[REL] Realistic Crew Configs (For All Boats)

[LukeFF]

Realistic Crew Configs 1.2
===================


-DESCRIPTION:

This mod reconfigures the starting crew for all playable submarines in SH4. The stock crew configs are pretty close to reality, but there were a few errors, such as officers standing watch in locations where they shouldn't be. The crew configurations are based on real-world crew lists and other research conducted into looking at the duties of crewmen on board the submarines. The main changes are:

-Removal of officers from the engine rooms and the sensors station.
-Addition of one torpedo officer to the larger fleet boats.
-Removal of all crew from the deck gun and flak guns.
-Addition of Chief Petty Officers to the command room and the bow torpedo room.
-Reconfiguration of the watch crew and sensors stations.
-Addition of crew to the Damage Control Team. This represents the cooks and medical personnel on board the boat who would naturally assist in damage repair, should the need arise. Or, if you prefer, you can pull a Doris Miller and use guys from here for the deck and flak guns. :D


-ISSUES:

-None noted at this time.

-INSTALLATION:

JSGME Ready. For manual installation, extract the NSS_***.upc files to /Data/Submarine/NSS***, Crewmembers.upc to /Data/UPCData/UPCCrewData, and UnitParts****.upc to /Data/Submarine/UPCData/UPCUnitsData

-COMPATABILITY:

Tested only on 1.2, but there shouldn't be any issues using this with earlier versions of the game.

-CHANGE LOG:

1.1: changed radar operator position back to a Petty Officer position. Further research has revealed that sailors selected for radar training were immediately promoted to Seaman First Class, and upon completion of their schooling they were promoted to the rank of Radio Technician Second Class and transfered to active duty.

1.2 further adjustments based on extensive research into real-world crew lists and the duties of the crew.

NEW VERSION COMING WITH THE NEXT RELEASE OF RFB

[tedhealy]

Excellent:rock:

Now we just need a way to automatically cut 1/3 of the crew after a patrol to sim transfers :D

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice work:yep:

RDP

[U-Bones]

Nice work, I have been waitin on this one.

FYI, the ZIP file has a very confusing directory structure and some extra stuff. Probably worth a repost to avoid issues.

[LukeFF]

FYI, the ZIP file has a very confusing directory structure and some extra stuff. Probably worth a repost to avoid issues.

???

What extra stuff and confusing directory structure are you talking about? I just re-checked the file, and it looks fine to me.

[Iceberg]

FYI, the ZIP file has a very confusing directory structure and some extra stuff. Probably worth a repost to avoid issues.
???

What extra stuff and confusing directory structure are you talking about? I just re-checked the file, and it looks fine to me.
I think he means the empty directories in your archive.

You have 2 empty folders (a "Data" and a "Submarine" folder) at the same level as your "Realistic Crew Configs" in the zip file.

Oh and one note. Maybe you should say it is compatible with 1.2 and older instead of later (older would be 1.1 and later would be 1.3)

[perisher]

Excellent:rock:

Now we just need a way to automatically cut 1/3 of the crew after a patrol to sim transfers :D

Agreed excellent Mod.

As for crew rotation, I have them cut cards after each patrol. After I award medals but before I make promotions. Not a mod but a solution never the less.

[LukeFF]

I think he means the empty directories in your archive.

You have 2 empty folders (a "Data" and a "Submarine" folder) at the same level as your "Realistic Crew Configs" in the zip file.

That's strange. Maybe it has something to do with the ZIP utility one uses, because I sure don't get that on my end here. (I use PowerArchiver).

[CaptainCox]

I think he means the empty directories in your archive.

You have 2 empty folders (a "Data" and a "Submarine" folder) at the same level as your "Realistic Crew Configs" in the zip file.

That's strange. Maybe it has something to do with the ZIP utility one uses, because I sure don't get that on my end here. (I use PowerArchiver).Yea noticed that to, wont effect the mod but.

[Alex]

Great mod... Just use Winrar or 7-zip. :up:

[hmatthias]

Thanks for posting this! I am going to start a new career with this mod this weekend. I loved the S-Class one you did, and it really got me into the whole "realism factor" that this game has, but is hidden with bad default crew assignments.

[tater]

Yeah, this is awesome. We need to get some plain text guidelines for how many guys to transfer, etc.

[ZaPPPa]

As for crew rotation, I have them cut cards after each patrol. After I award medals but before I make promotions. Not a mod but a solution never the less.
Good idea. I'll roll some dice or use a random number generator next time I start a career and then dismiss the member who's number comes up.

[tater]

Hey, is there any control of the replacement crew screen? I'm thinking in terms of how many men are offered and what specialties. We can't force 1/3 the crew off the boat in favor of new crew, but perhaps the array of possible replacement crew could be dropped to exactly the number/type required if the right % was transferred off the boat.

Ie: you get to port, and go to the transfer crew screen. The choices on the left would be 2 officers, 1 CPO, 1 Petty Officer, 18 men (or whatever). That'd be a nice reminder of exactly how many people and what kinds I should give the boot each patrol.

[LukeFF]

Yeah, this is awesome. We need to get some plain text guidelines for how many guys to transfer, etc.
The mandatory replacement of 1/3 of the crew after each patrol wasn't always followed, at least up to mid-1942. Samuel Eliot Morison writes in Volume 4 of his History of United States Naval Operations in World War II:

Comsubpac planned to relieve one third of each crew after each patrol, but many skippers and thier men were reluctanct to comply. The men would volunteer to stay in a boat they knew, and one which would eventually get a Stateside overhaul; the skippers natually liked to keep trained sailors.
So, at least early on, I would say something less than 1/3, say, somewhere around 1/10 might be more realistic.

[hmatthias]

Another quick question. I see you decided to keep permanent crew in the gunnery positions. Was this a historical decision? Not sure if submarines had permanent gun crews or not, and can't find any reference to prove or disprove this.

Also (from other forum), where is the dedicated DC party? :D

[castorp345]

this is outstanding, Luke... many thanks for this great mod!

a question though: if i understand my source readings correctly, shouldn't the diveplanes be manned by members of the deck watch? and if that is in fact the case, might it then be possible to simply remove the two seamen in each watch from the diveplane stations in the control room and have the user manually transfer the seamen on deck watch to the diveplane stations (sort of an issuing of the order "lookouts below!")?

cheers
hc

[LukeFF]

Another quick question. I see you decided to keep permanent crew in the gunnery positions. Was this a historical decision? Not sure if submarines had permanent gun crews or not, and can't find any reference to prove or disprove this.

Also (from other forum), where is the dedicated DC party? :D
Likewise, I've not found any evidence one way or the other that suggests whether there were dedicated gunnery crews on board the boats, so I've left it as-is.

The DC party is on shore leave back in Hawaii. :smug:

[LukeFF]

a question though: if i understand my source readings correctly, shouldn't the diveplanes be manned by members of the deck watch? and if that is in fact the case, might it then be possible to simply remove the two seamen in each watch from the diveplane stations in the control room and have the user manually transfer the seamen on deck watch to the diveplane stations (sort of an issuing of the order "lookouts below!")?
I've not read anything like that, but it is an interesting idea. If you want to mod this yourself, do the following (using the Gato as an example):

-Open NSS_Gato.upc
-Do a search for "Command Room Crew"
-Look for the lines that say: "IDLinkCrewMember= NR4" and "IDLinkCrewMember= NR12" (take note of the space between the equals sign and the ID type)
-Replace the "NR4" and "NR12" text with "NULL"
-Save and Exit
-Done!

[Beery]

Great stuff! If it's okay with you I'll get this plugged into RFB ASAP.

[LukeFF]

Great stuff! If it's okay with you I'll get this plugged into RFB ASAP.

You've got the green light. :yep:

[LukeFF]

A thought I've come across:

In reality all crewmembers from all compartments of the boat would man battlestations when the time called for it. With that thought in mind, what do people think about adding 3-4 men to the damage control team, simulating those non-combatant positions on board that would naturally help out in the case of an emergency? I could do this fairly quickly and easily, plugging in guys with low skill levels across the board, but something like this would have to wait until I come back from my National Guard drill in 3 weeks.

[castorp345]

a question though: if i understand my source readings correctly, shouldn't the diveplanes be manned by members of the deck watch?
I've not read anything like that,

Capt'n Beach makes reference to this aspect of doctrine/procedure several times in Run Silent, Run Deep and Dust on the Sea ('will provide direct citations if there's interest)... also, if memory serves, this was the practice on >die deutsche u-boote<...

in any event, thanks for the info re: a solution and, of course again, your fantastic mod!

cheers
hc

[perisher]

According to James Calvert, in Silent Running, the duty lookouts, when ordered below, took over the planes.

As for a damage control party I use one engine room watch (the other two watch sections are more than enough to run the engines) and some of the lookouts.

[Mav87th]

Has anyone applied this mod to a running campaign in sea with success??

My first attempt resulted in (perhaps not) the campaign save i loaded got corrupted. Either that or it just were corupt from the start. SO did anyone experience similair problems?

[U-Bones]

Has anyone applied this mod to a running campaign in sea with success??

My first attempt resulted in (perhaps not) the campaign save i loaded got corrupted. Either that or it just were corupt from the start. SO did anyone experience similair problems?

I would certainly not attempt to implement this mod while at sea. Pretty sure the saved state of your boat will clash rudely with what this mod does.

It is a good general rule to not mod while at sea unless you know every changed file is totally dynamic and runtime in nature.

[Beery]

Yeah, loading this mod while at sea will definitely cause problems, because in effect what you're doing is removing a lot of space on the boat that was being used before by the crew. Suddenly the crew can't find anywhere to sit and the ones that lose the game of musical chairs rebel and crash your game for you.

Basically the rule of thumb is: whenever installing a mod or an official patch, finish all patrols first. The only way to be really safe is to end all ongoing careers before installing new mods/patches.

The good news is that if you use JSGME you'll be able to uninstall the mod, finish your patrol then re-install the mod again.

[Brigs]

Thanks for this mod.....nice add to the 'immersion factor' when getting my crew ready to go on a patrol.


Question: When installing with JSGME, I get this message.....

"UnitParts1Gato.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts2Porpoise.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts3Balao.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts4SClass.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts5Salmon.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts6Sargo.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts7Tambor.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.

Is it ok to install over top of the 'Invuln Con' mod, or will it mess something up ?

Thanks

[U-Bones]

Thanks for this mod.....nice add to the 'immersion factor' when getting my crew ready to go on a patrol.


Question: When installing with JSGME, I get this message.....

"UnitParts1Gato.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts2Porpoise.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts3Balao.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts4SClass.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts5Salmon.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts6Sargo.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.
"UnitParts7Tambor.upc" has already been altered by the "Invuln Con" mod.

Is it ok to install over top of the 'Invuln Con' mod, or will it mess something up ?

Thanks
Major conflict. These mods need to be manually merged.

Invun Con will be completely overwritten by the new crews, those listed filed are the mod in its entirety. No harm done, but Invun Con is lost.

If you change load order, you will lose any changes to the crew in the watch or guns. Probability of messing somethng else up is much higher.

[Brigs]

Got ya Bones.....and thanks yet again for the assist.

[Brigs]

Mission accomplished.

Got the files merged, and all appears to be well. So I now have a realistic looking crew on my boat, and all 12 watchmen don't get wounded at the same time when a depth charge goes off nearby. Good stuff.

Now, if my crew could ever bring themselves to actually hitting something with a torpedo.....well, that would be cause for a real party.....but that's a different story. :doh:

[LukeFF]

Link to the updated version of this mod has been posted in my original post. Research has revealed that sailors selected for radar training were immediately promoted to Seaman First Class, and upon completion of their schooling they were promoted to the rank of Radio Technician Second Class and transfered to active duty.

[LukeFF]

Upon looking at this matter further, I think I need to make further tweaks to this mod. More research has shown the following:

-USS Cod, a Gato class boat, had a total of 11 junior enlisted sailors at the time of its commissioning in 1943. All but one were Seamen 2nd Class (the other was a S1c). Total number of enlisted personnel was 69.

-USS S-44 had a total of 8 junior enlisted sailors on board at the time it was sunk in 1943. Five were Seamen 1st Class, three were Seamen 2nd Class. Total number of enlisted personnel was 53.

Both of these are good resources to use, since they both come from the middle of the war and thus avoid any extremes that can come with using data from either very early or very late in the conflict.

With that said, the upcoming mod (which will hopefully be the last one needed) will have the following adjustments:

-Petty Officer and Sailor numbers re-adjusted.
-"Non-combatants" added in. These sailors will take up slots in the Damage Control team, to represent their place on the boat and usefulness when performing damage control. After all, all men selected for submarine service underwent thorough training in damage control before being sent out to sea.

Hopefully this all won't take too long and will have this knocked out before the end of the day today. I really want to get this done tonight, since I'm back to working my 24-shift job tomorrow.

Watch this space for more updates. ;)

[Beery]

Sounds great! Looking forward to even more realism here. :up:

[LukeFF]

Sounds great! Looking forward to even more realism here. :up:

Yep, this is going to look drastically different from my first attempt. By and large, the dev team did get the starting crew configs right. I didn't think there was such a huge amount of petty officers on board U.S. submarines, but apparently I was wrong.

[CaptainCox]

Great stuff. Anything that makes this game more historically correct is a win!

[LukeFF]

Just a little update: I won't be able to finish all my changes tonight, but I should have it all wrapped up by the end of this weekend. I never thought that U.S. submarines carried so many POs as part of their crew, but the historical evidence was there for the seeing. The final result of this mod will be not so drastic as the first release but will be very close to historical reality.

[Beery]

Just a little update: I won't be able to finish all my changes tonight, but I should have it all wrapped up by the end of this weekend. I never thought that U.S. submarines carried so many POs as part of their crew, but the historical evidence was there for the seeing. The final result of this mod will be not so drastic as the first release but will be very close to historical reality.

Great! Looking forward to getting this. With this and my new names mod in place the crew is going to look perfect.

[Julius Caesar]

Great stuff!!! :up:

Do you think it would be possible to disable option to add, for example, officer to flak gun?

[MudMarine]

LukkFF,
Your mod compatable with Berry's RFB mod?

[LukeFF]

Mudmarine,

Yes, the mod is compatible with RFB and is in fact already part of the mod. However, based on extensive research, I have found that the original setups I used were way off the mark. For instance, on average, there were only 10 junior enlisted sailors (the Seamen ranks), and they were (from what I've seen) all 2nd or 1st Class Seamen. My final version of the mod will take all of this into account.

Julius Casesar,

Sadly, no, from what I've seen there is no way to prevent an officer from using the flak guns. I really hate this, because the setup we have in SH3 works great. In that case we had limited numbers of officers, petty officers, and seamen, so it kept the balance of crewmen correct.

[MudMarine]

LukeFF,
I thank you for your reply. Is this compatable to Officer and enlisted rank mod?

[LukeFF]

LukeFF,
I thank you for your reply. Is this compatable to Officer and enlisted rank mod?

If that's one of mine, then yes, it is.

[LukeFF]

Update: I've sorted out where all the crewmen should go, based on rank and rating. This will be the standard setup for the fleet boats, with small variations for boats that have fewer slots for torpedo crew, such as the Porpoise. The boat shown here is the 1944 Balao:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/LukeFF/SH4Img26-5-2007_23.jpg

In this photo you will notice four (should be five, actually) crewmen in the Damage Control slots. This is intentional and is intended to represent the presence of the Yeoman, Ship's Cook, and Pharmacist's Mate ratings. As these are all fall under "deck" ratings I drew these POs from the watch speciality.

The source for this setup was the crew list of the USS Corvina, a Gato class boat lost on its first patrol. Next up is the S-Class boats!

[LukeFF]

And the S-Class:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/LukeFF/SH4Img27-5-2007_2.jpg

So, now that I have everything in order it's only a matter of time to wrap this all up. Hopefully I'll be done with it all in a couple days, due to work and the holiday weekend. :sunny:

[Beery]

Looking forward to this!

[bruschi sauro]

Good Work Mate:::

[LukeFF]

Thanks guys!

I'm going to have to tweak a few things to the crew list, which means the final version of this probably won't be out for a few more days, but I will get it done.

[Beery]

Thanks guys!

I'm going to have to tweak a few things to the crew list, which means the final version of this probably won't be out for a few more days, but I will get it done.

No problem. Take your time. :up:

[Bando]

Love you guys:up: :up: :up:

[LukeFF]

Update: I've sorted out the crew distribution for the fleet boats. There will be two styles I use for these boats - one for the early fleet boats such as the Porpoise and one for the larger ones such as the Balao. The early boats have fewer torpedo room slots due to the lesser number of tubes, so this affects how the crewmen are assigned. Plus, it just adds more variety to the mod. The next step will be plugging in these values into the appropriate files, and then I'll move on to the S-Class boats.

For those who are interested, the following boats with their final crew are being used for this mod:


Larger fleet boats: USS Corvina (SS-226), lost with all hands on 16 November 1943. She is likely the only American submarine to be sunk by a Japanese submarine during the entire course of the war.
Smaller fleet boats: USS Perch (SS-176), sunk on 3 March 1942, all crew captured.
S-Class boats: USS S-44 (SS-155), sunk on October 7, 1943. All but two crewmen subsequently perished.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Great work :up: LukeFF

RDP

[LukeFF]

Update: Final Version of 1944 Balao:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v258/LukeFF/Balao1944.jpg

Some new features incorporated into this mod:

Ranks of petty officers and officers adjusted to more accurately reflect those on real-world boats.
Officer added to bow torpedo room in the larger fleet boats. In reality, the commander would assign an officer to the torpedo rooms to supervise torpedo operations.
Removed deck gun and flack gun crew. Now, if you want the deck gun and flack guns manned by the AI, you will have to pull crewmen off other stations in order to fill these slots. In reality, there were only two Gunner's Mate-rated crewmen on board just about all types of fleet boats, and they stood watch just like the rest of the crew in "regular," full-time compartments.
Crewmen for the Damage Control team. As mentioned before, this represents the cooks and medical personnel aboard the boat who naturally would assist in damage repair should the situation arise.

[LukeFF]

Version 1.2 is up. Unless someone finds something that needs to be changed, this is the final version of this mod. :smug:

[CaptainCox]

Nice one LukeFF, got it and installed it!:up:

[Galanti]

Great work!

Is there any way to reduce the amount of starting skills / abilities the crew members begin with? I'd like to start with more inexperienced, rookie crew so I can get more satisfaction out of promtions and awards. They seem to sart with pretty solid qualifications to begin with.

[LukeFF]

Is there any way to reduce the amount of starting skills / abilities the crew members begin with? I'd like to start with more inexperienced, rookie crew so I can get more satisfaction out of promtions and awards. They seem to sart with pretty solid qualifications to begin with.

Sure, if you don't mind doing some editing. Open up CrewMembers.upc and look for text under each type of crewmen that will look similiar to this (there are 50 of them in all):

IntelligenceCoef= 0.5
LeadershipCoef= 0.15
MechanicalCoef= 0.3
ElectricsCoef= 0.3
GunsCoef= 0.3
WatchmanCoef= 0.3

The lower the number, the less experience the crewman will have when starting out on his first patrol. So, say you wanted a really inexperienced man in the engine room, you would change the 0.3 to 0.15.

Basically, these are the prefixes used for each crewman listed in that file:

NR: junior-enlisted sailors
PO: junior petty officers (2nd and 3rd Class)
HPO: senior petty officers (1st Class)
CPO: chief petty officers
OFF: officers

And the suffixes:

Torp: Torpedomen
Eng: Enginemen
Comm: Command Room Men
Sensor: Sonar and Radar operators
Watch: Watch crew
Guns: Deck and flack gun crew

If you have any more questions, just let me know.

[goose814]

LukeFF,

First, thanks for this mod. It makes it nice having the sub crewed correctly from the get go. I have a question though. I am slightly altering the crew based on some research I've been doing on the USS Cod's crew config for all 7 of her war patrols and was wondering where the deck watch crew assignments were located at. Looking through the NSS_Gato.upc file, I see all the compartment assignments except for the deck watch. If you could direct me, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Gus

[LukeFF]

First, thanks for this mod. It makes it nice having the sub crewed correctly from the get go. I have a question though. I am slightly altering the crew based on some research I've been doing on the USS Cod's crew config for all 7 of her war patrols and was wondering where the deck watch crew assignments were located at. Looking through the NSS_Gato.upc file, I see all the compartment assignments except for the deck watch. If you could direct me, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
Hi Gus,

The crew configs for the deck watch are in /Data/UPCData/UPCUnitsData. In the case of the Gato you will want to edit UnitParts1Gato.UPC. There will be three different sets of crew configs for the deck watch in that file - one for early war, one for mid war, and one for late war, so make sure you edit all three. That was really frustrating me until I took a closer look at the file! :D

[goose814]

Thankyou very much. That helps alot.

Gus

[Prientje]

the link dont work...

[Alan]

Nope,,,Link Dead....:down:

[AVGWarhawk]

This will be coming out with the next installment of RFB (real fleet boat) that Luke is a team member on. Hopefully in a week or so it will be ready. All submarines have been reworked by Luke:up:

[Alan]

Thanks AV. looking forward to this..:rock:

[AkbarGulag]

Freaky, I just sent a message to Luke for this. Is there no longer a standalone of this?

[Mav87th]

Hey Luke

I took a look at the 1944 Balao sub USS TANG's 5th patrol crew list. There seems to be many more officers then in your mod. Is that because Tang was "overcrewed" or is the mod not correct in that boat/era ?

[swdw]

The initial files Luke posted are being reworked by him. There were some problems he caught and that may be why he pulled the file.

At one point he was working like a fiend an putting out an update almost every other day for RFB as he updated the boats one at a time or discovered something with feedback. There is still fine tuning of the files going on.

LukeFF likes to turn out good quality work, so give him some time.;)

[LukeFF]

Like swdw said, I've updated the files for this mod a lot since I initially released them. Once I get them how I want to for the RFB mod, I will release a standalone version here in this thread.

BTW, if you want to know which crew rosters I am using, here they are:
S boats: USS S-44 ( http://www.oldsubsplace.com/S-44.htm )
Porpoise, Salmon, Sargo: USS Swordfish ( http://www.oldsubsplace.com/USS%20Swordfish.htm )
Gar, Tambor, Gato, Balao: USS Corvina ( http://www.oldsubsplace.com/USS%20Corvina.htm )
Type IXD2: U-1229 ( http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-1229INT.htm )
Type XVIII: U-2502 ( http://www.ubootwaffe.net/crews/crews.cgi?uquery=1;boatnum=2502 )

[gimpy117]

Excellent:rock:

Now we just need a way to automatically cut 1/3 of the crew after a patrol to sim transfers :D

lol yeah....ive kept the same guys since 1941 and it's 1944...with 1,000,000+ tons, they all are junior grade Lt's (when i say all i mean like 80%)

[virtualpender]

Luke, any chance of the standalone being released? As an alternative, are there files we can "borrow" from RFB and use with TMO to make your crew config work with that mod?

Thanks in advance.

[LukeFF]

Luke, any chance of the standalone being released? As an alternative, are there files we can "borrow" from RFB and use with TMO to make your crew config work with that mod?

Eek...the problem is that these files cover so much more than just crew rosters, and multiple files are involved. If you want to just borrow files from RFB, copy over the UPC files from the /Data/Submarine folder, the UPCUnitsData folder (the ones that reference submarines) and the UPCCrewData folder.

[virtualpender]

I figured that was a long shot...

Thanks for the reply!

[DyerStraights]

Probably just my eyes this morning, but I can't seem to find a link to that crew mod. What am I missing here?