How do you?
 

I'm in my first patrol and some stuff is not clear to me.

I manned the deck gun but how do I give the order to the crew to leave the gun? (e.g. cruise mode)

When I ask for maximum range I always get the statement that it's not available at the current speed. (using shift + R --> using command keys mod 1.02)

You probably are a victim of the faulty morale system. In vanilla, it requires morale from the watch officer to man the deck gun, quite pointless to say the least.

I'd advise you to install my "Morale Mod." It removes the morale requirement from orders and should allow you to order the crew off the deck gun. :)

I will DL your mod, thanks.

Or just boost the cook fully with points and have him make him make special meals. it restores total crew moral to 100%. Do it a couple of times and they individually get full morale to. I do this when i load a save so i can test their moral during battles and so on :)

Press F5 to toggle deckgun.

Can't say why early mod isn't working.