Ship captain as Empire charachter

[Shuul]

I have seen something weird, is it OK to have Ship captains when playing as empire?

Update 1.9.0.10
He appeard after destruction of pirate station, could be that he joined my forces when saw ho effective they are[:D]

Its cool for me, having not only admirals but captains, but it can make some ships very though with 2 bonuses from captain and admiral.

[Shark7]

Perfectly normal. You can even assign captains via mods if you like, and they work in the empire or as pirates.

Bear in mind that all the pirates and empires of the same race share the same characters file, so if you have no pirates of a race, then all the characters (save pirate leaders) should eventually appear in the empire(s) of that race.

[Canute0]

It's just rare that an empire get Ship Captains but not impossible.

[Antiscamp]

Yeah, I've had ship captains in my empires too. I think they should be even more common, actually. They're a great way to personalise fleets and single ships.

[Fenrisfil]

They are handy when they turn up, but they do seem incredibly rare when playing as a normal empire. It's interesting that there is no option in the race file to mod how frequently they turn up.

[Starke]

I've noticed I almost never get them until about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way through my games, at which point I've got multiple fleets kicking around on the offensive, and then Ship Captains come out of the woodwork like craaaaaazy. I think it may be a combination of me having excess ability to support characters thanks to expansion/conquering that hasn't been filled by random character generation, and plenty of combat, which is what triggers Ship Captain creation.