The Captain determines the ship that the crew will be flying on, and its layout, before the game begins; as such, each airship will only have one captain. Captains have a designated slot in the top of the ship in the lobby screen. Therefore, a match is not permitted to go underway until all captain slots in a match have been filled up, and each ship has at least one crew member aboard.
If the captain leaves the ship during the match, his authority goes to the next member of the crew on the list, but unfortunately not all functions work correctly in this case. A player joining an empty captain’s seat in match take all authority .
An empty ship in the lobby screen, with the captain designated slot on the top.
The Captain's Class
While the Captain is not barred from being able to use the airship's weapons or repair its components, their role as the captain usually means that they are also the pilot, and therefore manning the helm. However, it is possible for a captain to be a gunner or an engineer if desired, though this is unusual in practice.
Captain Privileges
Helm Priority
Captains have the unique privilege to take the helm away from a member of their crew at any time, for their own use. However like any other member on the ship he can't push human crew members off guns.
Captain Chat
All captains have access to a special 'Captains Only' voice communication channel (default key C), which is there with the intention to be used to coordinate with the other captains on their team. The existence of this chat, further encourages the use of the captain slot by a pilot (or at least by the player who flies the ship).
Priority Marker (Captain’s Spot, Captain Mark)
A practice dummy marked by the captain priority mark (outdated version).
The captain is able to use a ship priority marker (default key B). By hovering over an enemy ship with his cursor, the captain can mark priority targets - both for his AI crew members to shoot and for his human crew to interpret as the current target, and even for captains of ally ships. The mark has points that indicate that allied ships have activated it at the current moment. Mark duration is only 10 seconds, it's possible to drop mark with next use and reactivate it for full period again.
Due to the fact that the spotting tools are usually absent to obtain the maximum number of the helm tools, the mark is often used to designate new contacts and maintain current ones in visiblity, rather than directly indicating the target of the highest priority.
Ship Spawn
As the ship dies, and is waiting for the timer to allow it to spawn, only the captain may choose the spawn location of the ship. If not selected, after a set period of time the ship will be spawned at random at one of the available spots.
AI Behavior Priority
The captain is able to set crew bot's priority scenario (default keys is F1-F2-F3) in addition to "V" wheel command from the helm. F1 is default behavior, F2 for attack only (include guns repair) and F3 for repair only. Must be re-set after spawn.
Surrender
Surrender takes place in the case when all team captains have indicated their decision through the main menu.