"Realistic" Crew Management
 

I received SHIV for Christmas and while I find it very enjoyable (especially with realism mods) I've been a bit disappointed in the crew management. With the morale that doesn't seem to do anything, the medals that basically amount to a couple extra icons on the crew scren, and the somewhat inscrutable efficiency mechanics it just doesn't feel like the crew is really an intrinsic part of the boat.

Being a bit of an immersion junkie this is kind of bothering me. Since I don't expect some sort of massive overhaul via a mod (though that would be great!) I'd like to play with the idea that the crew is an evolving group of individuals, and 'roleplay' out crew management decisions a bit more actively.

One thing I'd like to do is make sure that some crew rotates off the boat after a patrol. It's just not realistic that your crew would remain static through an entire war. Since the game doesn't appear to do this automatically, does anyone here manually do this and if so, how you decide how many and who to retire and replace?
Secondly, how do you dole out promotions and medals? What's your decision process in this regard?

Thanks for any ideas.

I've thought about rotating out some officers and elnlisted men after each patrol. Turn loose the experienced vets and bring some green horns on board to keep things interesting.

As for medals, I at least keep track of who got wounded the worst (for purple hearts) and who shot enemy planes down, if any were shot down. The game is pretty stingy with medals (including wound medals) and often times I'm forced to give the only star to the highest ranking junior officer.

I seem to notice the little green bar going up a bit when I award a medal to someone in that group, so maybe it does affect something.

As for rotation, I only move people out after promotions.

A boat could lose up to 20% of its crew after a patrol. XO's usually didn't stick around for longer than 4 or 5 patrols before moving on to their own command. I rotate out based around those general guidelines, which are based on what I've read. This way I don't end up with a boat full of petty officer supermen.

:huh: I usually get a boatload of medals for my crew, and I don't even sink much tonnage. I'm using the RFB mod.

I also try to keep track of who got wounded, who shot down an aircraft, and, in those rare cases when it happens, had "fanatical" morale when the going got rough. The rest of the medals I give as a goodbye present to the crew that I am rotating out :) On my current campaign patrol I managed to get 16 crewmembers killed (ran into a mine), so they'll get their medals posthumously if I make it home.

I agree that there should be more meaning to morale. Only very rarely I see one or two crew members who are either "broken" or "fanatical", and this only seems to happen after taking damage. It would be nice if morale got lower if you spend a long time at sea without success, and spread around the boat if you don't have enough officers with leadership skills. And that it would carry over between patrols. Because as soon as you enter port (or load a saved game), morale appears to be reset to Normal.

I have settled on some numbers for the crew of my Tambor........6 officers, 11 Chiefs and a Seaman/PO ratio of 1/2(not sure if thats typical though). I will remove members randomly to maintain this composition. Most often chiefs and PO will go. This, i think is typical in rw. Carrer changes, contract ending, etc. I will most often recruit seaman. I try not to have a "perfect" manpower composition also. A section or two may be headed by a PO. A deck watch may go with a Chief leading.

Tom

This is a nice way to mix things up, add some immersion :yep::up:


RDP

I'm a little confused by this.

I began current (and first) career - an early '42 - in a Porpoise, progressed up through Gato, and currently nearing war end in Balao. Began career with something like 8 or 10 khaki (officers + chiefs). After a couple of patrols, I decided to rotate senior Lieutenants off and get some more Ensigns and Chiefs.

So I move out LT Supersailor, and try to drag in ENS Tenderfoot...and uh oh, despite LT Supersailor having transferred off the boat, I *still* had "too many officers". Hmmm....well let's see how far this goes....I wound up kicking guys off the boat until I was down to FIVE officers and chiefs before I could recruit one or promote one of my 1st Classes to Chief. Had a similar experience with Petty Officers when I winnowed them down to see where the "promotion/recruitment" limit was (I think this was either my last patrol in the Porpoise or first patrol in the Gato when I did this).

Ever since, through all Gato and Balao patrols, I've been maxed out at six officers+chiefs combined. So yeah, I not only have Petty Officers in charge of compartment watches...I have Petty Officers in charge of MOST compartment watches.

I spread out my khaki among the compartments - one in Engine Room, one in Conning Tower, one in each Torpedo Room, etc etc. With six compartments and three watch sections, that's 18 different regularly rotating watch teams...12 of them headed by Petty Officers.

Now, if that's the limit, cool, 6 khaki for a crew of about 75 seems reasonable enough (actually, that seems a little light by modern practice - IRL, I served on a minehunter with 9 khaki in a crew of 50 - but WW2 might have been different). I'm still puzzled, however, by these questions...

1. If the limit was that low, then how/why did the game START me with many more Khaki and Petty Officers on my first, smaller boat? and...

2. How is it that some folks seem to have many more khaki (and/or P.O.s) on their boats and are able to move them around easilyl?

Is there some basic management tool that I've completely missed (linked to Renown perhaps? I'm sitting on 29k Renown in late '44..is that average, high, low?)

Separate-but-related...for special abilities (e.g., Riposte, Perfect Pitch, etc), I've only seen Officers or Chiefs develop those...yet I've read posts that seem to indicate that other folks have many more than six of these abilities on their boats. Have never seen a Petty Officer pop an Ability; does it happen?

I know where your coming from-I dont see how the abilties match the classes sometimes and how to get the best mix of crew in each compartment-but I'm new and still searching the veritable encyclopaedia of stuff from other players..er capitans. I know I'll come across it sonner or later.

As for renown, I spend almost all of it every refit-lots of spanking new torps if nothing else and (goes without saying) the best radar I can wrangle.

A Few Major Crew Management Problems
1. There is no historical accuracy. I have looked primarily at Gato and Balao crew lists on the web and compiled a statistical average crew for a typical WW2 boat. It had 7 officers counting the Captain, 7 Chiefs, 13 First Class Petty Officers, 20 Second Class, and 19 Third Class. The crew is filled out with 14 Seaman or Fireman First Class, and 2 Second Class. I have only found one patrol with a Seaman or Fireman Apprentice. The game supplies you with the lowest rank of each class.

2. The game imposes limits on how many petty officers you can put on the boat but imposes none on itself. If you want to rotate one first class torpedoman out and replace with a third class, you probably won't be able to do it. You very well could have to remove three of four POs until you can add one. Then since you are at the limit you must fill the spaces with apprentices.

3. Every crew member added will start with no experience no matter what the rank. This means the First class PO and the Apprentice you add to the boat will both be ready for promotion to Chief at the same time.

Unless you are into editing the UPC files you can not have a realistic crew unless you set it up at the start of a career, turn off the game's ability to promote and lleave things be. Not much fun but I have not been able to defeat the flaws in the system. However I haven't given up yet. I hope to find a way to rig the crew management screen in the office to have experienced senior and junior potential crew for hire but I haven't managed it yet.

For Hoss1193 How to raise the crew limits? http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=146788 Special Abilities are given when the crew member is promoted and only to E-6 and above. The ability received seems to be totally random and not related to the crew member's specialty.

May I suggest that y'all use the search function on this board regarding this question, there are some pretty detailed discussions of actual personnel administration practicies of the time, and how people attempt to simulate this in game, as theoretically one can pack a ship, after sufficient number of patrols with cheifs and officers.

Myself, I rotate all crewmembers at random, with a 1/3 chance of the person being transfered, this is after medals and promotions are awarded. Then I backfill with only ENSs and SRs, unless there is a need for a chief position, but this is only on a rare occassion, as promotions should have upgraded a PO1 to CPO after the last patrol, to fill the position.

Question about wounded.
 

If you have the misfortune of being attacked where someone is wounded, how do you tell who it is? Looking at the personnel roster, is there a way to find out who got it? :hmm: Old_tex

Yes the personell screen will show them as pink colored (injured/scared) or god forbid red=dead.

But frankly I cant remember losing a single crew member or two. Usually its all hands that go down with the boat.

But I do what the others do and manually rotate crew while in port.

Good discussion though food for thought. :up:

I'll Check it out
 

Next time an aircraft comes over, I'll see if a deck hand gets hit and see if I can tell on the personnel roster. Strange using guinea pigs. ;) Old_tex

Well, I'll say right off the bat I for whatever reason felt crew management was better with v1.4 than it is with v1.5 (U-Boat Add-on). I think this is because the promotion logic is a bit different (harder to "grow your own") and there is less diversity in the crew available to bring in.

For example, your XO has 5 patrols and you decide to rotate him out. Well, unless you have a JO ready to assume the XO role you will find you can't go out and bring on a new XO (LTjg or LT)--they just are not there. You will have to grow your own replacement, and with the time that takes you'll need to hold officers onboard a long time to take a kid from ENS to LT (or a senior LTjg). Similarly, there is little available for POs and ratings (although more than officers). Plus, any officer you bring onboard with v1.5 seems to cost a significant amount of renown, whereas in v1.4 you could bring on that "wet-behind-the-ears" ENS fresh out of submarine school and with no special abilities for no cost in renown. That kid just isn't available in v1.5.

So, what I currently do is this to *try* to hold to a semblance of reality without spending all my game-time tracking crew:

• I tend to keep 6-7 officers (a realistic number), with no more than 2 LTs. Once I have an LT ready to assume XO role, I'll rotate off the current XO no matter what. So, maximum of 1 officer rotate off per patrol (takes time to "grow" them), but I try to send 1 away pretty much every time unless I'm tending too "light". If I'm sending 1 off I try to be "random", by looking at the last digit of the "leadership" value of the top person available on shore (ie: an Ensign with leadership of 109 would lead me to count along my officers until I reach "9", going back to start if I reach the end, so for 7 officers I'd end up with the 2nd officer in my onboard list selected to rotate if I do it random).
• Chiefs I treat pretty much the same, I'll look at what I have, and keep no more than 2 master chiefs. I may elect to rotate none if I'm tending toward a goat locker full of young chiefs--try to hold 1 master or senior-senior chief to play COB...
• Right on down the line for my 1st classes, 2nd classes, 3rd classes, but this time don't sweat their experience or numbers, if I have 6 1st classes and my method says rotate 3 (very unlikely) I do it. Do same with seamen as well.
• I have started to limit losses to 25% of any given compartment as well, although I lump TMs together as they could be shifted fore and aft as needed.
• Once rotations out are done, I dole out medals and promotions, set up my watches / compartments, and then begin selecting new crew. Given the limited selection, I do permit myself to close out the game and reopen (after a save) to provide a bit more crew selection. I do not allow myself to bring back crew that has just rotated off, although I'm considering allowing myself 1 (I'd have to pay the renown, essentially to retain him).
• This method tends to leave me with a crew that has a lot of non-rated seamen (more than historical, say) but overall I think pretty decent but no way are they supermen.

The result is around a 10-20% rotation which is a bit lighter than historical but better than nothing. To get my random numbers I just use last digit of leadership value as I move down the roster of avaiable crew...it works for me. I guess whatever you do is better than nothing, and you need to work within the constraints of the game without losing sight that this is "Silent Hunter" and not "Silent Crew-Manager". G/L and good hunting!