I'm looking at how the role of Captain would play out on medium sized ships. On a small ship it makes sense for the decision maker to also be the pilot due to the limited number of crew who have to wear multiple hats. When there are only two of you, the Crew Member A might be captain/pilot/comms, while Crew Member B might be in engineer/navigator/gunner. On a small ship like the Millennium Falcon this makes perfect sense given the low number of crew. However on a larger ship(5+ crew), it might make sense for there to be a dedicated Captain. A 5+ person crew could still fly a ship that big independently but they wouldn't be as effective since each crew member might think they have the best idea and not work in a coordinated manner. The Captain would be the final say during the heat of combat and be cognizant of the larger battle space.

Narratively the Captain wouldn't control any of the ship systems, but they would have access to data feeds and communications (public and private) from all the crew stations. They would then issue high level orders to the various crew which the crew would perform by directly controlling the ship. The Captain would be able to improve the efficiency of a limited number of crew for a round since the Captain has a better view of the entire picture. For instance, when the Captain tells the gunner for the main gun to fire into a seemingly empty area, it's because the Captain has instructed the smaller gunners to nudge the enemy into that location using weak but plentiful shots. A Captain could always perform an action at another station if needed, but the ship as a whole would loose out on the benefit of having a dedicated Captain for that round.

My question would be how to handle having a dedicated Captain from a mechanical perspective. Taking a queue from Artemis, Space Cadets: Dice Duel, and some other games, my initial idea would be for the Captain to make a Captaincy check. This would be based on either Leadership or Cool depending on the Captain's style. Difficulty would be based on the current flow of battle as determined by the GM. Depending on the number of Successes the Captain has, they would be able to assign a number of Boost or Upgrade dice to the other players on the ship. Failing the check would either do nothing or cause setback dice depending on how badly they failed.

Have other GMs done something similar in your games and if so, how did it work out?

There are several talents that can help. Mercenary Soldier and Politico have some of the best for this purpose, and the rules for assisting as well as what benefits you can offer others through successful checks are all in place. Use what's there and see if it's enough to fill your needs.

First off I would say a captains duties would depend on the ships purpose and the number of tasks to be done.

A large freighter may require a captain who is also negotiator, pilot and navigator while the other crew handle the load and unload as well as security.

A smaller patrol boat on the other hand may see the captain only navigating and negotiations while there is a dedicated pilot and gunners.

A good guide is obviously the commodore specialisation from AoR

You’d have to look at how many crew are responsible for what roles. If the ship requires 10 crew but only two of them are bridge crew and the rest are responsible for just loading and unloading the ship, then I’d say that you’re back in the same situation you’ve got with the Falcon.

But if you’ve got a handful of bridge crew members plus all the others, then I’d say that you’ve got the sort of situation where you really kind of do need to have a dedicated captain. That person should be able to fill in for the majority of other roles on the bridge, but that’s not their primary responsibility.

In this area, I’d also look to Star Trek for guidance.

While Commodore is the dedicated AOR class for this system that does what you want it to do, if you were looking to build a ship captain that is more of a Talon Karrde type character, I'd simply build a face class that has some leadership skills. Politico's ability to make Leadership checks and use Inspiring Rhetoric are both great to buff your crew, and they can also handle whatever negotiations the leader/face type character is often expected to take care of. Entrepreneur or Merchant can also function somewhat well in this capacity, especially if the campaign is a bit less combat heavy and more negotiation heavy.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. With regard to the size of the ship and crew, everyone has a role during combat. 1pilot, 2 gunners, 1 slicer, and 1 engineer.

KRKappel. Inspiring Rhetoric and Improved Inspiring Rhetoric seem to be the way to go in terms of using existing talents for the effect I'm looking for. The only downside to Improved Inspiring Rhetoric is that instead of it lasting for one round, it lasts for a number of rounds equal to ranks in Leadership.

Fire Discipline is also a natural action for the Captain to take. You could also make a new Starship Action Coordinate that allows the captain to make a leadership check and aid another (give a blue die) to multiple people on the bridge.