I don't usually chime in on the forums these days, but this is a topic I've got quite a bit of information on.
Commanding from a gun is something that's possible, but unless you have a wealth of tactical knowledge that you just can't impart on your pilot, it's a better idea to be more of an enforcer from the gun. Taking that captain slot was, for awhile, the best way to operate the ship. Shukketsushi used to be our engineer, and she was definitely one of the very best, but after going through several pilots, we decided that it might be a better idea to toss her on the captain's slot. She's my wife, so she literally sits right next to me, and passing tactical information to her is as simple as speaking up. I can bring up my map and show her things on my screen, we can practice together incessantly...so, it worked. For awhile, it really did work.
The problem became that while in-game, our old standard operating procedure was to have the majority of the crew stay quiet unless something seriously important was happening. Since I was in the Captain slot, I was usually the guy coordinating movements with Frogger (who was the Captain on board the other ship in our team), and I would then issue commands after filtering out information that Shukketsushi might not need to know. Well, that's fine, if you've got a lot of time to pass that information around. When it comes down to it, though, there's a reason that modern ground forces without initiative driven small unit leaders usually crumble in the face of an initiative driven force, even if it's smaller teams with fewer assets.
Let me translate that: I needed to stop being the guy issuing the orders to my pilot, because I needed her reaction time to my orders to be ZERO. So, in the end of the second season of the Cogs, you'll see me on the gun and out of the Captain's slot.
Well...that and I was putting everyone on blast pretty constantly. Bad for the soul.
So, ultimately, I needed Shukketsushi to directly communicate with Frogger, and after countless matches controlling my ship from the gun, I needed to trust that she knew what was best to do at the helm. Ultimately, letting her conduct initiative based actions was stressful (not because she's a bad pilot. In fact, I put stock in her being easily among the best), but it was absolutely the right thing to do. This is an Occam's Razor moment, guys. It's easier, it's simpler, and it plainly makes more sense to let that pilot have the Captain's slot.
If you have that command presence (or loud voice and large library of interesting profanity to use), don't take Captain. Be the vocal guy on the gun, or the vocal guy beating up the hull with your tools of choice. The success we enjoyed in the RAFT during that second season and afterward was largely due to the fact that we would take things like these into account.
