Crew Rotations
 

Ok, I've noticed several people commenting on the fact that, realistically American subs transferred out anywhere from 1/4 to 1/10 of their crew every patrol. I was thinking about how to do this in-game, and I had an idea that could work.

If we can't make the game do it automatically, let's do it from outside the game. Assuming we can decipher and edit the file with the crew roster for your boat and the file with the renown for your campaign (although I suppose editing renown is kinda optional), you could, when you end your patrol, exit the game and run a separate program to randomly remove 1/3 to 1/10 of all ratings aboard and credit you with some percentage of the renown it would cost to recruit them because it makes sense for you to get some renown from them spreading the good word about your abilities as a captain. If you can read their morale as well, you could make it a the renown change a function of their morale (poor morale costs you 1/2 their renown, neutral morale breaks even, good morale gains you 1/2 their renown or something).

I can write the program (in Python) if I can find the files containing the data. However, I'm not sure if there's sufficient interest in this that people would actually want to exit the game at the end of every patrol just to get realistic crew rotations. I'm also not yet familiar enough with the interior of SHIV to know what data is in what file.

So, first of all, is anyone interested enough in having realistic crew rotations to 1)download Python if you don't have it (That part doesn't hurt, I promise :D and if there's enough interest I could run it through py2exe so it runs without python) and 2) save and exit the game every time you want to rotate crew. Second, can someone tell me which file has the list of crew members on your boat and your current renown?

I think the idea of crew rotation is a very good idea and I would use it if it was available. That is one portion of "realism" that isn't there at the moment.

I also would use the program. My patrols usually last about 1 wek realtime so exiting my game at the end of a patrol would not be a bother.

This is a feature that the much praised SH3 Commander shipped :up: and was very wellcomed.

I know that long ago someone was willing to do a "SH4 Commander" since Jaesen Jones was not going into it. I suppose this crew rotation thing would be included, but I have no idea how the project ended, not heard from it for ages :hmm:

Anyway, it could be worth for you to contact those involved as they can provide the info you are looking for. JSCones will probably be able to give you the best advice :up:

Thanks hitman, I will PM him today.

EDIT: I tried to send him a PM and apparently PMs are disabled on his account. Has anybody seen him lately or is there anyone else I can talk to?

Quick Update:

I located the file containing the save game information for the crew. I will be experimenting as able with this file to see how to remove a crewmember without messing anything up. The biggest problem I foresee right now is the naming schema for save-games. Games are saved in folders named 000001/ 000002/ 000003/ etc. Not too informative for us, but I should be able to track down the file where it names the save-game and then I can use that for display purposes.

Digging around old records
 

If you manage to get something working, I have found the crew complements for all of the seven Archerfish patrols and have a spreadsheet detailing the ranks and ratings of every crew change. I list the ranks and ratings of the crew that left the boat, the crew that joined the boat and remaining crew member's promotions. Being semi-retired gives me a lot of time to fill.

I am working toward a more realistic pool of officers and enlisted available to rotate into the boat after every patrol. The game does not have enough men available on the crew management screen to match what I am finding from history. There was only one fireman apprentice (F3) in the original crew and none transferred in during the war. There were only 5 Seamen or Fireman Seconds transferred in during the war. The game uses way too many Apprentices for crew members.

Ancient, if you can PM or email me that spreadsheet, that would really help. I can read it in whatever format you've got it in (I'm a computer nerd so I've got a program to read it somewhere :D). As I said, I found the file that contains the crew data. I have downloaded SH3 Commander as a reference (despite not owning SH3) and I have to say, I'm really impressed with what they managed to do to SH3 through that program. While I'm not sure if I'm a good enough programmer to do that, I do know I can get realistic crew rotations up if I can get a few weekends to work on it.

Life's been hectic lately, my grandfather's health took a sudden turn for the worse on Thurs. He has stabilized now, but he's lost a lot due to the bleeding in his brain. Until his body reabsorbs the blood, we won't know how he's going to pull through and that put development on the back burner this weekend (although the prognosis is much better as of yesterday than it was as of Friday). Hopefully in the next few days I can get save game model fixed in my brain so I can see how to add remove or replace crewmen without breaking anything. Once I've got that, the sky's the limit (thanks to Ubi's use of text files).

Where did you find these at? I use realistic crew rosters for all the boats in RFB, but all of the American ones come from boats lost at sea. I'd like to find some more S boat crew rosters as well, if possible.

I'd be interested in using this program, too. I tried manually editting the crew, but manually rotating the crew became more of a chore than entertainment. Toss in the limited choice in crew, and I was "hiring" back the dismissed crew, with the accompanying hit in renown.

Based on what I've seen, I believe I can randomly generate crew to rotate in to replace those rotated out. Crew generation doesn't seem ~too difficult, and since I'll be building a model to represent a crewman anyway (to give you the option of taking a renown hit to hold onto that CPO you've invested so many promotions, medals, etc in), the generation code should be fairly easy.

SS Archerfish Link for LukeFF
 

http://www.ussarcherfish.com is a goldmine of information. If you go to the War Patrol page you will find a complete official captain's report of the seven Archerfish patrols in the war. At the end of the logs are the Sailing Lists for each patrol, listing the crew and their ranks. I found it while researching how difficult it was to sink a fleet carrier and spent a lot of time reading them for enjoyment.

It is the first resource I have found that I can compare the crews from one patrol to another and see the changes made in port. I am have already done the spreadsheet and am working on a listing of each rank( officers, chiefs, firsts, etc) for every patrol. I am about half done with them. I will be searching for other logs in the future.

LukeFF you are more than welcome to the work I am doing if it would help you in the crew management for RFB which I use. I probably will be done tomorrow and will post a download link for anyone who is interested.

Thank you so much! I have a good handle on how the crews were divvied up on any given boat, but I'm always looking for new sources for crew rosters for RFB. That link definitely helps a lot.

Yes, thanks Ancient. Sadly www.ussarcherfish.com is blocked from work (The firewall told me it's "Personal". Not sure what that means, I never did anything to the firewall here. Maybe one of the other computers I've worked on lately is it's friend...). But I'd love it if I could get access to your research. Right now, I'm picking my way through the save game files. Soon as I have those digested, I'll be able to start writing the code.

Looking Forward To This
 

I'd be very interested in the outcome of this project. I too do a rotation, but as someone commented already, the options with v1.5 are so limited as far as recruiting new crew I've become less diligent about rotations...it becomes too much of a chore and I spend less time "enjoying" the game.

It would be great to have the program simply slot certain crew for rotation out (representing orders out from BUPERS) weighted by number of patrols completed, and assign new crew of appropriate rank / skills for what was rotated out (representing BUPERS assignments again). Maybe allow holding on to a few with a renown hit...

In the game as it stands now it reminds me more of the old pirate games, where the skipper went into the local tavern to recruit crew for his ship. SH4 has dressed it up a bit, the potential recruits don't stink of rum and are generally shaved and in uniform... But in real life skippers normally don't get much say in who comes with some exceptions--specifically at the officer level. I was an officer on a cruiser in the early 90's, our skipper had selected many of the officers in the wardroom but not all (me for example), but no way did the skipper have any hand in selecting enlisted crew, they simply were assigned.

Good luck with the project.