Rank limitation/correction

[Arlo]

I've always wondered about Fleetboat crews with such a high number of enlisted E3 and below. I believe this is a bit off, realism-wise.

The eternal patrol roster list of the U.S.S. Tang indicates of the 78 lost only a little over a dozen were E1-E3.

https://www.oneternalpatrol.com/uss-tang-306.htm

I might recommend that roughly a third of the crew start out as E3 or below when a roster is first formed and that the petty officer billets for E6 and below be set to unlimited with promotions being handled at the current rate.

This is based on the FoTRSu mod.

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by Arlo

I've always wondered about Fleetboat crews with such a high number of enlisted E3 and below. I believe this is a bit off, realism-wise.

The eternal patrol roster list of the U.S.S. Tang indicates of the 78 lost only a little over a dozen were E1-E3.

https://www.oneternalpatrol.com/uss-tang-306.htm

I might recommend that roughly a third of the crew start out as E3 or below when a roster is first formed and that the petty officer billets for E6 and below be set to unlimited with promotions being handled at the current rate.

This is based on the FoTRSu mod.

Yes, the default crew composition and how things are done is free of reality. I have somewhat corrected it but is something I plan to address fully in the future in TMO.

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Arlo

I've always wondered about Fleetboat crews with such a high number of enlisted E3 and below. I believe this is a bit off, realism-wise.

The eternal patrol roster list of the U.S.S. Tang indicates of the 78 lost only a little over a dozen were E1-E3.

https://www.oneternalpatrol.com/uss-tang-306.htm

I might recommend that roughly a third of the crew start out as E3 or below when a roster is first formed and that the petty officer billets for E6 and below be set to unlimited with promotions being handled at the current rate.

This is based on the FoTRSu mod.

yes, that is true.
a boat could not get underway without a quorum of senior enlisted (E4-E7).
crew mix, while not being impossible to achieve, is still very clerical in nature when playing SH4.
and...one has to work with each boat crew for each modset because of the embedding of crew with the boat machinery itself.
by that i mean, if someone changes a piece of conning tower equipment, the crew fix has to be redone using that unitpart file as the base or it wont work. or, if someone changes one or more features of the boat itself, then the crew has to be redone using that UPC as a base otherwise things won't work properly.

editing crew mix means nine boat edits x 2 (boat.upc & its unitpart mate) for Stock, GFO, TMO, RSRD, RFB, FOTRSU, yada, yada, yada.
it gets tedious, let me tell you.
i have thought about posting a fix for one mod or another and as soon as i finish someone else mods the boat in such a manner that i would have to re-edit all of the boat.upc files or their respective unitpart....otherwise there would be CTD City.

if you can figure out a methodology to accomplish this, then my hat is off to you.

[Arlo]

Understood. I do wish I had the technical ability, stamina and patience to mod. I try to keep that in mind when making requests or suggestions. I am still having a great deal of fun with various mods. Thanks to you all.

[flaminus]

I think it makes sense that we have many noobs at the initial status, because the purpose of this game is aiming at "career" play, not a single fight settings.

If we already have many senior crew then we will lost the fun to upgrade crew after each partols.

[Arlo]

Originally Posted by flaminus

I think it makes sense that we have many noobs at the initial status, because the purpose of this game is aiming at "career" play, not a single fight settings.

If we already have many senior crew then we will lost the fun to upgrade crew after each patrol.

Oh, don't get me wrong ... I really like the aspect of awarding medals and giving promotions, watching my crew become more elite with time. But real life Fleet Boats weren't crewed by 50%+ seaman rank and below. Even then, they weren't limited to less than 50% E4-E6.

Now, with chiefs ... there's only so many spaces in 'Chief's Country' to lay down and stow gear. Guess same can be said for O's.

But concentrating on E6 and below (using TMO as an example) I can readily accept there being at least 6 E6-E4 per compartment (crew berthing the possible exception) with E3s and E2s and E1s equally and evenly distributed to start.

Currently the crew starts out as:



That's 35 out of 81 (over 40%) that are essentially boots sent to sub school then to the fleet without any promotion (E1). Another 12 are E3s (over 10%). That's half the crew ranked E3-. By the fourth or fifth patrol the majority of non Chief enlisted should be Petty Officers (I would think). With 4 or 5 promos doled out per patrol, good luck with that.

Bear in mind that you're also promoting Third Class POs to Second Class and Second Class POs to First Class. Not to mention that you may promote your officers (and should if you want to create more specialties among them).

I would prefer a boat with ranks distributed a bit more realistically. There'd be plenty of room to promote (with PO limitation below CPO lifted).

*(But again ... not a 'deal breaker.' After all, I'm not a modder by any means and my suggestions and requests are never demands.)*

[flaminus]

Thanks for explanation, I would agree with this point and great to hear KM is working on this.

[Arlo]

Originally Posted by flaminus

Thanks for explanation, I would agree with this point and great to hear KM is working on this.

Me too. Having switched back to TMO for now I am understanding slight differences more and more. I love TMO's uniforms. They are more authentic. And it might be more challenging (although I sunk over 50k tons on my second patrol - at this rate I'll catch up to and surpass Mush).



The problem I'm running into here is that I'm unable to promote any of the crew, at all. At first I thought that my first patrol (no medal/little earned renown) was preventing me from promos. It ends up that it is just the PO limit keeping promos from happening. In FoTRSu I was given more (perhaps it was an additional mod, now that I think about it - I remember one that said it allowed more POs onboard).

This is what the second patrol roster looked like (with plenty of renown):



I'll be looking for the mod that opens up more promos again.

Still having fun, however.

On this patrol I sank a target while being harassed from the air and ran across a decent sized escorted convoy with only 2 cuties left (I tried to lure the escorts into running for me so I could use them on them then gun a ship or two but they seemed unable to. Eventually I ended up close - 800 yds- to a large troop ship and released both cuties and dived. They sank it and I got away).

[KaleunMarco]

Originally Posted by Arlo

Me too. Having switched back to TMO for now I am understanding slight differences more and more. I love TMO's uniforms. They are more authentic. And it might be more challenging (although I sunk over 50k tons on my second patrol - at this rate I'll catch up to and surpass Mush).

The problem I'm running into here is that I'm unable to promote any of the crew, at all. At first I thought that my first patrol (no medal/little earned renown) was preventing me from promos. It ends up that it is just the PO limit keeping promos from happening. In FoTRSu I was given more (perhaps it was an additional mod, now that I think about it - I remember one that said it allowed more POs onboard).
This is what the second patrol roster looked like (with plenty of renown):
I'll be looking for the mod that opens up more promos again.

Still having fun, however.

On this patrol I sank a target while being harassed from the air and ran across a decent sized escorted convoy with only 2 cuties left (I tried to lure the escorts into running for me so I could use them on them then gun a ship or two but they seemed unable to. Eventually I ended up close - 800 yds- to a large troop ship and released both cuties and dived. They sank it and I got away).

Arlo & Flaminus,

for the same reasons that i explained above on crew composition, it difficult to build a mod for promotions because it (the correction mod) would have to be modified every time the Mega-mod changed. no thanks.

do not despair!

you can change the promotions count and you do not need a mod to do so.

while you are in port, between missions, browse to your save folder and look for the file named CareerTrack.UPC. Make a copy of it just in case. (select the file, ctrl+c then ctrl+v will do the trick) then open it with Notepad. (press the start button and start typing n-o-t) somewhere in the first set of parameters you will see a line that reads: CREWMEMBERSCURRENTPROMOTIONREPOSITORY=
change the number that follows the equal sign to the number of promotions that you need and, voila. close and save and do not change anything else in that file. when you re-load that mission, you will see the promotions available for you to assign to your valiant crew.
you shouldnt have any problems, but i will be around if you do.

[Arlo]

Thank you, KM. I may work up the courage to try this.