The "special abilities" that some crew have?

[Deputy]

Hi all!
I hope someone can help me. I didn't find squat in the instruction manual about these abilities. I first discovered they existed in the mod "German Ultra Subs v1.0.
There are buttons on the panel to activate them. They are special abilities some crew members have that are above and beyond normal abilities. In the mod they are only on German crew members. So maybe they came with the 1.5 patch or maybe only the German crew can have them. I dunno.

What I would like to know:

#1 What are the special abilities available? A list of them and what they do would be awesome.
#2 Where in the SH files is the data on who has them?
#3 Are there any mods that can change/alter/add them?

Thanks in advance. Sure wish there was something in the documentation that described this.

Dep

[Rockin Robbins]

You know, I've always HATED special abilities and the other arcade stuff the game developers added to SH4 with U-Boat Missions. They totally forgot that this is a simulation and got totally silly.

Then, not satisfied with ruining aspects of SH4, they doubled down on the silly stuff for SH5.

Personally, when in a campaign, one of my players sprouts special abilities, he's off my crew. As a result I've spent zero time trying to figure out what special abilities exist and how to develop them. I'll go play Borderlands 2 first.

[Col7777]

I would think it would be better if the crew just got better as time went on, gaining experience made them better so to speak.
I said on another thread if someone wants it then it's on their PC and not anyone else's so no harm done.

It's been so long since I've messed with them to remember the files, but several mods use them, but many are not used. Some are activated by being in the right compartment, others have timers, you activate them and they last only so long, such as tweaking the engines for an extra knot of speed. I don't remember the list, but some that come to mind are ..better eyesight, quicker repair times, quicker tube loading, better gunner/aa shooter, faster engines, medic-quicker heal times, etc..

In Trav mod for TMO, I like the crew ratings, more for injured. I changed the settings some, but if a crew member became injured, ..I think he uses like 20%, like if their health becomes 80% they don't work. I think I switched it to about 50%, I used an older version of Trav's mod for TMO, didn't like the last one.

[Deputy]

Well it appears they happen for US crews too. I'd just be happy if I could get my whole crew trained in one normal skill like I could in SH3.

Something else I noticed...the US subs all seem kinda inferior to the German subs. Germans have better guns, better torps, and more advanced subs. US subs almost feel like they are from WW1. I mean even the "normal" German subs like the Type IX are far better than the best US versions. I guess it was that way in WW2 too. Just we had more boats than them. Quantity over quality. Not saying US subs are garbage or anything. Just not as good as the German ones.

[Col7777]

As some of you know I only recently returned to SH and I normally play single missions but to be honest I never noticed, do the crew still get fatigue and you have to swap them about?
I remember having to do that and it was a pain, some said it shouldn't be the captain's job to do so it should be automatic, has that changed in v1.5?

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Deputy

Well it appears they happen for US crews too. I'd just be happy if I could get my whole crew trained in one normal skill like I could in SH3.

Something else I noticed...the US subs all seem kinda inferior to the German subs. Germans have better guns, better torps, and more advanced subs. US subs almost feel like they are from WW1. I mean even the "normal" German subs like the Type IX are far better than the best US versions. I guess it was that way in WW2 too. Just we had more boats than them. Quantity over quality. Not saying US subs are garbage or anything. Just not as good as the German ones.

Actually, the German subs were barely advanced from World War I models and it was the American sub which was a vastly superior machine.

American subs were faster and quieter on the surface and submerged, had greater range, more torpedoes and torpedo tubes, better TDC systems, better sonar, superior diesel/electric systems (especially superior to the type XXI, which was going to be a disaster).

After the war, when the American subs were optimized for underwater speed like the Type XXI, they outperformed the Type XXI in all respects (they had longer range and were faster) and were also very dependable. During the war, the US purposely abandoned the underwater speed optimized design of the S-boats and went for a new and much more effective definition of what a submarine is: a surface raider, which, in case its miserable life depended on it, could submerge for the minimum possible time, then resurface to resume surface raiding duties.

The Americans realized that the much vaunted German ability to dive very deeply was very detrimental to the effectiveness of the submarine as a fighting unit. A hiding submarine might as well be a thousand miles away. It is entirely harmless. Foolproof strategy against U-boats: drive 'em deep where they'll take a long time to get to the surface, killing them if possible. But if you don't kill 'em, just drive away. They're too slow ever to see you again. You win. That's why about a third of U-boats were killed without hitting a single target with even one torpedo. What the Germans were good at did not contribute to the effectiveness of the weapon. It was if their guns were considered superior because of how shiny they were. Useless capability.

The American torpedoes, on the other hand, were exact copies of captured German ones, so faithfully copied that even their DEFECTS were copied. Their explosive power was equal or better. All those great German homing torpedoes? Not one sinking due to them in the entire war. The on paper inferior American Cutie? Several sinkings during the war. Something dreadfully wrong with a simulation that inherently worships German engineering regardless of pitiful results. Das Boot is a clumsily heavy handed anti-war propaganda movie, not a documentary. The German submarines were a waste of the best men and materials the Germans had to offer. They couldn't afford to lose them. They lacked the capability to win their war theater. They guaranteed US entry into the war, along with most of the rest of the world against the Axis.

But the two most important aspects which made American submarines vastly superior to U-boats were crew usability: air conditioning and humanized control layouts that minimized errors and RADAR. Radar completely changed the game, making a marginal utility weapon into something of consequence, which was capable of winning and did win a war theater.

Now, in the game, if Germans have better guns it is because their simulation is badly done. In reality it would take more than a hundred hits to sink a medium sized freighter. The Type IX was slower, carrier fewer torpedoes, had fewer torpedo tubes, lousy crew accomodations, cumbersome and overyly complex control mechanisms--it was a World War I design slightly updated, just like the Type VII.

By the way, the Germans manufactured 1154 U-boats during the war. That means more than 1300 were operational at different times. Only 263 American submarines made patrols in WWII. Germans resoundingly lost the Battle of the Atlantic. American submarines inflicted the majority of Japanese ship losses in the war, resulting directly in the collapse of Japanese ability to aggressively prosecute the war. What does that tell you about the relative quality and efficiency of the submarines and their crews?