it as shown by the Officer ranks image to the side. Eventually a crew member will reach a natural plateau and cannot acquire more skills. There are three options available at this point:

* Keep the crew member in his/her current position, the crew member will continue to improve in terms of efficiency but not acquire any new skills
* Enroll the crew member in an officer training course at a starbase provided the necessary upgrades are built (This is required for movement between Enlisted and NCO, as well as NCO and Officer)
* Assign the crew member as an instructor back at a starbase to improve the quality of raw recruits so they have more experience when you recruit them
* Depending on the crew member, an officer school, war college or naval academy may be required to be able to make use of all of these options

Enlisted will not be modeled in great detail. They will auto level and acquire skills depending on which service branch/Department they have been assigned to. Once they reach the specialist stage they will be able to be directed more closely in their development.

You will have the option of allowing an Enlisted to remain enlisted at which point they will become a Senior Enlisted or they can be promoted to a specialist where the same split can be chosen as they level leading to NCO and so on.
If they are promoted to NCO where they gain talent points to invest in leadership skills. Leadership skills affect any enlisted in close proximity. An NCO who reaches veteran status can be promoted/trained to become a commissioned officer.

Commissioned officers gain command skills which allow them to affect NCOs in close proximity and command the smaller vessels.

In The Mandate you would need a minimum of 1x junior commissioned officer and 3x senior warrant officers in order for your squads to benefit from leadership bonuses from a company commander and platoon leader roles. However, there is nothing stopping you from assigning more experienced security branch officers to occupy those roles or lead squads (but more likely you will instead want these senior security officers to command escort ships, serve as bridge officers or manage starbases...)

As the crew gain experience they will also acquire Virtues and Vices which will have an effect on their skills and morale. Not all crew will be able to be promoted. Some crew may fail their training and be deemed unfit for command.

The Service Branch groupings have been changed at least once during development and may change again so the above image should not be considered final.