Crew Skills

[TorpX]

I really doubt that one officer slot works any differently than any other. Others have posted what you stated saying that the first Deck Watch slot was the 'critical' one. Nothing I've seen tells me one is any better, or worse, than another.

Next time I'm on patrol I'll try some experimenting to see what I can learn. When I was playing around with this stuff I had it pretty well figured out, but I didn't bother to write anything down, and I can't remember the messy details.

[Gibus]

Here are my crew in November 1944, after having cut the Takeo Kurita's fleet of more than 130,000 tonnes in the San Bernardino Strait and then front Samar Island.
Although it has a highly qualified crew, if I miscalculated my shot solutions, torpedoes will not go into the belly of Japanese battleships. So I think it is better to first improve oneself, improve before others.

[TorpX]

Wow! Your boat layout is a lot different than mine.

And your crew is very large.

What class of cruiser did you say you commanded?

[ColonelSandersLite]

Same layout as mine.

[TorpX]

I guess it just looks odd to me, being used to the RFB style layout.

I notice that both of you have crew berthing full. In RFB it is used to put the deck watch crew during periods of submerged operation. What purpose does it serve?

The control room also seems too small.

Is that a stock layout, or TMO?

[ColonelSandersLite]

TMO. My screenshot isn't from career, I just started a single mission. So other than just shifting those officers, it's completely the default roster.

It's not the deck watch you gotta worry about, it's the gun crews . If you've been moving the Deck watch all this time, that sentence probably just saved you a ton of work.


I can only guess at his layout, but the guys in the berth are probably his AA gunners. I would guess that he also moves the more important deck gun crew into the berth when it's an issue.

Personally, all that I ever put in the berth anymore is some of my deck gun crew.

[Gibus]

Originally Posted by TorpX

What class of cruiser did you say you commanded?

Bonjour TorpX,

I said nothing. But since you ask, is Balao.
I play with TMO 2.5 + French mod translated.

I closed my twentieth patrol with 4.36 million tons.

[Majestik 909]

Whenever conditions permit, I play thr radio and dictaphone for the crew. I noticed morale and efficiency greatly increases....

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by ColonelSandersLite

It's not the deck watch you gotta worry about, it's the gun crews . If you've been moving the Deck watch all this time, that sentence probably just saved you a ton of work.

I don't think so. In RFB, the deck watch is certainly vulnerable.

Maybe Ducimus gave them protection in TMO, but I wouldn't rely on that. I mean why would he? Isn't it axiomatic that the deck watch is going to be exposed and vulnerable?

Of course, the boat will function just fine either way (until something explodes nearby).

[ColonelSandersLite]

Originally Posted by TorpX

Isn't it axiomatic that the deck watch is going to be exposed and vulnerable?

Wait, do you mean when you're on the surface getting shot at? Because if that's the case, in my experience *everyone* on the boat is able to be killed. I remember one time, I got pinged by a single 20mm round and it seriously injured a guy in the forward torpedo room and did 1% hull damage with no other damage. That's not what that compartment is for really. It's there as a workaround for a bug where deckgun and AA gun crews, but not deck watch crews, can easily be killed by depth charges. 95% sure about that. Really.

Did some more digging to move that 95% to 100%. If you don't believe me, maybe you will believe these guys:

Originally Posted by Webster

its a stock bug with the game and the solution to the gun crews being injured by depth charges is solved by going to crew management screen and moving them to the damage control station and they wont be hurt anymore by depth charges. just be sure to move them to gun stations before surfacing.

Originally Posted by Armistead

One thing to be careful with. The exterior slots of the game, deckgun and AA guns are still exterior slots even when dived. Just poor game programming, so even if you're dived the game still see's the men in these exterior slots....so move them to the alley or elsewhere. They can also easily be killed by depth charges. This just applies to your DG and AA gun, not watch slots.

And straight from the TMO manual (written by ducimes):
7. Deck and AA gun crewman being killed while submerged. This is due to a design flaw of the game. Place your crewman in “hogan's alley” (after battery crew berthing) when not in use.

[TorpX]

I guess TMO is a lot different here. I opened up a couple TMO files:

Deck Watch .........................crew exposure 0.3
most hull compartments..............................0.1
most guns.............................................. ....9.0

So, you're more or less right; watch crew is fairly safe. At least they are much safer than if they were left at their guns.

In RFB deck watch and guns are both vulnerable.

And straight from the TMO manual (written by ducimes):
7. Deck and AA gun crewman being killed while submerged. This is due to a design flaw of the game. Place your crewman in “hogan's alley” (after battery crew berthing) when not in use.

The design flaw really applies to all compartments equally. They can all be changed/modded to be as safe, or as vulnerable as we wish. It is just that their status does not change when we submerge or surface. So, we can either make the deck watch vulnerable (which makes sense when we are on the surface - not so much when we are under it), or we can make them protected (which only makes sense when we are submerged).

I guess Ducimus thought convenience should take precedence here.

In RFB, I recommend players send their deck watch below when diving. Hogan's Alley has empty slots, as does some other sections. The guns are only manned for very short periods, and those by torpedo room crews. It seems odd to me to have extra crew just for those.

[ColonelSandersLite]

So you got me curious and I looked at the stock files as well, the quote from webster should be a clue as to why . Ducimus didn't change the deck watch crew exposure as 0.3 is the stock value. He did increase the gun crew exposures to 9 though. Their stock values where 0.5 and 0.7 for AA and deck gun respectively.

If RFB is running different values, it's just some kind of RFB exclusive balance thing. Honestly, it sounds like a huge annoyance to me too.

Personally, I don't use torpedo room guys for the deck gun slots, I actually mostly use deck watch crew. If you look at their stats, you will probably notice that they tend to be pretty decent at gunnery. The gun compartments also apparently use the watch skill and gun skill equally. I do also use a couple of unskilled seamen that stay in the berth as well. In my head, those guys are roustabouts.

I've never noticed the difference between the 0.3 deck watch compartment and the 0.1 compartments either, and I've been depth charged plenty of times. I would guess that the difference there is very slight. Maybe a logrithmic algorithm? Dunno though, I'll probably keep an eye out for it in the future.

[TorpX]

I believe RFB tried to model crew rosters according to the way the boats actually functioned. So, torp room crew mans guns. You'll notice that there is no 'weapons' skill. So there is one weapons/guns/torpedo skill for everything.

As far as where this or that skill is found, all these things are alterable. Just because something is a certain way in stock, doesn't mean we have to keep it that way.

I've never noticed the difference between the 0.3 deck watch compartment and the 0.1 compartments either, and I've been depth charged plenty of times. I would guess that the difference there is very slight. Maybe a logrithmic algorithm? Dunno though, I'll probably keep an eye out for it in the future.

I doubt it's logarithmic. Most of the time we wouldn't notice anything because we try to avoid depth charges. It only comes up when things go wrong. One other thing; I didn't check the armor values of all these compartments. I suspect Duci has the deck zone the same as the rest of the boat. This would make any vulnerability less noticeable. This goes back to what I said before. If we make the deck more protected, it's unrealistic one way, if we make it vulnerable, it's unrealistic another way.



Something I'm curious about. Has anyone actually had fatalities from the crew drowning? I've never lost any crew to flooding, but maybe I've just been lucky.

[Rob Jacobsen]

Originally Posted by ColonelSandersLite

Wait, do you mean when you're on the surface getting shot at? Because if that's the case, in my experience *everyone* on the boat is able to be killed. I remember one time, I got pinged by a single 20mm round and it seriously injured a guy in the forward torpedo room and did 1% hull damage with no other damage. That's not what that compartment is for really. It's there as a workaround for a bug where deckgun and AA gun crews, but not deck watch crews, can easily be killed by depth charges. 95% sure about that. Really.

Did some more digging to move that 95% to 100%. If you don't believe me, maybe you will believe these guys:





And straight from the TMO manual (written by ducimes):
7. Deck and AA gun crewman being killed while submerged. This is due to a design flaw of the game. Place your crewman in “hogan's alley” (after battery crew berthing) when not in use.

So have I been wasting time moving men out of the deck watch slots every time I dive?

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Rob Jacobsen

So have I been wasting time moving men out of the deck watch slots every time I dive?

no, certainly not.
the most exposed crew are those actively manning guns.
the next most exposed crew are the Watch Crew.
after the first two categories, everyone else is under the same risk factor.

so, yes, keep moving your watch crew to some interior space as it will reduce their exposure to injury.