front line captains should be more important in the empire, admirals are far to safe and captains far too politically irrelevant. in a feudal-style society they should be more respected and powerful, since they command precious assets.
Suggestions on fleets:
Squadrons should have more personality. Squardron commanders should be assigned on a flagship that could be killed if the flagship is destroyed.
Maybe fleets and/or squadrons should get traits giving them bonus and malus based on things they do and random events.
Perhaps individual ships could gets markers like "heroic captain", giving bonus to the entire squadron but the bonus would be lost if the ship is lost.
Replying to you both since it's a similar thing.
I would rather add traits to officers than ships (BTW, "heroic captain" sound good). More within the mood of the game.
As for traits for fleets... well, actually I'm considering this. It's more consistent with the rest of the game than traits for ships because a fleet is an organizational unit with a pool of officers. So trais for a fleet could be considere a colective skill of the officers and tradition of this particular fleet.
As for lower rank officers (non admirals), yes... but I wonder how to do it. One thing I was thinking was that each fleet gets a pool of officers (like in SM1) and you can interact with them. Still, i woul;d not want to make it too overwhelming.
Alternative idea is "High Command" (a body of officers not tied to any particular fleet). Or both at once?