On the issue of crew configurations, I agree with akdavis - the default starting crews are way off base and need to be adjusted. This was a quick and dirty setup I made for the 1944 Balao:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-4-2007_14.jpg

This crew setup assumes there were two petty officers for every three seamen and no more than 4 CPOs (would have to get rid of the CPOs on the AA and deck guns and move at least one into the Control Room). Balaos had up to 10 officers, two of which would be Ensigns straight out of the Academy who were not an official permanent part of the crew but nontheless would go on "familiarization" patrols with the regular submarine crew (the same way the Kriegsmarine would send officer cadets out on U-boat patrols). For our purposes I think having 6 officers, all in the Command Room and on Deck Watch is fine.

WRT to crew lists, this is what fleetsubmarine.com lists:

Balao: 10 (officers); 70 (enlisted)
Gar: 6 officers, 54 enlisted
Gato: 6-10 (officers); 60-70 (enlisted) Crew size increased as war progressed.
Porpoise: 5 officers, 49 enlisted
S-Class: 4 officers, 34 - 39 enlisted
Salmon:5 officers, 54 enlisted
Sargo: 5 officers, 54 enlisted
Tambor: 6 officers, 54 enlisted

Has anyone found the relevant crew data files and adjusted the initial crew configurations outside of the game (i.e. without using the in-game renown points)? I did a cursory look but I'm not sure if I found the right files.

No luck yet on crew data files, but I did another run-through on updating the crew config for a 1942 Gato:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-4-2007_19.jpg

Ideally the CPO in the control room would be specialized in the Leadership position, and I'd prefer to have a weaponry-rated junior petty officer in one of the deck gun slots. All of the seamen in each compartment have skills that directly relate to that compartment; each torpedo room watch has one seaman with the Mechanical and one with the Guns skill, as both of these affect the compartment's overall efficiency.

Other than all that, the only change I would make is to have more junior ranks for the officers. All of the ones I have right now are Lt. Junior Grades and Lieutenants. Something like three Ensigns, two Lt. Junior Grades and one Lieutenant would be more appropriate, IMO.

Adding a greater variety of CPO to the recruiment pool would also be very good. Right now, there always seems to be only a handful to chose from and with only a narrow selection of skillsets (with a special skill/specialization bias towards guns/guns both on your boat and in the pool).

Also Beery, not sure if this is intentional, but it seems that having "no map contact updates" unchecked no longer takes away from 100% realism and is included as a default for "very hard."

While discussing crew sizes....is it realistic to fill 'damage control' slots in port?

I find it difficult to believe (and I may well be wrong) that a WW2 submarine, with a complement of ~70 people, squeezed into a 307 ft hull and 'hotbunking' as it is, dedicates 10 people to do nothing but stand around waiting for something to break.

At 'battlestations', there is no crew sleeping or off-duty, wouldn't the DC team be pulled from that pool of resources?

Absolutely not. Not only is it not realistic, but filling all the DC slots puts the max number of crewmen way above the historic crew size of the boat, no matter the type in the game.

Exactly. The DC team slots should either be automatically filled by the most qualified and rested crewmen when requested by the captain or should be chosen by the player.

It seems to be contained in one file, i.e., /Data/UPCData/UPCCrewData, though I've yet to see if this is true.

I would really love for a mod to do just that!

That was intentional. I forgot to mention it in the readme. My thinking on it is that when the crew sees a contact they're going to mention it and note its position. Without updates we really have no idea what's going on around the boat unless we look ourselves, which is a bit unrealistic. I dunno though - probably worth an in-depth discussion. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age. Although I seem to recall that RUb also had 'no map contact updates' unchecked too, but there was a mod in there that increased the difficulty.

One thing I'm thinking about along those lines is the radio contacts issue - should we get radio contacts telling us what alignment the contact has? If an aircraft, spy or friendly ship spots a contact, are they going to definitely know the nationality of that ship? Perhaps it's time to think about re-introducing the old RUb method of making all contacts unknown nationality?

I agree, there is a diffculty level missing, IMO. I'd really like to see the map updated only when an observation is made, but the ships would leave tracks---as drawn by your plotter.

It's unfortuately either the auto-updated GPS map we have, or nothing.

In RL that's why you have an attack team. Forcing the skipper to do everything is silly IMO. Ideally there would be an option in between the 2 extremes.

There needs to be a 'mark' button which updates sightings on the map with the time and possibly a certain amount of error in regards to range and bearing depending on how much ex[erience you crew has.

I don't know about changing the contacts. the US certainly had a pretty good intel thing going and the game reflects that fairly well.

Any chance on 1.13 being updated for the new patch in the next day or two?:yep:

I like where you all are headed on the map contacts thing. I don't like doing EVERYTHING myself but I don't want perfect info given at all times either.

RFB Mod, And 1.2
 

Befor I installed the 1.2 patch, I disabled all mods, including RFB (latest version) via JSGME. After installing the new patch, I enabled the mods again. The problem I have is that RFB will not load. I get to the RFB splash screen, and the progress bar fills, but the game freezes there. I cannot get into the main menue.

I decided to disable RFB, and the game now works. I really enjoy the RFB Mod, and would hate to play without it. Is anyone else haveing trouble? With the mod disabled, the game plays and looks great! Any ideas? Thanks.

I agree with your rationale. Just wanted to be sure it was an intentional change. Map contact updates on is unrealistic. Map contact updates off is unrealistic. Something in between would be realistic.

I saw mention in another thread of some features that were modded into SH3:

1. friend/foe indication removed from contacts. (although clearly more realistic, I'm not sure how relevant this is as it seems TC will only drop if the contact is enemy)

2. target heading "tail" removed from contacts.

3. Something called the "assisted plotting mod" that only plots contacts you have collected data on.

As far as radio contacts go, I'm not sure removing friend/foe indicator from these would be realistic. The position reports sent to patrolling subs came from reports from other Allied units or from Allied code breakers processed through higher command who would have the resources to determine or confirm whether they were enemy. Errors were more in composition of an enemy group or the timeliness of a report.

You'll just need to wait. RFB and similar mods change so many things that they are unlikely to be compatible to any new patch. Beery and others will update their mods as quickly as they can, so you'll probably just have to wait for RFB 1.2 to come out.