Why having to talk to crew to do things sucks...
 

Anyone else find it kinda funny how you could be up in the conning tower...you fire your load of torpedos at a convoy, then have to run down the ladder and sprint into the next room to tell that guy to use the Riposte ability so you can load the torpedo's faster?

You then run all the way back and up the ladder to the attack scope and hope a DD is not about to drill you /w depth charges.


Sure you could get around it by doing the hokey pokey before you are ready to fire, but stil...

:o Are you suggesting that there are parts of the game that are poorly
thought through, poorly implemented, unfinished and/or error ridden?

That's some controversial stuff.

/lowest form of wit.

I don't mind talking to people, it adds a bit of immersion to the game. What I do mind is feeling like I have to do it to raise their morale. Not to mention that it's buggy (I hate it when you talk to people and their speech bubble doesn't go away, or when I talk to someone and their morale decreases).

Nothing mods can't fix, I guess.

Not to mention...

Uth oh there on to us... dive deep! Silent running... oh wait I got to get out of my chair and climb this ladder first :doh:

I think that morale decrease is intentional. Making him talk about his violin's strings being cut is painful and reminds him of bad things.

Riposte I think is one of those abilities where you quietly take the crew member aside and whisper the secret plan to improve patriotic zeal. I don't think it was intended to be used tactically to improve reload times during the heat of battle. Not exactly something you shout during an attack "COMMENCE PROPAGANDA!" Long term "crew maintenance" options are fine to require you to leg it around the sub like the soup.

The other tactical orders like silent running should be able to be commanded remotely by telephone or mouth chain.

Yeah, it's a decent system on the surface, but it suffers from several faults:

• Limited "Abilities" that shouldn't be either tied to a specific officer or limited in any way; I should be able to man the deck gun even if the Watch Officer is wounded. I should be able to rig for Silent Running whenever I want to, without having to recharge the ability.
• The fact that you have to run about in the sub to issue orders.
• The way experience is distributed by means of "Promotion Points". Sure, in reality your bosun would get better at motivating his crew, and your radio officer would get better at listening for enemy radio traffic (other less realistic things, like "overclocking" torpedoes, I can live without:03:). But in reality, you gain experience at something by doing that thing. Gaining promotion points that you spend on making your crew better at certain skills makes me think of Dungeons&Dragons and other RPG games where you can, for example, gain 3 skill points in your Swim skill by killing a dragon in the middle of a desert with your sword. It's an arcade approach that I really don't think fits in a simulator like Silent Hunter.
• The fact that morale is tied to talking to your crew. I'm the skipper of my boat. If there's a need for a ship counsellor, fine, I can hire a counsellor. Heck, I would even be willing to spend renown on a therapeutic dog. But having to patrol the sub in person to talk to people about their families, violins and personal grudges to keep their morale up? I don't mind the ability to talk to them myself, in fact I appreciate it for its immersion, but it shouldn't be forced upon you the way it is now.

Im split on it really. On one hand, i really liked having to maneuaver through the interior for a practical reason. On the other hand, this is what voice pipes were for. :shifty:

Can you turn the moral off like in SH3 (FATIGUE_COEF)?:hmmm:

Voice Pipe mod. Should be doable. :yep:

Brush your teeth, Herr Kaleun!

Watch crew bong feature... already included. :|\\

I believe someone has already done just that. Check the SH5 mod board, I'm sure I saw mention of it.

Some of them aren't that citical, and walking over to talk to him aint so bad,

But man.. some of these really need hotkeys (some do have them), or a way to access them without running over to the guy.

It seems that the Devs have planned to go this way. But they stopped.

Found this in the Menu\Gui\Layout.

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6659/voicepipe.jpg
Hud animations comunicator.dds

Add me to the "annoyed" list with this missing feature.