SH3Commander
 

Just wondered if anyone uses this program to update their crew with qualifications rather than waiting to earn the promotions in the actual game

I do not do it, even if there is a possibility, even I use the Commander of SH3 with the other settings, but I know there are some who do updates with crew members, :yep:

Me Me Me!

Only because keeping track of crew is a pain. I like to keep my watchmen separate from the gunners, and the repair men go off to their space as soon as we set sail.

I figure a crewmember would be assigned to a task, might as well give him the qualification now so I can tell them apart. I understand becoming qualified in a department was time consuming process, but considering how screwed up crew management is in SH3 (I run no fatigue model), it's the only way I can do it.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/998...1204557625.png

Poor Joachim there is the cook.

Qualifications, yes.

• Since an "unqualified" petty officer is a contradiction in terms, I qualify all of my POs after their first patrol (1 qual each). They wouldn't be petty officers unless they are qualified.
• For the same reason, I never qualify sailors.
• I kit out officers with 1, 2 or 3 quals depending on rank.

Promotions, yes. If the sailor, PO or officer has the points, then yes. Promotions are a largely bureaucratic exercise in most navies.

Medals, guided somewhat by the game, and award through SH3Commander. Since the number of medals are largely determined by the success of the patrol, I usually follow the game suggestion. Awarding though SH3 Commander is just easier than the game interface.

How can you have sailors with the repair, I thought it was only the PO, if you did not make your own mods..

You can assign qualifications to any crewman in Commander, including all the non CO/PO sailors. It doesn't have any effect on gameplay, meaning that a sailor "qualified" in repair is not worth more in terms of compartment efficiency than one who isn't, all other things being equal. But he will still have the qualification icon in the game's crew management screens. It's useful if you want to attempt some kind of 'realistic' crew management with, for instance, separate Seamen's and Technical divisions with duties assigned accordingly. If you have the icons on them in the game it's easy to see who is part of which division and what their primary duties are.

I played around with it in my last career and liked it, this time around I actually made a separate crew list and assigned more realistic "ranks" to all the men based on their in-game rank + their area of specialty. So the highest ranking PO who is qualifed for radio/sonar is the Oberfunkmaat, the highest ranking POs with Maschinist quals are the Diesel and Elektro Obermaschinists, the highest ranking PO in the Seamen's division is the Oberbootsmann, etc. The NO is my IIIWO and Obersteuermann and I don't count him as a commissioned officer even though the game considers him to be one.

I'm not sure how well this will play out when it comes to promotions, transfers, and replacements, but I'm only on my second combat patrol so I haven't crossed that bridge yet. :D

Some people give sailors "quals," even though they don't count, for crew management "eye candy" purposes. I used to, myself, before it became too tedious.

But you are right, and this point cannot be made often enough to new players: only one qualification "works" for POs, and no qualification "works" for sailors.

In fact, you can run a VII with no sailors at all. Only officers and POs. You probably shouldn't run a career that way, but try some single missions with all your sailors beached. You won't notice their absence.

Then you'll have to speed up a little now, but I did anyways response to a question, thank you, :up:

Thanks I got it, :salute:

Petty Officers should always be qualified. That's why they are POs. The game is wrong.

that was my thinking. I could see one or maybe 2 brand new PO's not being Qual'd in something, but I would have imagined the majority would know their jobs before even stepping on the boat.

Yes that is true but easily and quickly rectified using Commander.

Even as an E-2 I was already assigned to be a radioman, before I even saw a ship. Three months of RM school and I was probably never going to be anything else. Once aboard I spent all my time in the radio shack, and when I made E-4 I would have been classified 'Radioman Third Class', which is a Petty Officer. That's the way it works.

I thought using Commander to qualify POs was the point of the thread. :sunny:

Forgetting commander then, if i had 5 PO's with torps quals would they load quicker than 5 PO's without the quals ? or is it not factured into the gameplay and just purely "eyecandy"

The first qualification given to a PO is never eye candy, it will be recognized by the game and factored into gameplay.

IIRC Commander lets you give two quals to a senior PO but I don't think the game recognizes the second one as a factor in his performance.

However keep in mind that once the "efficiency bar" above a compartment is 100% green it is running at 100% efficiency and putting in more men who are qualified in the relevant specialty will not give you any more improvement in the compartment's performance. If the compartment efficiency is already maxed out, you'd be wasting quals if you gave them out for the sole purpose of increasing it.