[REQ] Old Style SH3 & SH4 Crew Management
 

One of my favorite aspects of SH3 and SH4 was the crew management screen. The entire crew of the boat was accurately depicted. Different crew members had different skills and ratings. They all had unique names and historically accurate ranks which was a very immersive element as far as subsims go.
One of my favorite parts of returning to port after a patrol was the ability to hand out medals to my crew based on the success of that patrol. There were even mods out that showed the medals on the actual crew members in game. (unrealistic but cool nonetheless) All crew members gained experience based on their performance at sea and they were replaceable through a hiring pool of new personnel.
With the current SH5 it seems as if all of these cool and engaging features have gone by the wayside in favor of a much leaner and less interactive crew management element. Im not sure if its even possible but I would love to see the old "entire crew" element merged with the new officer interaction element. And someone please!! Bring back crew medals. I miss rewarding my crew upon successful completion of a patrol. And my crew members do a better job during patrol knowing they will have some tin on their chests to brag about when they get back home to the Reich.

Danke und Sieg!

vonTorpitz

I suppose I'm in the opposite camp, I always felt weird in SH3 giving out medals to non-descript basic crewmen. For instance, I kept getting hung up on: what did that one particular dude do to earn it? My imagination just can't make up that leap, perhaps other imaginations can.

So for me I like the current system with officers only, but hey if it can be modded to get the old crew system I'm all for it.

Do agree though that whatever system is used there should be more of an opportunity to award medals rather than XP only.

Point taken. Although, from what I remember in SH4, for example, if you had to choose two crewmen to man the AA gun, you would be able to choose two crewmwn with gunnery skill 85/100, over less able crewmen with a score of say, 25/100 in gunnery. Moreover, if you kept using the same two excellent gunners and they shot down numerous aircraft on patrol, their experience would shoot up, more than if they had remained idle during the attack. These men obviously deserve medals. Same with torpedo room crew and the rest of the crew throughout the boat.
As an added note, with the accumulation of experience for specific crewmembers tied to their direct action in combat on patrol, the u-boat commander is given the ability to improve his mediocre crewmembers through "on the job training".

Just a rant, sorry but....

For wanting this game to be more RPG like, they left out the crew part.
They should gain experience for being gunners and such, but this new way of doing things is crap. They would have been better off useing a mix of 3 and 4, but noooooooo.

EDIT :
{ I deleted about 6 paragraghs of pure rant to save you guys from reading it. It was a list of good and bad points from 3,4 and 5's management. 5's is a joke to me.}

END EDIT:

AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!! this is one of the most screwed up parts of the game.
The more I think about it the more angry I get.

im all for issuing medals to my crew at the end of each mission, infact if there was a particular 'stuff up' i reckon a court-marshal or lugar option should be in there too! i think thats what an actual sub commander would do [well, not the lugar bit].

what is a truly bad joke is the notion that performing a task is linked to morale.

If there were the " Luger Option " half those son's a b....'s would have been shot a LONG time ago. Or atleast name them all Bernard, so we know what to expect them to do.
I guess my main gripe is that I care even less about my crew now than I did before. Eventhough the chit-chat with officers is supposed to make you have an interest in them, I could care less to findout whow the kids are when we are being depthcharged and I'm trying to get you to stop the leaking, only to have them tell me NO.

:nope: X 10 +:damn: = SH5 on the point of crew management.

I'm in favor the Luger option for Ubisoft's team, and Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds for the SH modding community. But really I must stay on topic. The crew management thing would really improve this game on a fundamental level. The nuts and bolts AI, GUI,and mathematical/ technical issues are already well on their way to being worked out, along with several excellent graphics improvements. The real glaring issues in this game, however (crew management, ridiculous campaign style, unbelievably bug ridden damage model) are still untrodden ground, both in forum threads and actual mod fixes.

i would like to see this beeing modded! also started a thread about this topic...

Yeah, I know it's a small thing, and mostly exists in my imagination, but I always looked forward to returning to port and handing out medals :)
in sh5, I'm always sort of bored when I get back, especially after a great patrol. It's like, "wait, why am I sinking these ships? It doesn't matter and no one even seems to care!"
medals back. The crew deserves them.

I hope with the release of the second patch we begin to see the start of the inevitable megamods that are coming.:yeah:

to be quite honoust , i really dont believe the game engine will support a crew management as with sh-3/4 . But it would be great if it would.

And on top of that, would it be possible to mod in the missing crew members. I thought historically (and I think it says somewhere in the game) that the submarine had a crew of 51 men typically. However, I've looked through the sub and can only count twenty something men (I think it was either 21 or 23 men in total). Is it possible to add in the missing crew? (and make them manageable).

The other thing that I've noticed is that the hydroplane operators seem to leave their station and join the deck watch. I may be wrong, but I thought it was standard practice at the time to have the planes constantly manned in case of an emergency dive?

51 would be a bit high for a VII. A number in the mid 40s would be accurate.

It is possible to add additional crew members. I've got as far as getting them to show up in the sub, but haven't got them fully funtional yet. The problem is finding where to put them. Given the waypoints and animations available, there's really just no unused spots to put them other than having them just loiter in the passageway. Untill/unless we figure out how to add waypoints, it's not really practical to add crewmen.

I've done a bit of research on crew stations and having the hydroplane operators be the bridge crew when on the surface is correct. In case of a crash dive, the ballast operator would step over and hit full down on the planes.

Yup! http://uboat.net/fates/losses/1941.htm

What's interesting about that link is how many boats had a half-sized (SH5 sized!) crew. Quite a few 24-28 man boats on that list. Odd.