[Sailor Steve]

Bear with me, as I'm actually going somewhere with this.

Silent Service: No crew. But who cared, because it was the first real subsim, and a lot of fun.

AOD: No crew. But who cared, since it was a good submarine combat simulator.

Silent Hunter: No crew. But who cared, because it was another good submarine combat simulator. I could imagine a crew. I even gave tours of the boat to pilots I rescued. Also I ran simultaneous careers, one from each available home port.

Silent Hunter II: Had little blue figures that turned red if they were killed. Not much else to recommend it.

Silent Hunter III: First subsim to have a real crew. The management was tough, but it was cool to see them there. The names were limited, but SH3 Commander fixed that, and I can run three or four simultaneous careers, and though the faces are limited I will never have a duplication of any names.

Silent Hunter IV: The crew management was much better, the faces more realistic, and I still have limited repeating names, but I live with it.

Silent Hunter V: Every patrol, every career, every time I play I'm going to see the exact same very distinctive faces, with the exact same name. No matter who I am or where I go, they'll always be the same.

That last part may not be true, and I'm hoping there will be a lot more variety than we've seen so far, or at least that this will be one of the parts that's easily modable. If it is always the same, it's going to get boring very quickly.