I intentionally moved the Captain's station back from the center because the Captain blocked everyone's view and path to everyone else. I made sure to leave enough room for that door in the back, as well as for people to get through around the seats to access it. I was extremely careful there about just that thing, and am confident that it is not really an issue when looking at the floor plan. In fact, this bridge initially had 2 more seated stations that were pulled to ensure the easy movement of people through this area. Also, this current version of the bridge has volumetric projectors and force fields to where the entire thing can be a display as it is. The GM can define its use pretty freely. The old main display in front is only retained for redundancy purposes.
Your comment about the Captain always being visible and looking over the other two stations' shoulders is an interesting one, and is giving me some thought, but I'm finding it hard for that to justify the change especially when considering that I intentionally put stations there that will involve direct and regular coordination with the CO anyway. One is a piloting and weapons station which can either be overidden by the CO if vacant or the CO can take some of the slack off the pilot (managing point defense and some secondary weapons, etc). As such, they're supposed to work together and coordinate by design. The other station is a 'guest station' for various functions or unforeseen events that is otherwise held by the XO. In other cases a diplomat may be seated there, a member of the Admiralty, or the CO may be shuffled over to this Guest Station for the Admiralty to take center stage.
I'm not trying to knock out all your suggestions,
@Gunsight1 , there's just a specific way I have it set up that uses the recessed CO's seat and coordination with those stations as a
feature. If those officers are a bit nervous about seeing the CO in their peripheral vision, they might just have to get used to it coming with the territory...or they can look straight ahead and get to work. I looked at the angles involved and looked up the field of view for a human (194 degrees), and if they keep their eyes on their station, the CO will be about 25 degrees outside of their peripheral view.
This bridge already storage lockers built into the walls, on either side of any of the console. It has 24 normal-sized drawers and 8 smaller drawers. If you didn't see them, then I succeeded in making them less intrusive looking than on the original.