[REQ] Implementing Crew Morale

[vindex]

Obviously there's the skeleton of a crew morale system lying unused in this game. I'm curious whether it would be possible for a modder to revive it. Nothing appears to affect morale, but the variable exists and perhaps some effects are coded? Can it be "turned on" by manipulating the moddable data files? Or is it all hard-coded and we are just out of luck?

[vindex]

Uhhhh ... apparently not, huh?

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice idea, maybe one of the lads here will have a go at it at some point in time


RDP

[billko]

From what I've read on the forums, morale actually does come into play and affects the performance of the crew under times of stress. How, I'm not really sure. Something about panicking under fire or just the opposite, a fanatical devotion to leadership of the boat.

Bill

PS, I had to evade some destroyers once by settling on the bottom of the ocean and pretending to be a clam shell. It worked, but there was one poor seaman recruit on his first patrol who must've soiled his pants - his morale was broken. Nothing a few days in port couldn't fix, tho.

[vindex]

I have never seen morale change from normal, although I've heard rumors of people who have (rarely) seen it.

In fact, the crew seem to have very little to do with the performance of my boat at all. My boat dives the same and handles the same regardless of how high or low the "effectiveness" bar is in the relevant rooms. Maybe sonar and radar are effected, but I haven't seen any evidence. The only thing that is clearly effective is torpedo loading times.

[EAF274 Johan]

I have only seen morale change one time. It happened when I stayed too long on the surface and took damage from a destroyer. A few crew members, all in the compartment that took damage, had their morale 'shaken', while one other crewmember in another compartment went 'fanatic'. The effect seemed to last a few days at least. However, refitting or saving/loading reset morale back to 'normal'.

It's hard to say if it affected crew efficiency, but I assume it does.

[billko]

Originally Posted by vindex

I have never seen morale change from normal, although I've heard rumors of people who have (rarely) seen it.

In fact, the crew seem to have very little to do with the performance of my boat at all. My boat dives the same and handles the same regardless of how high or low the "effectiveness" bar is in the relevant rooms. Maybe sonar and radar are effected, but I haven't seen any evidence. The only thing that is clearly effective is torpedo loading times.

Well, that's the thing about "morale." In real life, morale affects efficiency in a crew (or any work force) in subtle ways. Take a real life example: morale "broken" at a shop where everyone knows there's going to be major layoffs. Things get done more slowly, attention to detail falls off, machines tend to be neglected and because of that, they tend to break down more easily.

I'm just guessing, but maybe broken morale in SH4 amounts to being "frozen" in a panic state, or not being able to do anything more than stare in hopeless despair at the mess presented to them (much like the example above). On the other hand, maybe a fanatical response to an emergency would be to increase efficiency because of an unwillingess to give in to a "hopeless" situation.

At least I'm *hoping* it's subtle and not non-existant.

edit:
I'm thinking it's the former and not the latter because one of the abilities leaders have a chance get as they progress is to increase fanatical chances in the crew.

Bill

[vindex]

It sounds like you've seen examples of "broken" and "fanatical" morale happen to your crew. If so, what caused it?

[billko]

Originally Posted by vindex

It sounds like you've seen examples of "broken" and "fanatical" morale happen to your crew. If so, what caused it?

Extremely reckless behavior.

Bill