[WIP] Crew Assignment and Rotation Program
 

I'm starting work on an application to address some of the problems that the game has with the assignment of crewmembers when you are first assigned a boat and the lack of any crew rotation during a career.

The program is NOT meant to be another SH3Commander, but, instead, to handle some very specific problems that have come up in threads here and elsewhere. The following are the things that I've got in mind :

• Completely redoing the way names are assigned. No more John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt (unless you want them). The naming convention used would be at the users discretion and probablilities would be specified for each possibility. If you want all of your crew to have just first and last name, then you can. If you want middle initials for everyone (or just x%), you can have that too. If you want x% of your crew to have a first initial and a middle name, you can have that, too.
• Completely reassigning crew when a new boat is assigned in a career.
• Rotating a variable percentage of crew every so often when in port. The percentage and frequency of crewmembers being rotated would be specified by the user.
• Possibly extending the time in port to some realistic amount both during refits and when assigned a new boat.

What I have in mind is making the settings for this application as flexible as possible so each user can set it they way they like it. This application would be run during your in port time and would require a save and reload of the game. I don't believe you would have to leave the game in order to run it.

Any suggestions or thoughts on other things that this application might perform regarding manning the boat would be welcome. Especially helpful would be any advice on how to handle extending the in port time and re-assigning a mission based on the later date.

If there's anyway to incorporate the radio manager (:up:) into it I myself would love that, as I constantly forget to run it before I run SH4 and I'm to lazy to reload. Keep up the hard work, it dosen't go unnoticed.

:rotfl:You ain't the only one that forgets to run RSM:yep:

Last I heard, skwas was going to work on an SH4 "Commander" type program and it's going to have a structure that will allow plugins. When he gets that going (assuming I can figure out how to write plugins), I'll do everything I can to have all my apps compatible with it. Eventually, we may only have one button to push to do everything:up:

Good to know as maybe I could remember one button. Whenever he does release it, I'd be happy to help in anyway possible.

DT, this sounds great! You say it's not meant to be another 'Commander', but JSCones said that he didn't plan it or start off that way either. This is something a lot of us have been hoping for.

I wish you well with your effort! I've always wanted a crew rotation between patrols. It wasn't unusual to lose 1/3 of a boats company after a patrol.

:up:

DT - this will be awesome. Can't wait for this one.

Thanks DT.

I would like to offer my suggestions:
1. An easy (or relatively easy) way of assigning crew to the various compartments according to their skills and specialisations. Right now it's a rather tedious affair. Perhaps a spreadsheet-like listing showing the crew's name, rank, skills & specialisations, and a GUI that allows players to drag the crew icons around?
2. Keeping the crew complement to a "realistic" level.
3. I like the idea of forced rotation. It happened in the war as personnel were posted to new construction to oversee the construction, outfitting and trials, leading to eventual deployment.

I guess that's basically it for my wish list. Thanks again for taking this up.

:up:

Thanks for the suggestions, ZeroNiner. Might want to pass those along to Donner and skwas at http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ight=commander , too, since they are working on a more overall solution than I had in mind.
My reference to this project not intending to be a "Commander" type app was because that project has gotten underway already. My intention was to write an application to handle one little piece of the puzzle for now, namely fixing the naming problems and rotating the crew. If this app fits into skwas' picture for his application then it can be incorporated (via plugin) when he gets it done.

I also forgot to mention that this application would use the existing files in the game to accomplish its tasks. So, for instance, if you used a mod that changes the makeup of a standard crew for a boat, then that crew makeup would be what is used as a basis by the application. Same goes for the names. If you are using a mod that adds, say, Japanese names, then this app would use those names to make the name assignments (going by the rules that you set up for how the names are used).

As Steve pointed out, sometimes things end up being more than what they started out to be. RSM is a good example for me. It started out as just an idea for solving the "repeating events" problem and ended up being way more. In this case, since skwas is working on the overall picture, I don't see this app growing into a great big project.

Some Thoughts
 

Digital Trucker, what you are describing is something I'd be very interested in. I'm fairly new to v1.5 but would like to offer the following:

• Force Rotation: I'd like to see some form of forced rotation, maybe as you describe with a player input for "floor" and "ceiling" percentages. My thought is the program would simply remove the crew due to rotate out and then assign you the replacement crew that you could assign as you would. Possibly offer a limited amount of crew that could be brought in for a high renown cost. In reality, orders were issued to report, a CO did not go out and select local talent (reminds me of the pirate games where you'd recruit crew from the local tavern...). The CO simply took the newly assigned sailors and utilized them. To do this though, the incoming talent would vary more with experience (ie: you might get a LTjg or LT who is best fit as XO?) Right now unless you "grow your own"--which a lot of subs did essentially--it is expensive.
• Crew Promotions: Crew should get promoted regardless of CO intervention...I don't mind doing it, but so far in v1.5 the number of promotions available to me is so limited I can't rotate crews. Either make the promotions occur without CO intervention (like maybe the system in v1.4, where the only promotions needing CO intervention are those from seaman to PO or from PO to CPO?), or increase the number of promotions a CO can award.
• Nerf Special Skills: What I've seen of these they are pretty arcade-ish and not necessarily reflective of reality at all. Especially the ones that can be "activated" by the CO. Right, wonder-twin powers, activate...:roll:

Good luck with this DT, I've very interested to see/hear what you come up with.

Thanks for the input groomsie. TBH, I haven't spent much time working on it recently, but your ideas pretty much jive with what I had in mind. The forced rotation will be a definite. I'm not sure about the auto promotions (only because I hadn't considered it before), will have to look into that, also.

I definitely like the idea of nerfing the "special abilities". Not sure how feasible that is, but IIRC, I believe that's workable. If possible, it could be set up as an optional thing so that the user would have the choice.

Thanks again for the input:up: (and the unintended hint to get back to work on it:lol:).