Lazy Bridge Watch

[BigWalleye]

I watched "The Silent Service" as a kid and cut my teeth on Silent Service and Silent Hunter (Silent Hunter One!) I initially played a lot of SH4 with RFB and RSRDC, but finally got borned out on the buzzkill of a seemingly small flaw. I got tired of having to haul the three six-man bridge watch shifts (18 guys!) down below when we submerged and move them topside when we surfaced. Transiting in range of enemy LR patrol AC means doing this twice a day for several action-free days, which I would rather buzz through at high TC.

Leaving the watch in one place is not acceptable. If I leave them below, I have no lookouts. If I leave them topside, they die if I'm attacked - and I have no planesmen. Adding 9 men to the crew to fully man the CR and CT still doesn't protect the men above deck, while upping the base complement to 81 from a historical 60 and RFB baseline 72.

I have searched SubSim and the net repeatedly and not found any mod that addresses this issue. Does anyone know of one? I'd love to get back to SH4, but babysitting my crew is a loser.

Is there an alternative I've missed?

[ETR3(SS)]

Not that I'm aware of. I miss the way you could shuffle crew between compartments in SH3. I think if that had been retained in SH4 having to move the crew below would be a lot less bothersome.

[BigWalleye]

Not that I'm aware of. I miss the way you could shuffle crew between compartments in SH3. I think if that had been retained in SH4 having to move the crew below would be a lot less bothersome.

First, ETR3(SS), thank you for your service.

When I play SH3, I use SH3 Commander to set the crew fatigue model to "No Fatigue." It isn't realistic, but at least I don't have to rotate the watches and shuffle the lads off to bed every 6-8 hours. AFAIK no submarine commander, KM or USN, ever had to do that.

SH4 has a very nice system. Watches rotate without the skipper's intervention, as they should. And you can reassign men throughout the boat to optimize the skills you have to work with. But when you order "General Quarters!" you'd better stay aware of how long you leaves the crew on high alert, or you'll wear them all out. SH3 has nothing that approaches this, and I have never found an active SH3 fatigue model that approximates the SH4 model. YMMV

SH3 did have the Lazy Watch Officer issue, but h.sie fixed that. His solution is a hard-coded patch, so it's not portable. People have reverse-engineered and patched the executable for SH3 and SH5, but I don't think anyone has, or will, tackle SH4. There is a non-machine-code fix for the SH3 Lazy Watch Officer. So I wonder if maybe someone has tried the same for SH4.

[TorpX]

I have always just left then at their deck watch stations when I submerge. When I am about to be subjected to a depth charge attack, I put them in the control room and Hogan's alley. This is the equivalent of 'RIG FOR DEPTH CHARGE'.

I don't really see the problem with this.

[BigWalleye]

I take it from your response that you don't know of any mod that corrects this problem.

As I said in my OP, it is a seemingly small flaw. Obviously, most people who play SH4 are not bothered by it at all. But for me, moving these icons manually, repeated many times in the course of a patrol, becomes an immersion killer. Your suggestion may work for you, and for a majority of sh4 players. But for me, it just changes the time when I have to perform this entirely inappropriate chore, while introducing other immersion-breakers, like diving with the planesman stations unmanned, and (worse yet) leaving six men topside when we dive. So I am still looking for a way to fix the problem.

[Armistead]

I've never had a problem with my watch crew dying submerged, the problem was leaving your gun/AA crew in the slots, then the game saw them outside submerged. The watch crew compartment seems to work fine for safety in TMO, as well as in any other compartment.

[BigWalleye]

I've never had a problem with my watch crew dying submerged, the problem was leaving your gun/AA crew in the slots, then the game saw them outside submerged. The watch crew compartment seems to work fine for safety in TMO, as well as in any other compartment.

Thanks, Armistead. Didn't know that. Mebbe I'll have to go to TMO. And IIRC, TMO does have separate crew for the bridge and CR watches.

I still have a philosophical problem submerging with men on deck! Just not right!

[Bubblehead1980]

I always keep the deck watch filled, then when have to dive move them to their stations, since in RL lookouts would drop down and take station on diving planes.The OOD would become diving officer usually if not at GQ.Can be a pain if diving in an emergency but I "drilled" enough it was easy and quick to do.I then moved those off watch into safe slots after.Adds something to the sim for me, especially between the action.

[BigWalleye]

I always keep the deck watch filled, then when have to dive move them to their stations, since in RL lookouts would drop down and take station on diving planes.The OOD would become diving officer usually if not at GQ.Can be a pain if diving in an emergency but I "drilled" enough it was easy and quick to do.I then moved those off watch into safe slots after.Adds something to the sim for me, especially between the action.

Yup! That's exactly how I do it, too. My problem is that, in RL, those lookouts are self-propelled. The skipper himself did not have to physically move them. Far from adding to the sim, I find it an unpleasant distraction and an intrusion into the simulated environment. It seems I may be the only one who feels this way. At least, no one seems to have been motivated to address the problem. A similar problem with SH3 has been fixed two different ways. One of them involves REing the machine code, which I don't want to tackle. I am looking at the other approach to see if it might be adaptable to SH4.

[Zajc3w]

Yup! That's exactly how I do it, too. My problem is that, in RL, those lookouts are self-propelled. The skipper himself did not have to physically move them. Far from adding to the sim, I find it an unpleasant distraction and an intrusion into the simulated environment. It seems I may be the only one who feels this way.....

You're not the only one.

[merc4ulfate]

My watch crew is my gun crew and the only place I ever move them is the guns and back to watch. I have never had an issue with them dieing unless it was my fault for putting in a position to be so.

When I dive I move them back to watch. On the surface I move them to guns only when I want to use them. I do not see it as a big deal to move them. I get used to moving men around because I try to put the best men in the best positions for them. If I do not like how they perform then I remove them at port and get men better suited for the job.

I do not stay on the surface during an air attack.

[torpedobait]

I leave the deck watch in place. I've never lost one that I know of, or even seen one wounded. I don't assign a crewman to the AA gun; like others I'd rather dive, at least until later in the war when I can have two 40mm and a twin 20mm, and then only rarely will I take on a plane. My deck gun crew is assigned to Damage Control until needed. Seems to work fairly well. It does not simulate a real-life crew allotment, but the distraction of moving people around takes away from the action of the moment. Just another way of doing it...

[BigWalleye]

As I mentioned in my last post, I looked into how Tekniq had solved the Lazy Watch Officer problem in SH3. He wrote a clever routine for the AutoIt macro programming tool. I tried the same approach, and lo! I didn't fully automate it, but now, when I say "Clear the bridge!", the guys jump down and go to their submerged stations without further prompting. Likewise, I say "Lookouts to the bridge!" and they hustle topside. Apparently, this is of no consequence to most SH4 players, but I'm going back out in a fleet boat again.

AutoIt is a really powerful tool, worth checking into for anyone with a modicum of programming skills A spin-off, MacroGamer, is even easier to use, although limited to one active macro. I'm working on a macro to dive the boat at dawn and run surfaced at night for those long transits to the patrol area. Since the game drops to TC 1 when something is spotted (and the lookout yells a warning), I won't have to keep close watch on it.

[Snarf]

This would be a good one to add to the list on ReallyDedPoet's mod wishlist.