questions about crew system

[jiduthie]

Just have a few questions for you more experienced commanders out there. I run GWX if that makes a difference here.

What is the effect of having a fully efficient crew in the engine compartments? More efficiency means less use of fuel or batteries? Obviously the engines don't work if there isn't enough people in there but other than that the effects aren't clear to me.

Same question in regards to the conning tower and sonar/radio rooms. Will I actually spot or hear ships more readily with a fully efficient compartment? And what exactly does an experienced radio operator do? Does his contribution to compartment efficiency affect hydrophones?

The whole thing with the crews is a bit dissapointing to me because as the system stands now it provides quite a bit of annoyance without any clear rewards. It seems that crew management has the potential for raising immersion quite a bit in a game like this but generally it just provides an impetus to stay above 32x TC as often as possible to avoid having to deal with it.

I remember playing x-com and how much having names and statistics for your units added to the experience. Taking a rookie and having him advance to a highly skilled soldier meant alot both in concrete terms and in immersion. To have your experts needlessly killed meant relying on the more unreliable.

The ability to promote and award your crew yourself rather than having the game do it for you, as in x-com, seemed exciting to me but in this system they never seem do anything tangible except cheat for you at low realism settings, so I end up promoting and decorating in order to give them better abilities rather than for recognizing their abilities. Disappointing.

[Hadrys]

so I end up promoting and decorating in order to give them better abilities rather than for recognizing their abilities. Disappointing.

In my opinion the only thing that has real impact in torpedo room - nearly full crew with officer and 2 bootsman makes a huge difference in torpedo load times. Rest of compartments just need to meet enough to work. For sonar/funk station I use only one man - a medic... and it works great.

Now all I do is simple roleplay. Longer repair times mod changes a little bit crew management and fatigue, it is more realistic but still requires lots of roleplay from the user. No other way...

Soon I'll post a thread about my idea of crew config, management and damages with longer repairs. Now it become really challenging and gives a lot of immersion.

Short into is here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=117728

[ichso]

Hi.

What is the effect of having a fully efficient crew in the engine compartments? More efficiency means less use of fuel or batteries? Obviously the engines don't work if there isn't enough people in there but other than that the effects aren't clear to me.
No idea about that point but it sounds possible.

Same question in regards to the conning tower and sonar/radio rooms. Will I actually spot or hear ships more readily with a fully efficient compartment? And what exactly does an experienced radio operator do? Does his contribution to compartment efficiency affect hydrophones?
At the conning tower it matters in that way that a more efficient crew lets recognizes ships earlier. A better radio man should give you more contact reports.
The point about the sonar guy is a much discussed one though ;). Some say a better sonar guy makes no difference, others will say it does. I still believe it does but haven't tested it myself that much yet.
The sonar guy and radio guy don't interfere in their work. A skilled sonar man won't help you getting more contact reports by radio.

It seems that crew management has the potential for raising immersion quite a bit in a game like this but generally it just provides an impetus to stay above 32x TC as often as possible to avoid having to deal with it.
Some people go so far to turn the 3DView-TC value in SH3Commander higher than that to force themselves handle the whole thing even at higher TC's ;).

[blue3golf]

I don't think you will use less fuel or battery power but your men won't tire out as fast in that compartment. In the torpedo rooms it does affect reload times. Repair times are also affected. The watch crew, the more green bar you have the more effricient they are at spotting planes and ships. As far as the radio/hydrophones, I only have one of those manned at a time, hydrophone wise, an experienced man does make a difference but you're still better off checking yourself once in a while, the radio, I have no clue.

[Thniper]

Hi jiduthie!

Maybe should try this thread:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=105031&highlight=crew+efficiency

Happy hunting!:arrgh!:

Thniper

EDIT: Especially read post #3 by bigboywooly.

[Canovaro]

A better radio man should give you more contact reports.

:huh: Never new that. What experiences have you with this? I never heard that a better radioman gives you more contact reports.

Does that make sense compared to real life? I think not.

[Hadrys]

I must disagree with bigboywooly.

Funk/sonar no change, you can put ther a sailor, green bar can be nearly visible and you'll get good contacts. One I had a very skilled funker with loads of medals and put him to rest. A simple sailor in his place started to give contacts!

Flak/gun - not using any more. Green bar only gives faster reload times. Now I put to flak most of the time guys from repair team or torpedo room but considering that I can loose them! Watch officer has only watch ability.

Medic - helps

Helmsman - no idea, using for immersion as an officer.

But WinterMute in post #5 has a great point which I forgot. Must give it a try. Tired crew after a long patrol. With long repair times that would kick ass simply to recover after hard DC... Now I just head home after a month whatever I have eels or not.

edit:

About repairs. When in combat and using low TC or x1 the crew gets really tired when you order to reload torps and fix damages as a slight scratch takes at least an hour to fix. At this screen with full compartment time to fix is in hours than minutes - looks strange but possibly couldn't been solved differently. Electric engines compartment has assigned full repair team and time is 40 mins for "Verdichter". And the bomb hit far away, this is a very little damage. When you submerge you can find yourself flooding... With RuB Model it can be real pain in the ass! Now I started to fear those planes... I normally shoot down Swordfish but with Sunderland if I have time I crash (have one kill on this patrol thought). Also this mod changes airstrike.cfg to even harder. After leaving Bergen I could go 30 -60 minutes surfaced before another planes... this is getting very serious! They called 4 DD's to my position...

http://mrhadrys.com/silenthunter/damage.jpg

[ichso]

Sounds as if there was some uboat hunting task force already near your position ;).
That reminds me of the problem with the damage screen I still have not fixed (or even cared about) yet :>

[Hadrys]

Sounds as if there was some uboat hunting task force already near your position ;).
That reminds me of the problem with the damage screen I still have not fixed (or even cared about) yet :>

Tomas this is insane! As it was cool while 100km of Bergen - I agree, the had info on my departure and hunting, I lost then and proceed north of Lervick towards Reykjavik. From there Sunderlands... Near Iceland lots of them + Mosquito...

Finally I decided to attack one as it was little late to dive. It turned out that there ware 4 of them... no need to comment further. Tested that longer repairs mod from top to bottom. Damages in all compartments. 90% of crew reparing damages... The only thing is with flooding I suppose. I didn't load submarine.zon files as after loading game I was dead. But those are responsible for flooding I suppose. Don't know how to edit them, my crew stopped flooding in normal way but the whole rest was serious. Nearly all systems damaged! Can't imagine that with rub model...

I've loaded original gwx airstike.cfg, reloaded the game and now proceed with previous caution, dive on plane sight. Lets see if whole Tommies airforce is still hunting for me.

PS after crash dive most of the time 10 bombs were going exactly over my head... good that 30m of water stops them.

[Schöneboom]

Very good observations, Meine Herren!

Still, I find that my watch crew (1 Lt., 1 Bootsmann, 3 Matrosen) all "watch qualified" (& at least one has an EK2 medal) sometimes do not see approaching ships before I do -- if I happen to be on the bridge at the right time. Then again, in extreme darkness, they can see ships, and I just have to take their word for it!