Drills to improve results

[raymond6751]

What I'd like to see is a way to have the crew do practise drills while on the way to the patrol zones. What I mean is, something to do en route rather than stare at the waves or fast forward.

Suppose you could (perhaps random chance) increase a department efficiency by running drills? Suppose each crew member in the department has a slim chance of improving experience with each drill?

I'm not saying a lot of time/visuals need be spent on this, but while en route a few dives, crash dives, emergency surfaces, gun drills, torpedo loading, repair parties, fire on board, engine overhaul, torpedo overhauls, man overboard, and sonar/radar tracking of friendly ships.

Each attempt could stand a chance of improving the department effectiveness and/or individual crew experience levels. More drills = more chances.

I hate to go on fast forward due to boredom.

[GoldenRivet]

say that each crewmember has an available 250 experience points.

every time you do a crash dive, fire a torpedo, fire the deck gun etc they gain 1 or 2 experience points.

SH3 already sort of works like that... and i cant imagine why SH5 wouldnt.

but i think what you're saying is see an immediate effect on the crew ability

[Arrakis]

I'd love that ! It would bring a totally new dimension that was missing in the previous games.
It would also be a great reason to spend much more time with your new modelled crew instead of just watching the boat's dot racing on the map at TC....
You would have the occasion of getting attached to your guys, see them evolve during each patrol.
Great point !

[Torplexed]

It's a neat idea. However, to keep players from unrealistically abusing the feature to build an elite crew overnight, it would probably be wise to build in a "point of diminishing returns" feature. Too many drills in a 24 hour period and your crew starts to resent you, resulting in a morale drop or a lessening of effectiveness. (fatigue)

[Kaleun_Endrass]

Yes, drills would be great. Each drill should drop crews morale abit and gets them more exhausted.

If this is coded right, you perform drills as needed, your men gain experience if used properly, but if misused could exhaust them, bad morale and even the posibility of a drill going bad and causing injurys and sub failures.

[Dread Knot]

I'm wondering if maybe it shouldn't be the other way around. Most U-Boat crews were pretty relentlessly trained already during their workup in the Baltic. Perhaps drills could be something you must do to prevent them from losing their edge and proficency? Otherwise, on one of these long patrols to the South Atlantic your crew could build up so much experience that they'll be unstoppable pros without every having met the enemy unless it's capped in some way.

[Akula4745]

I love it! Great ideas...

[SteamWake]

Ive got mixed emotions on this one.

On one hand it sounds like a great idea.

On the other hand diving drills aint exactly exciting and would get tedious after a while.

Maybe throw in some things like target practice and such. Heh have the trouble makers mop up after the spilled soup

But seriously a decent idea maybe make it a 'realisim' option.

[Hartmann]

A great idea if it can reduce dive times, repair times, AA gun accuracy , and improve general performance of the boat

[Highbury]

A good idea IF, even with a crew that was maxed out, you are not getting unrealistic performance like with the special abilities in SHIV.

[tonyj]

a great idea

[haegemon]

That would be in the case, sailors can have 2 states.

1.Alert
2. No alert.

[TheDarkWraith]

The US Navy, well the Nuclear US Navy at least, LOVES to do drills. When I was in the Navy that is what I hated most. It cut into my rack time (sleep), my chow time....it ruined everything. I was a Nuke EM so I almost always had to respond to whatever the 'casualty' was. Big morale sinker
Funny thing is the drills created more real casualties than fake ones. Equipment broke or caught fire either because it wasn't used correctly or it was 'switched' on/off too many times (there's only a certain amount of times a switch can be flipped, a button can be pressed, a breaker can be opened/closed, etc.) or because the drill team didn't intervene and stop the watchstander from taking an inappropriate action (usually the case). One time in the Med they ran a reactor #1 scram (reactor shutdown) on us. We cross connected steam plants and isolated #1 reactor but then the second reactor ended up scramming also (this is NOT a good situation to be in btw - Captain scrammed #2 reactor). Forward diesel was manned and started but it's switchgear caught fire due to parallel out-of-phase (junior EM manned it). Aft diesel was manned and it's output breaker wouldn't close (jammed)....all this time we're steaming down #2 reactor and in a REAL casualty. Reactor #2 steamed down almost to the point where it couldn't be allowed to get any colder before we were able to get the aft diesel online and thus complete the restart of #2 reactor.
Even after all that drills continued - and more feverishly
Point I'm making is if the game allows you to run drills then there should be some randomness about casualties happening from running the drills either due to watchstander error or equipment malfunction or you (the Captain) causing it.

[Rip]

Originally Posted by Racerboy

The US Navy, well the Nuclear US Navy at least, LOVES to do drills. When I was in the Navy that is what I hated most. It cut into my rack time (sleep), my chow time....it ruined everything. I was a Nuke EM so I almost always had to respond to whatever the 'casualty' was. Big morale sinker
Funny thing is the drills created more real casualties than fake ones. Equipment broke or caught fire either because it wasn't used correctly or it was 'switched' on/off too many times (there's only a certain amount of times a switch can be flipped, a button can be pressed, a breaker can be opened/closed, etc.) or because the drill team didn't intervene and stop the watchstander from taking an inappropriate action (usually the case). One time in the Med they ran a reactor #1 scram (reactor shutdown) on us. We cross connected steam plants and isolated #1 reactor but then the second reactor ended up scramming also (this is NOT a good situation to be in btw - Captain scrammed #2 reactor). Forward diesel was manned and started but it's switchgear caught fire due to parallel out-of-phase (junior EM manned it). Aft diesel was manned and it's output breaker wouldn't close (jammed)....all this time we're steaming down #2 reactor and in a REAL casualty. Reactor #2 steamed down almost to the point where it couldn't be allowed to get any colder before we were able to get the aft diesel online and thus complete the restart of #2 reactor.
Even after all that drills continued - and more feverishly
Point I'm making is if the game allows you to run drills then there should be some randomness about casualties happening from running the drills either due to watchstander error or equipment malfunction or you (the Captain) causing it.

This would be funny if it were not true. The line between running drills to improve operations and having it absolutely kill morale and/or screw **** up is very fine indeed.