Can you force a watch/shift change?

[Tobowsi]

OK, so I found a convoy and put a torpedo into a large old split freighter. Its bow is awash and the ship is barely creeping along, falling further and further behind the main body. An escort has fallen back a bit to keep an eye on the freighter. I'm following the freighter, waiting for the ship to either sink or for the escort to give up and leave the freighter behind, where I'll then surface and finish the poor thing off with my deck gun.

I'm cruising along at 1/3 when my speed drops to zero. I try reissuing the "ahead 1/3" command and am told "cannot comply". I try another command, this time the silent running command, and am again told "cannot comply". Having seen this kind of thing happen in SH3, I look at the crew management screen, where I then notice this:

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/2076/293200701021203rt6.jpg


The current watch is asleep???? What??

(I typically don't go to battle stations unless I need a lot of torpedoes in short succession or I expect an attack and may need everyone on duty for damage control.)

I tried going to battle stations (where at least that lower line ended up having awake crew members and status bars to the sides) but when I secured the crew from battle stations/general quarters, the third watch still showed the same thing.

Have any of you ran into this and/or do you know if it's possible to force a change in the watch?

From the screen above, it looked like the second watch should be the active one and the first and third should be asleep. (The second may have been the active one, but when it went from second to third shift, those crew members apparently decided to sleep in a bit.)

[irishred]

Running at GQ for too long will really fatigue your crew fast.

[Tobowsi]

Yes, it can, but I haven't run at GQ at all during this patrol (until I used it try to cycle the third watch into waking up).

[vodkavera]

How the h*ll do you get people to the "Damage control team"?
Do "buy" them when docked in port or what, ´cause I can´t drag them there while at sea.......I think.

/VV

[Tobowsi]

How the h*ll do you get people to the "Damage control team"?
Do "buy" them when docked in port or what, ´cause I can´t drag them there while at sea.......I think.

Yeah, I spent renown to acquire those crew members while docked before a patrol and assigned them to the DC team. It's on the crew screen where you give the promotions and medals. It's the other option with the names on the left and you drag and drop from there to the DC team over on the right. Just keep an eye on the renown (listed for each potential crew member) because you're not asked "are you sure" before the assignment is made and your renown is gone.

[Aisdad]

Move each of your crewmembers individually from the most rested watch to replace the fatigued watch.

[Tobowsi]

So you can't force the second watch (for example) to go on duty, but have to individually reassign all two dozen of the crew members from that watch to the third watch? Ugh. That's a pain.

So has anyone else had an entire watch be asleep (and stay asleep) when it became their turn to go on duty?

[Tarnish_UK]

While you can move men between watches I've found there's no point. The watches are already set to change automatically when required so under normal circumstances the only moves I may need to make are to put men into damage control while I need them there and then move them back to their original watch positions once the need for D.C. is over. The crew for the most part can be left to look after themselves, that is after all the whole point of the watch system in the first place.

[Front Runner]

The current watch is asleep???? What??



They should all be court martialed for sleeping on watch!

[Psyon]

when i load a game, this happens to me around 50% of the time. but instead, the whole crew is asleep:nope:

nothing works except moving them around. battle sations, silent running etc, does not bring em back to life..


when it happens like you experienced, moving them around works. it would be nice to be able to move whole sections at a time..