Your Crew

[AceChilla]

Im interested in how good the Karleuns in here know there crew. Do you know their names by heart? Do you remember their achievements (like giving the right TDC 5 kilometers away).

And also do you fire them sometimes, to replace them with better ones? Or do you stick with the same crew training them yourself?

Or maybe they are merely statistics with faces attached? :D

[JScones]

In RL I manage 120 people, so keep that in mind when reading on...

I take crew management quite seriously. When I play SH3 I have a printed crew list beside me (from SH3Cmdr). I notate any impressive achievements which occur on patrol. I also notate whether an achievement is worthy of a medal recommendation. I know my crew and take an interest in them all, even learning their nuances. For instance, I find Klaus, who is meant to be on watch, quite often spending his time down by the engines. Just like my 6 month old daughter, he likes to get into everything...

I've never "fired" any of my crew, although I have released officers from time to time to allow them to go on to better things. I have turnover through transfers and bloody bar fights (can I say "bloody"? That word seems to have upset a few countries recently ;)). In fact, whilst inconvenient, I take great pride when one of my officers is transferred out to take control of their own boat - it reflects upon me as their mentor and leader.

Get a life, I hear you say? Perhaps, but for me identifying with my crew simply adds to the immersion and enjoyment. I wish my RL staff were as easy and fun to manage though...LOL!

[Kilamon]

I wish my RL staff were as easy and fun to manage though...LOL!
Just get RL1 Commander! :-j

I don't watch my crew near as much as I should. I try, but I can't keep them all ordered. It's bad enough that my watch officer(s) won't go up on watch automatically when we surface. Mostly I just rotate them around keeping the apprentice seaman in the engine room and the more experienced sailors doing other tasks like hem, watch, etcetera. One thing I do try to keep in line are my officers making sure to put them in the same spot time after time.

[Dowly]

The only one I pay attention to is one from my watch crew. Otto Wagner, he sometimes stays in bed and orders some lower ranking sailor to take his place on the watch. And it appears that he´s blind too, almost got jumped by an RAF aircraft when he was on duty. :nope:

[thyro]

My crew earned their medals (officers and pitty-officers) so they can say unantended all the journey (exception for watchers that I need to kick an officer's a$$ to making him jump into the tower everytime that I order to surface the boat).

All the sailors...well remain as sailors and not relevant (unless I need extra hands on battle-stations to load torps faster).

My crew is happy has Lary... I starve them (sailors) to "!" then I give them some whiskas and a beer from time to time :lol:

Anyway, I might end-up kicking sailors for good (out of my boat), on my 20th mission in a IXC... my officers+petty officers are enough to keep the boat running without sailors.

Beside there are not enough beds for all of them :)

By kicking most of the sailors, would leave not only beds free but also more whiskas and beer cans for parties. :rotfl:

[Heibges]

I get the crew lists off unterseebootswaffe.com and change all the crew names to the real ones.

Except for my Georg-Wilhelm Schulz crew over at W@W, who have "special" names.

[Cerberus]

The only one I pay attention to is one from my watch crew. Otto Wagner, he sometimes stays in bed and orders some lower ranking sailor to take his place on the watch. And it appears that he´s blind too, almost got jumped by an RAF aircraft when he was on duty. :nope:

Dowly,

Maybe it's your fault.
When did you last send him in to get his eyesight checked?

Try feeding your crew with lots of carrots.
They're supposed to be good for the eyes.

[Ducimus]

Im interested in how good the Karleuns in here know there crew. Do you know their names by heart? Do you remember their achievements (like giving the right TDC 5 kilometers away).

And also do you fire them sometimes, to replace them with better ones? Or do you stick with the same crew training them yourself?

Or maybe they are merely statistics with faces attached? :D


The crew to me becomes "alive" when the excrement hits the air circulation device, and you hear the strain in their voices or rising inflection. They all become more lifelike, and tend to take on their own personalities.

A few of my favorites,
When the CE, SHOUTS, "AHEAD FLANK!" or "HARD TO STARBOARD", when im caught on the surface and am forced to man flak guns. You can sense the seriousnless of the order.

Or the WO, Surface to finish off a merchant, it lobs a few shells at us, and you give him the order to man the deck gun, he seems to relish it, and repeats the order with a sense of vengence, or a sense of "now were gonna give it to em!"


At any rate, I wish there was a way to make them more personified when not in battle. I can make up stories about each crew member, but ingame they don't come alive to me until they're interaction changes like it does in battle.

[tycho102]

1. Do you know their names by heart?

2. Do you remember their achievements (like giving the right TDC 5 kilometers away).

3. And also do you fire them sometimes, to replace them with better ones?

4. Or do you stick with the same crew training them yourself?

5. Or maybe they are merely statistics with faces attached? :D

1. No. (with all due respect to my German forum-mates) Franz #1. Franz #2. Franz #3. Franz #4. :)

2. Not really.

3. NO. I keep the same crew, and I load them up with medals. However, now that you mention it, I do start a new career until I get a "free" machinist. There's space for one officer, and I keep restarting the game until I get a machinist officer for zero reknown.

4. Yup.

5. Not so much "statistics" as they are "naval crew". I have a machinist officer, and I appreciate him as a machinist, and generally refer to him as "the machinist". I've torpedo-men, and call them that; the chiefs I refer to as torpedo-goats, and the officers are torpedo-monkeys. Same thing with the helm/con guys. The watch men are "eyes" and the gunners are "gunners". "Flakers" and just a general repairman "rat". It bends me a little bit when I lose a crewman, simply because I've got to deal with a n00b in the meantime 'till I get him trained.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

.... which is why I re-named every stock, non-hardcoded crewmember name in GW...

... so you get attached to your crew... and have a little sense of loss when they die.

[Sailor Steve]

My crews are generated by SHIII Commander, and so are truly random. I've gotten to know some of them (the officers mostly) but I do keep a running patrol log on paper as I go along, and if one of them does something exceptional (good or bad) I make a note of it, and he is rewarded accordingly.