Career start crew - them scurvy dogs (TEC)

[Sniper297]

The crew AI sucks because their programming is limited to basic things. How well they do those basic things depends on their skills. My first few times starting a career I made the mistake of casting off without looking at the crew, so they were frequently failing to do what they were supposed to, or doing it too late, or dawdling on the job.



Good idea to go to this screen - most petty officers will be OK, but look at all the non rates (boots, Seaman 3rd or Seaman 1st) carefully. 30 should be the minimum acceptable skill for the location, 40 is better. By compartment, skills that need to be as high as possible;

Deck Watch - Watchman
Engine Rooms - Mechanical
Torpedo Rooms - Mechanical and Guns
Conning Tower - Electrical
Control Room - Mechanical and Watchman
Deck and AA Guns - duh, Guns

Most places by default have rated petty officers, but the Deck Watch can often have blind lookouts who don't see a ship until it rams, and Torpedo Rooms frequently have some clutz with such poor Mechanical and Guns skills that he gets in the way so it takes 3 days to reload one tube.



Found these guys posted as lookouts on the Deck Watch, both have very poor Watchman skills and don't belong there. First guy has Watchman 25, but high Mechanical and Guns, so I move him to the torpedo room to replace someone below 30 in either skill. Other guy is a grass combing farmer who should have joined the Army, drag his pic to the far left to dismiss crew member. Highest skill he has is electrical, and even that sucks. Maybe he could peel potatoes without cutting his thumbs off, but I wouldn't bet on it.



After getting rid of the worst lubbers, I've spent starting renown on moving the deck gun from stern to bow, and changing AA guns (never been patched, once the career starts with a stern gun you can no longer change it) but all the 3rd class seamen don't require any renown points at all. And you can find some real gems among those Billy Bootcamp guys.

I drag the outstanding recruits over to the damage control section temporarily, then look at the lowest required skill in current crew, compare to the new recruits and replace the 27s and 30s with 35s and 40s until they're all used up.
I've actually seen Deck Watch with a Watchmen skill of 9, if I ever find the assignment officer I'll make THAT swab walk the plank.

Promotions take a long long long time regardless how much renown you earn during a career, so eventually even the ace seamen will be replaced with petty officers. One thing I noticed about the COMMAND petty officers (the ones with the helm symbol) sometimes they have two qualification badges in their profile, lookout (telescope on tripod symbol) and command. Since they need to have high Mechanical skills and high Watchmen skills, and the lookouts only need high Watchmen, as the career goes on between each patrol I replace plain vanilla Lookout POs with supercharged Command POs. Why? Same Watchmen skill levels, much much much higher Mechanical skills. What they need Mechanical for? When repairing damage you're usually submerged and trying to evade tin cans, so you don't need a deck watch at that time. Move the deck watch down to damage control, with the Command PO's high mechanical skill you don't have to rob the engine rooms of machinist's mates who are sorely needed when you're in trouble.

But it makes a difference on the first patrol if you start with a halfway decent crew instead of a bunch of stumblebums.

[TG626]

Don't you load up the DC slots too before leaving? I did, read it doesn't harm any thing and then you don't need to shuffle them around in combat.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by TG626

Don't you load up the DC slots too before leaving? I did, read it doesn't harm any thing and then you don't need to shuffle them around in combat.

It is advisable to have enough empty slots to put the deck watch there when under depth charge attack. It you leave them at the deck station, they are likely to be killed or injured by exploding ashcans. I would guess the same applies to the guns?

Yes, the game is strange.

[Sniper297]

Later in the career I grab an engineering officer (propeller symbol) and put him in the damage control leader spot just to have someone with high leadership and mechanical skills but leave the rest empty until I get serious damage. I hacked files to make the observation scope and one tube in each torpedo room indestructible because I got tired of constantly having to head back to base with no repairable scope or tube. Periscopes in particular get destroyed with no hope of repair all too often, and it's always both of them. Guns I don't worry about, they rarely get destroyed, just damaged.

Deck Watch and guns positions are usually occupied, SOP is to use the gunners (Chief Gunner's Mates usually) in the torpedo rooms, but a torpedoman is usually better.

Get a lot of renown and you get a lot of medals, most of them "wounded medal"s, so after the second or third patrol I hand them out to the gunners and deck watch since even if they haven't been wounded yet they eventually will be.

Filling all the slots is an option, matter of personal taste, how much renown you have, and how many 100+ Mechanical guys are available. Beginning the career without any damage control crew I usually grab torpedomen and the two CGMs to fill up the slots when I have heavy damage, but to the best of my knowledge the crew in their own compartments contribute to the repair work. I don't know that for sure but I remember reading it somewhere.

[Armistead]

You can better design your crew and add special abilities, even a man that can repair destroyed items. Again, don't have games or files on this pc and been a long time, seems it was UPC files.

[ETR3(SS)]

Yeah the crews are kinda hosed. Submariners are a jack of all trades and require greater intelligence than your average skimmer puke. So I can't blame you for getting rid of those TAD skimmers.

[Sniper297]

Well, I really want some REAL sailors with actual brains, but the game don't have any Naval Aviators.

[Snarf]

Then there is the cheater method of whipping them scurvy landlubbers into real sailors...

open documents > SH4 > data > cfg > save games > 00000X (pick the one that matches the time stamp of when you saved) > ActiveUserPlayerUnits

Then use the find tool in notepad and search for the name of the pollywog you want to give an 'attitude adjustment' or you can add in special abilities to CPO's and officers.

[ETR3(SS)]

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Well, I really want some REAL sailors with actual brains, but the game don't have any Naval Aviators.

Just remember, there's more aircraft at the bottom of the ocean than there are submarines in the sky.

[Snarf]

Of course naval aviators believe they are above everyone else, they do fly with their heads in the clouds

The real brains are the ones who keep the things in flying shape.

Originally Posted by TG626

Don't you load up the DC slots too before leaving? I did, read it doesn't harm any thing and then you don't need to shuffle them around in combat.

Speaking of naval aviators, you also want to keep some slots open so you have room on board to pick those aviators out of the drink.

[Sniper297]

"more aircraft at the bottom of the ocean than there are submarines in the sky"

Good one, now I gotta get the Windex and wipe the coffee off the screen.

"The real brains are the ones who keep the things in flying shape."

Technically Aircraft Maintenance Division ARE Naval Aviators, anyone in group IV with wings on the rating badge. AW (Aviation ASW OPERATOR) is Operations Division, AX (Aviation ASW TECH) is Aircraft Maintenance Division. The AW does most of the pinging and ponging, the AX is mostly along for the ride except when needed for relief/secondary operator or troubleshooting. I did a lot of maintenance outside my rating (MOS for you Army Air Force types) since a helicopter (10,000 mismatched vibrating shaking parts flying close formation around an oil leak waiting for metal fatigue to set in) requires a LOT of it.

Snarf, my worst trouble with that type of thing is no self discipline - I start doing that and it's hard not to go overboard with it.

[Snarf]

I'm more poking fun at the meat servos. I'm in helicopter MX too, although civilian, I have worked around the navy a bit.

[Sniper297]

Yeah, we're all screwing around here, the bubblehead is just jealous of ACFBs (Anchor Clankin FlyBoys).

I worked the line when I first joined HS-75, when deployed ashore at NAS Lakehurst we would tow an SH-3D Sea King off the washrack out into the summer sunshine, point it into the wind and chock it, hook up the NC-8 external power. Pilots would do the preflight and start number one, spread the blades, and before one of the lineman could climb up to do the head check there was oil and hydraulic fluid pouring down the sides already. I read someplace that most fixed wing AC required an average of 1 man hour of maintenance for every flight hour, helos needed 8 man hours for one flight hour. You didn't worry about leaks, you only worried when it wasn't leaking because that meant it was out of oil or fluid.



That's me freezing my butt off in the port catwalk, USS America CV-66, somewhere near the Denmark Straits, 1981. At least we didn't have to wash the leaky buggers at sea.

[Snarf]

I'd rather have worn that in the cold. The standard flight line gear isn't all that fun to wear when it's 100+ and 100% humidity.

[Sniper297]

Been a long time, but let's see if I remember the 5MC announcement.

NOW FLIGHT QUARTERS, FLIGHT QUARTERS. CHECK HELMETS ON, GOGGLES DOWN, SLEEVES ROLLED DOWN. CHECK YOUR FLOTATION GEAR. CHECK CHOCKS AND TIEDOWNS, CHECK INTAKE AND EXHAUST CLEARANCES. NOW CHECK FOR LOOSE GEAR ABOUT THE DECK. LET'S START ALL GO AIRCRAFT.

That first part was the worst in hot weather, them floating bird farms always seemed to want to go to Bermuda in the summer and Iceland in the winter. Of course the Captain is sitting in a nice heated / air conditioned enclosed bridge sadistically watching the flight deck crewmen roasting or freezing, blasted sadists probably do it on purpose.