Promotions, Medals And Awards

Hi all!

I am a newbie to SH3 and am liking the game a lot, it's quite impressive!! I have started my carrer in 39 and things are easy still. I have a question for you guys, sorry if it is very basic, hope you can help me out.

How should I "distribute" medals and awards amongst the crew so as to have a good efficient crew? So far I've started giving medals to officers etc, and once they all have, then to sailors. After 6 patrols, I basically have:

liutenant (the guys whose "faces" you see): morale around 4/5, resilence full, experience 550/500

warrant officers: morale 4/5, resilence 4/5, experience 175/150

sailors: morale 1/2, resilence 2/3, experience 75/20.

At the top I get officers 5/5, pettyofficers 14/16, sailors 27/30.

It seems the sailors are quite demoralized (with reason) since I have given priority to officers when giving out medals, promotions, etc.

My question is if I am doing things right or if there is a better way to get an efficient, balanced crew.

Many thanks!!

[kylania]

Welcome to SH3 and SubSim! Glad you're enjoying your first career!

Personally I tried to spread out the medals I was given. For instance if we had a patrol where say Flak gunning came into play a lot, I might give the award to my flak gunner. If I had to really push my engines to get ahead of a convoy I'd probably give it to my petty officer in the Engines.

[AVGWarhawk]

Normally I load up the lowly sailors first to get them motivated as most of the officers are generally motivated from the start. Once the pond scum have their medals and are genuinely interested in surviving, I distribute to the swab that performed what was needed on the patrol, ie. torpedos boys for fast loading, flak dude for shooting down the plane, watchmen for not missing that smudge off in the distance, etc.

[_Seth_]

Welcome to the best forum en the 'net, mate!

[The Munster]

I gave my first Iron Cross to the radioman and the rest of the crew looked at me like I was barmy ! The Officers sent me to Coventry [a UK thing], sailors bitched that it was never any of them and the Petty Officers weren't petty about it at all; they threw a big party as it was one of their boys that was decorated !

I think you should follow your heart and award to the one that you feel did the most work on that Patrol no matter what level of rank they are.

[fredbass]

What I've ended up doing is, of course, give it to those who are highlited in blue and I prefer to generally give them to higher ranks first since they give you the biggest boost in the game. But one other thing I do is look at the experience that each has and then give them out to those who have the largest ratio, therefore seemingly most deserving, so to speak.

P.S. I'm not at my computer, but I think its the experience which you see the high/low ratio. That's what I'm talking about, just incase I stated it wrong.

[AVGWarhawk]

That is not a bad idea but I still noticed that the start of the game your officer are somewhat motivated. Your swabs in blue need the most encouragment. I have also noted that all medals with exception of the u_boat badge raise stamina or knowledge. Check it out next time you award the medals.

[mookiemookie]

I always play special attention to my sonar officers, and then my watch officers. You definately want good "eyes and ears". Up until the German Cross in Gold (which makes them immune from fatigue) I haven't seen much benefit from giving out medals. A slight increase in fatigue resistance, that's all.

Hi all!

I think you are right and I had been doing things the other way around: officers are quite motivated at the start, so its probably not a good idea to "waste" medals etc on them. Its probably better to award them to sailors, whose morale is not very high and who get tired faster so as to improve this.

Will tell you how it works after a couple of patrols (I have completed 6 so far). Thanks for the advice!!

[catar M]

Originally Posted by kylania

Welcome to SH3 and SubSim! Glad you're enjoying your first career!

Personally I tried to spread out the medals I was given. For instance if we had a patrol where say Flak gunning came into play a lot, I might give the award to my flak gunner. If I had to really push my engines to get ahead of a convoy I'd probably give it to my petty officer in the Engines.

I do the same , sort of like real army(navy)

thanks all. i did spread out the medals after the last patrol, focusing on the sailors. i just started the next patrol and they do seem to last a bit longer until they get tired. thanks for the advice.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yeah, spread them around. By the 5th patrol the crew is good and you spend less time messing with them.

[Jimbuna]

Always the lowest ranks first because they lack the motivation initially

[KevinB]

What happens after all the medals have been awarded? I'm in early '43 and nearly all the crew except a couple have been awarded everything from iron crosses and knights crosses. Are there any other medals or is it just renown.

[TarJak]

From what I've seen it doesn't appear to make all that much difference to the game whoever you give them to. I've done both officers first as well as deckpigs first and can't say I've noticed much difference in performance either way.

One thing that does happen is that they guys with the medals tend to get less fatigued as quickly, but given good crew management this shouldn't be too much of an issue unless you are in a big fight and then medals or no, everybody crashes eventually.