I really doubt that one officer slot works any differently than any other. Others have posted what you stated saying that the first Deck Watch slot was the 'critical' one. Nothing I've seen tells me one is any better, or worse, than another.

Next time I'm on patrol I'll try some experimenting to see what I can learn. When I was playing around with this stuff I had it pretty well figured out, but I didn't bother to write anything down, and I can't remember the messy details.

Wow! Your boat layout is a lot different than mine.

And your crew is very large. :o

What class of cruiser did you say you commanded?

I guess it just looks odd to me, being used to the RFB style layout.

I notice that both of you have crew berthing full. In RFB it is used to put the deck watch crew during periods of submerged operation. What purpose does it serve? :06:

The control room also seems too small.

Is that a stock layout, or TMO?

I don't think so. In RFB, the deck watch is certainly vulnerable.

Maybe Ducimus gave them protection in TMO, but I wouldn't rely on that. I mean why would he? Isn't it axiomatic that the deck watch is going to be exposed and vulnerable?

Of course, the boat will function just fine either way (until something explodes nearby).

I guess TMO is a lot different here. I opened up a couple TMO files:

Deck Watch .........................crew exposure 0.3
most hull compartments..............................0.1
most guns.............................................. ....9.0

So, you're more or less right; watch crew is fairly safe. At least they are much safer than if they were left at their guns.

In RFB deck watch and guns are both vulnerable.

The design flaw really applies to all compartments equally. They can all be changed/modded to be as safe, or as vulnerable as we wish. It is just that their status does not change when we submerge or surface. So, we can either make the deck watch vulnerable (which makes sense when we are on the surface - not so much when we are under it), or we can make them protected (which only makes sense when we are submerged).

I guess Ducimus thought convenience should take precedence here.

In RFB, I recommend players send their deck watch below when diving. Hogan's Alley has empty slots, as does some other sections. The guns are only manned for very short periods, and those by torpedo room crews. It seems odd to me to have extra crew just for those.

I believe RFB tried to model crew rosters according to the way the boats actually functioned. So, torp room crew mans guns. You'll notice that there is no 'weapons' skill. So there is one weapons/guns/torpedo skill for everything.

As far as where this or that skill is found, all these things are alterable. Just because something is a certain way in stock, doesn't mean we have to keep it that way.

I doubt it's logarithmic. Most of the time we wouldn't notice anything because we try to avoid depth charges. It only comes up when things go wrong. One other thing; I didn't check the armor values of all these compartments. I suspect Duci has the deck zone the same as the rest of the boat. This would make any vulnerability less noticeable. This goes back to what I said before. If we make the deck more protected, it's unrealistic one way, if we make it vulnerable, it's unrealistic another way.



Something I'm curious about. Has anyone actually had fatalities from the crew drowning? I've never lost any crew to flooding, but maybe I've just been lucky.