Sleeping watchstanders

[Target]

Anyone have their crew nod off at their stations for no discernable reason? I'm using TM and spend a lot of time between 1x and 32x TC. I'll be stalking a convoy and all of a sudden I've lost all way and the sonar that was active minutes ago is silent. Go to F7 and the crew on watch are sleeping. No battle stations beforehand, no heavy seas, nothing outside of normal cruising, just a bunch of sleeping crewmen.

[Mush Martin]

To long at battle stations cancel red alert so they can resume normal
rotation

[-Pv-]

Many things contribute to a tired crew:
o Battle Stations active too long
o Damage control active too long
o Cruising on the surface in winds over 8 m/sec for extended periods. Note: if you have waves crashing against or over the bridge, give your crew a rest at PD for a few hours. If really tired you may need a day or two. At 15 m/sec or more, I just stay under and only come up for recharge every 30 hours or so.
o Extended patrols without returning to base.
o Failure of the captain to cycle more alert crew members into important positions when in enemy patrolled waters or in combat.
o Failure of the captain to purchase better qualified crew and cycle out dead beats at base.
o Failure to realize your first crew is green and will not always perform 100%. It takes nearly the whole war before you get a crew that has full capability.

Summary:
In the early war you are leveraging your green crew and dud torpedoes against an inexperienced IJN and a target rich free-for-all in some areas. Also working against you is the weather and the vast distances. You have to be very aggressive so you can expend your torps and return to base before your crew tires out. You also need those sinking renouns to get better crew and equipment to compete against the better crew and equipment being given the enemy by the game as the war progresses.

Later in the war you have very good crew and equipment with many refuel/weapon-load bases but the target densitiy drops dramatically forcing longer patrols (which your crew can now handle because you've carefully built them up.) The destroyers and aircraft are on average more leathal by this time.

-Pv-

[Target]

Nothing is happening (except cruising underwater) and battle stations are secured. I've had this happen to me on the surface in dead calm seas.

Having been part of a ship's company myself I find these excuses for the crew nodding off to be bogus as far as a similation goes (unless they're bugs). Once at your station for whatever reason, drill or non-drill (did a lot of boardings), the crew remained at their stations, and afterwards resumed the regular watch bill. If you were at your station for the 4 hours prior to your watch coming up and stations were secured just as your turn at the helm or the charts started, oh well. Nobody nodded off for any reason, unless incapacitated by seasickness, in which case the rest of us would have even more to do. And as I have read, the generations before me were expected to perform with even less rest and relaxation between watches. Reading 2 Years Before the Mast made my life at sea seem like a pleasure cruise.

So if the whole watch can nod off at a moments notice because the game allows for it,for whatever reason, then that's where the simulation ends. But I expect there's a bug in the case I've described.

[Seadogs]

I get this to (also using TM) not sure why it does it, your starting crew is much greener but yeah, there is something fishy about it. Hitting battlestations and securing it seems to wake the dirtbags up.

[Target]

Aye Seadogs, perhaps they need a taste of the lash across their mutinous hides to snap them out of their sleepiness.

[-Pv-]

Crew Management tutorial---

You can wake up the crew without battle stations (which adds a cost making the crew more tired) by dragging the crew sideways in their compartment as long as it isn't the sleep shift. Dragging a crew within the sleep shift will put them to sleep if they are not and also IF THEY ARE TIRED ENOUGH. Dragging a crew sideways in the compartment in a non-sleep shift will wake up a sleep crew compartment ofr member. If the fatigue stat of the crew is too high, the puter will put the member back to sleep. Moving them out of active crew into the sleep crew or Damage Control will help rest the crew.

Active crew uses the most energy.
Maintenance crew use the next lower energy.
Damage Control uses the next lower.
Sleep shift uses the least energy

How CM works:
It's important to understand how the crew management system works (no matter how much you hate it or think it unrealistic, or you've decided the game isn't worth playing.) If you understand how it works and cooperate with it, you can get rid of the problem of the crew nodding off.

I cannot stress enough the weather factor. Bad weather will keep the crew unrested for days and even when the weather calms. Take note of the "fatigue" stat on the crew members. Depending on which of the three states a crew shift is in, the computer will automatically cycle crew to sleep if they reach over a threashold. Also not the game restore bug at the bottom of this discussion.

I.
The crew shifts cycle I, II, III and back to I in a continious circle every four hours regardless if the crew is tired or not and the time of the change varies less than 15 minutes. The computer will hold off a change for up to 15 minutes past the hour if the next crew in line is very tired.
II.
Unless the crew has an exceptional high fatigue rating, it's always the NEXT crew shift after the current one that is scheduled to sleep. High fatigue will cause ANY crew member of any shift to sleep. The HIGHEST threshold is for the current ACTIVE duty shift. Only the most tired members (depending on their rank/skill/stamina) will be forced to sleep. Because there are many factors I cannot give you hard numbers, but for an average, you can expect the puter to sleep active crew when fatigue is 90% or more. Sometimes less.
The next MEDIUM threshold is for the MAINTENANCE shift (the one just before the active crew in order.) The puter may force them to sleep on average 50-60% fatigue (again these are not hard numbers because each crew member has many factors affecting this.)
The next threshold is the sleep crew (the one next in rotation AFTER active.) The puter will wake them up sometime below 5% fatigue. The puter may not force a crew that is not very fatigued to sleep until the end of the shift period. This is the crew that needs to be watched most closely to make sure the puter puts them to sleep in time to recover. My rule of thumb is if a crew is not asleep in the sleep shift when fatigue is 30% or more by half way though the shift, I put them to sleep manually. Crew who go on duty with 30% or more will be over 60% tired at the end of ACTIVE duty and will lose an additional 5-10% in maintenance cycle which will finally put them to sleep in the sleep cycle with 70% fatigue or more. It takes several sleep cycles to recover this much sleep and never if you again cruise on the surface in high wind.

Notice also the GREY and COLOR portraits:
Grey portraits are crew who are not active and have fatigue 5% or more. Color is for crew who are active OR have fatigue less than 5%. This is a quick way for you to recognize the most rested crew in an emergency so you can put them in the most damaged compartment or on the the most important weapon or sensor when needed.

I make it a point to inspect my crew every shift change to watch for problems.
If I have crew who never makes it under 5% fatigue at the end of the sleep period, I "push" them forward one in the rotation cycle which puts them to sleep again for another 4 hours. This will more often than not recover a really weak member. NEVER move a crew BACKWARD in the rotation. They lose too much sleep.

You can also force an entire compartment or shift to sleep without moving them out of the shift or compartment by dragging them sideways in their compartment. I do this when I see the crew is not asleep when they SHOULD be (they have high fatigue) and they are in the sleep shift. This will make them more alert when they go active, will be less tired when they go into maintenance, and will get more rest on their next sleep shift.

When purchaing crew, take a careful note of their stamina stats and get the best crew you can afford. During the cruise, keep an eye on the experience (nnnn/nnnn) stat. The second number is the HIGHEST that crew member can achieve. It's a good idea to replace crew who have tapped out with those who have more potential.

LAST but not LEAST is a bug.
If you save after a storm and your ACTIVE crew is not rested with around 20% fatigue or less, upon restoring the game, the active crew will have their stamina cut in half. This could even cause a crew to restore with 99% fatigue. If not rested immediately, their health rating will start to go down. It takes a very long time to recover a crew this tired and can only be done submerged and many sleep cycles. One way to help lessen the effect of this is have the crew submerged for up to an hour before the save and place as many crew as possible to sleep. This will restore the crew while in a partial rest cycle and reduce (but not eliminate) the game restore hit.

The Crew Management system is designed to provide a MINIMUM crew support when left to itself. If the captain takes an active interest in the crew and performs the suggestions provided, you can enhance the system thereby obtaining a reserve stamina for those times you need to push the crew to the limit.

I didn't write the game, but I still enjoy it. Call it a personality fault.

-Pv-

[Ducimus]

Aside from PVs excellent advice, is this where all 3 rotations are at low effieicency? If this is what i think it is, it usually occurs after loading a game. Im not exactly sure how its caused, but i beleive this has always been a systemic stock issue. Ive heard that calling battle stations and securing again resolves this particular issue.

[-Pv-]

My experience has been so far is the active and maintenance crew take the biggest hit at restore time, with the active crew taking the larger hit. Also what I see is the BS will wake up the crew, but the most tired crew take an additional hit raising their fatigue even more. A different set of crew will be tagged for rest after the BS and will spoil any rest cycle I have set up to optimise the crew.

The only positive reason I've seen for using the BS at all is when damaged to speed up repair.
-Pv-