Crew morale/injuries depth charge attack (photos)

[Bubblehead1980]

June 1944 in Sea of Okhotsk. USS BARB SS-220
TMO Update V2.0
100 difficult, but cams and contacts on for this patrol to change it up.


Rather intense depth charge attack, possibly worst one have had in quite a while. One Mikura Class Escort and other was a PB 46 (ex Wakatake Class). The Mikura laid some impressive patterns.. I tried out a new (well to me) DC sound effect, with the "click click" of the detonator and it was rather eerie, especially in conjunction with the "clang" (added to EAX sound sim for V2.0) when a depth charge bounces off the deck. Took some damage, but the effects were more pronounced on crew.


I had at least four crew in each compartment listed as "shaken" afterwards. Three crew, including a CPO, were listed as "broken". I noticed some decline in performance in all compartments as a result. A few extra seconds in dive time for rest of patrol, crew tired easily, took longer to rest up. Luckily, this happened near the end of time in patrol area.

[Sammy-rai]

Well, this is interesting stuff. I have to admit that so far I have neglected crew management in my current campaign (my first SH4). The crew works in shifts and does not seem to need outside manipulation, so I don't worry about them.



Am on my third patrol but my good old mint condition S-boat has been depth-charged only once.



But can things get so bad that a crew mutinies or the boat becomes operationally impaired ?


I am not using TMO but have installed FOTRS mod.

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by Sammy-rai

Well, this is interesting stuff. I have to admit that so far I have neglected crew management in my current campaign (my first SH4). The crew works in shifts and does not seem to need outside manipulation, so I don't worry about them.



Am on my third patrol but my good old mint condition S-boat has been depth-charged only once.



But can things get so bad that a crew mutinies or the boat becomes operationally impaired ?


I am not using TMO but have installed FOTRS mod.

Yes...for example if leave crew at general quarters for too long without a break, you will notice eventually they all go to sleep look at their fatigue level under their stats. Also ties in with health and morale. When everyone is sleeping or so exhausted can't function, can give orders such as ahead flank etc and they will not comply.

I check over each crewmember and each compartment after a depth charge attack, esp if took damage. I check for health, fatigue, and morale.

There are four states of morale:

Normal, Shaken, Broken, and Manic.

Manic is somewhat rare but it does happen, especially after a bad depth charge attack. Sometimes they instantly become manic or it progresses from broken to manic (posted about it a while back) . I had a crew member who was wounded and while thought he was healing, his morale progressed to manic. While in manic state, I noticed his health declining while en route to base and he died before reached port.

Crew members who reach manic state and are alive when return, I dismiss from boat as they would have been in reality. They can affect performance of compartment if do it again and have noticed that (likely randomly assigned by sim) certain crew members are more prone to suffering morale issues than others.



Working with the files during the development of my TMO Update mod, can tell the developers of SH 4 planned to do a lot more with the crew aspect than is in the final product, a common theme in SH 4 as see many other unfinished things in the "guts" of the sim. . Ran out of time I suppose.

However, while crew can mostly be left to their own devices, some involvement can improve your boats overall performance. Skilled lookouts (watchman) under their states on deck watch for example. Torpedoman and Gunners Mates in the torpedo compartment. Those in lead slots of compartments who have high leadership stats, get a stronger performance out of crew. Overall, works together to get a better performance on things like dives, torpedo reloads, spotting targets, detecting targets on sound, tracking etc. Differences can be subtle but in all the testing , I have noticed a difference.



I also rearrange my for more realism and historical accuracy, because default roster on subs lacks this. Make sure boat has historical number of officers, CPO etc.

I am slowly working on revamping the crew, ranks, ratings etc for future TMO Update. Still learning a lot about things and it can get complicated because many things are intertwined. Hope is to get realistic default rosters for boats and something resembling reality to ratings. I have managed to eliminate Senior Chief and Master Chief, as they did not exist during WW II.

[Sammy-rai]

No doubt that leadership ratings should affect crew morale greatly.