The deck crew can be "taught" to go belowdeck, using an external mouse-automation program. There are several around. (I forget which I used, and I'm on travel status right now, so I don't have my SH3 PC handy.) It's a slight chore to program the mouse moves, and it does take time to execute - actually about as long as it took a well-trained fleet boat crew to submerge. But it's better than leaving them "outside."
And, of course, it could be done in-game, just as h.sie did for the "Lazy 1WO" in SH3. It would just require someone to reverse-engineer the sh4.exe, which AFAIK no one has done for SH4. The modding interest for SH4 seems to be an order of magnitude less than for SH3, so many possible SH4 enhancements will likely never see the light of day. But that does not mean they are impossible, just that someone with the requisite skills and motivation has not tackled the problem.
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