I have some exciting news about the RTW2 Expansion: Two new MAJOR features have been added to the RTW2 Expansion with recent beta versions:
COMMANDING OFFICERS
Commanding officers for ships. Officers commanding divisions of ships will be introduced later.
Ships from CL and upwards have commanding officers.
A ship must have a commanding officer assigned. If a ship does not have a CO, there is an option to have COs assigned automatically to uncommanded ships.
There are three ranks of officer:
Commander: A commander can command CLs or a division of DD (divisions are coming soon).
Captain: A Captain can command any other type of ship or a division of CL.
Rear Admiral: A Rear Admiral can command a division of capital ships.
After a number of years in rank, an officer may get promoted. Officers with battle experience are more likely to get promoted.
Officers have abilities, the range is: Brilliant, Above average, Average, Below average and Incompetent. Brilliant and Incompetent are very rare. CO ability modifies the actual crew quality the ship will get in battle, as battle crew quality is a synthesis of many factors.
Officers may also have a special ability. These currently are (more abilities will be added later):
Speed enthusiast: This officer will get that extra knot of speed out of his ship, especially if new.
ROF enthusiast: This officer will get his crew to improve ROF, at the cost of a slight increase in the risk of flash fires, as he is prone to overlook safety measures in the quest for higher ROF.
Gunnery expert: This officer will improve the gunnery of his ship.
Torpedo expert: This officer will improve torpedo firing of his ship.
Disciplinarian: This officer goes by the book. His crew will improve relatively fast, but attention to rules and regulations will stop the crew from becoming really good.
Music lover: This officer will put much effort into improving the performance of the ship's band, which can have its advantages and disadvantages.
Sportsman: This officer loves sport, and will put much effort into the physical fitness of his crew.
Lucky: This officer will somehow evade many critical hits to his ship.
Aggressive: This officer will take a more aggresive stance than most of his colleagues.
Timid: This officer will take a more careful stance than most of his colleagues.
Well connected: This officer has connections in high circles. He will be more costly to remove or reassign.
Wily: This officer is a master of evasive tactics. He will reduce the chance of his ship being hit.
Poor Admin: Ships under this officer are more likely to miss signals or get lost in battle.
Poor shiphandler: More likely to get into collisions or other mishaps.
Loose cannon: You never know what this officer will be up to. He may perform brilliantly or poorly, and may get into all kinds of trouble.
Good administrator: Reduces maintenance cost of his ship.
No connections: This officer lacks connections or patrons, and will get promoted more slowly.
Officers can either be assigned to ships or be in the officer pool (unassigned or in posts ashore). New officers will appear in the pool at a rate dependent on fleet size.
You can assign or reassign officers. To remove an officer from a ship and place him in the pool will usually carry a presige cost. If an officer is reassigned to an older or smaller ship, that will also carry a prestige cost.
If officers are left for long periods in the pool, they may leave the service (which can be a good or bad thing depending on their abilities).
If you elect to have officers randomly assigned to uncommanded ships, these officers will be newly created and not taken from the pool. Offers from the pool will only be assigned to ships if done manually by the player. This means that the officer pool can be used as a way to "beach" undesirable officers.
Initially, the ability of an officer will be unknown. With time, his abilities will be apparent. Battle experience will increase the likelihood of abilities becoming known.
Officers will get battle stars, just like ships. Battle stars will combine with ability to determine the effect an officer has on crew quality. Thus, a below average officer with plenty of experience can have a similar effect as an average officer.
Officers might increase or decrease in capability over the time of their career. Eventually, officers will retire.
There are a number of new events involving officers.
PERMANENT/CAMPAIGN DIVISIONSCampaign Divisions can be formed to group ships of the same type together. Ships in divisions will most often fight together in the same division in tactical battles.
There is no requirement to put ships in divisions. If there are no divisions, ships will be pciked according to the logic of the battle generator. However, if you do organise divisions, it is recommended that you orgaise the majority of your ships in divisions. A few independent ships will not hurt though. Similarly, it will not hurt if the ships of a division are moved to different areas, though the ships will of course only fight in battles in the area they are located.
There is a chance/risk that one or more ships in a division will be detached to perform some other role, or be unavailable due to mechanical failures or other reasons.
If a division is of fewer ships than desired, another similar ship may be substituted.
A division can contain from one to five ships. The ships must be of the same type, except that BB and B can be mixed in battle divisions, and CA can be part of BC-divisions. The recommendation is to keep divisions at least three ships strong, otherwise the battle generator will often fill up the divisions with randomly selected ships to get the desirad division strength for the scenario. One ship divisions are largely meaningless.
UPDATE: "BB can now be added to BC-divisions" (There is no speed requirement. If they are too slow, you the player will only create problems for yourself 
) Divisions have an experience rating. In battle, division experience affects signalling, the risk of ships losing contact, fire distribution and spotting. Division experience also has a slight impact on ship crew quality for battle.
Division experience will generally go up over time. Experience will go down when ships in the division are changed, or when the division changes commander.
The first ship in the division is the flagship. Changing the flagship will result in a small decrease in division experience.
In wartime, a division can be scheduled for a division exercise. Division exercises will bring up division experience faster, but a division on exercises will be unavailable for any battles taking place that turn. Designers note: Why are there no division exercises in peacetime? In peacetime, there is no need to hold a unit back from operational service to exercise, so periodic exercises are assumed to be a normal part of peacetime routine.
The ability of the division commander will affect the rate at which division experience is gained, and have a slight effect on the crew quality of ships in the division.
Special abilities of the division commander will have effect in some cases (not all are implemented yet):
A sportsman or disciplinarian will affect all the ships in the division.
A ROF enthusiast will affect the ROF of all ships in the division.
A gunnery expert will improve gunnery in the entire division.
An aggressive or timid commander will affect the tactical behaviour of the division.
A loose cannon can effect any or none of the above.
Note: After ~1940 CL-divisions will tend to be on screen role instead of scout (this will mainly benefit the AI, as you the player will probably rearrange them anyway!).
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