...

[Skeksis]

...

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[ston5883]

Ok so looking at this post I'm now back and looking at my pocket battleship mission design. Surface vis is 7500, tower spot is 8450, and Vis range is 10,078. So understanding everything as you put it i will always be outspotted before I spot. Now what is often times shooting at me is a BC. My ship is bare basic. We are talking a displacement of only 17,900 on an advanced armored cruiser II hull. Now I take into consideration the other ships spotting. Ok acceptable until once again we see that my DDs can't see his BC. So what is it in this program that is allowing a large ship with no smaller than 16" guns to remain so stealthy?

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 8, 2021 by Skeksis

[madham82]

Great work breaking this down. I agree with all your suggestions. 

It seems the real improvements needed are with how Target Signature is calculated, and we need some kind of logic to prevent/penalize blind-fire. This last part will balance the scales against ships (particularly DDs) who are able to snipe with impunity, even though they can't actually "see" their targets. 

Edited June 13, 2021 by madham82
typo

[ston5883]

Okay Skekis trust me dude I trust everything you are saying but something seems off to me man. I get what you said about thinking of DS as a wows idea but something seems off to me as just that gamer as to why a BC can remain invisible while the mission only gives me two DS to spot with  and two BCs with are nothing more than very heavy cruisers. A BC firing with 16" guns should be visible.  Im sorry man just something feels off to me.

[madham82]

37 minutes ago, ston5883 said:

Okay Skekis trust me dude I trust everything you are saying but something seems off to me man. I get what you said about thinking of DS as a wows idea but something seems off to me as just that gamer as to why a BC can remain invisible while the mission only gives me two DS to spot with  and two BCs with are nothing more than very heavy cruisers. A BC firing with 16" guns should be visible.  Im sorry man just something feels off to me.

Think the issue is how target signature is being calculated and the towers themselves are balanced. That seems to be the takeaway here. 

i.e. how does a ship with better spotting have a lower signature than one with less spotting range. 

[killjoy1941]

On 6/13/2021 at 1:19 PM, madham82 said:

Think the issue is how target signature is being calculated and the towers themselves are balanced. That seems to be the takeaway here. 

i.e. how does a ship with better spotting have a lower signature than one with less spotting range. 

 

Honestly I think there's a whole load of issues that are waiting for campaign feedback to get resolved.

Formation AI performance, AI designs, battery accuracy, target spotting, weather balancing, etc.

 

The more I see, the more I'm convinced the devs need to add the last variables for it all to come together in any meaningful way that can be improved. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised we have things like formation AI at all at this stage. There's just too much that affects it which isn't in our toolbox as users to meaningfully provide feedback right now.

[Instant_Goats]

The system seems convoluted, and the results it produces are irritating. It's hard to measure without having an orthographic view mode, but the values given for the towers seem to correspond in no way to the positions of spotting tops/rangefinders on the 3D models. I come from Arma, so I am a bit coddled as far as viewpoints go (where there is a sight, I expect a viewpoint to be, and where there is a barrel is where bullets are supposed to leave, etc.), so this disparity between the values and the models is glaring at times to me.

For example, I found a drawing fragment that shows the spotting top on HMS Dreadnought to be about 25 - 30 ish meters above the waterline. I tested a british dreadnought 1, with Tower 1 and rear Tower 6 (3250 + 3500 tower spotting) in 1906. Started at 10km distance, the ship lost sight to the opponent at 11.6 km (another Battleship.)

Tower 1 is an analogue of HMS Dreadnoughts tower, so 25 meters seems to be a good guess for spotting top height. Top of the enemy dreadnoughts conning tower would maybe be 8 meters above the waterline. On a clear day, this would become visible above the horizon inside of 30 kilometers distance. Losing sight completely to a ship within not even half that distance is bonkers. What I see and know from reading documentation corresponds in no way to what I see in game. Doing it with a 2D environment would maybe work, but since UAD is 3D, the illusion shatters pretty quickly. The weather modifiers are also pretty opaque, but for this tower/ship combination, about 11.something kilometers seemed to be the norm for spotting another BB, which is too short no matter which way you twist it.

Another case in point: it also means that battleships should out-spot destroyers, because the hull of the destroyer will be visible before the battleships, because of the disproprotionately taller observation platforms. All in all, It seems to be an arbitrary way of making conning tower "levels" matter. I have a couple Ideas, but I tend to post walls of text anyways, so I'm stopping here.

Edit: RE: Weather. Even on a clear day, contrast to the background is more important than distance, hence why camouflage matters. Smoke is visible over vast distances, even above the haze, pointing to a ships exact location pretty much. It would add tactical pre-battle depth if CONTRAST mattered more than raw view distance: position yourself with the sun in your or the enemies back, make use of fog banks (British battle line at jutland) or coastlines (battle of cape sarych) to obscure your vessel or make it completely invisible. Bonus points for discounting shells that do not fall in a perfect line in front of the enemy vessel, since they cannot be spotted anyway against the background of the haze.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Instant_Goats

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[madham82]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

What we do have is even more dynamic than RL, a ‘summons of tactics’ if you like, more stuff to think about in battle, nothing static about blind-firing. Not only that but we have to think about designing ships for spotting, like purposed built ships to deal with blind-firing adversaries. Even for us to design blind-firing demons.  

Every game has its special skill e.g. WOWS, learn how to hit the critical sections etc. Let UADs have spotting mechanics as a design goal, on a strategy and tactical level, on top of every other design criteria. 

IMO I think this area should be enhanced, not suppressed i.e. tower spotting values should be something that players consider while designing, as a major skill, enhance cruisers (towers) for spotting etc.  

That I don't agree with at all as the game was pitched to be "realistic" and doing so would conflict with many areas that are geared towards realism. This is my opinion though, and I know not everyone will agree with me. 

Change is needed, what and how to change are open to debate. 

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[madham82]

53 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

I understand. I once sang the same song too (raising the arcade flag!) but I believe at some point you have to except the game for what it is or realize that some things aren't going to change and move on.

As for realism there are realistic components, realistic weather, realistic ammo, realistic ballistics, realistic targeting, realistic pen mechanics, realistic weather effects, etc. and for realistic visibility it's obviously based on the fog of war or the perception of thee. I guess it's up to the user if they except what realism the game is offering.

Yep I understand. Some changes to better balance for sake of the players is all any of us is asking. 

[Evil4Zerggin]

Identification.

• Identification is updated every 5 seconds.
• Only visible ships can be identified, but the progress is not lost if the ship disappears from view.
• Progress in percent per update is equal to 10 / distance in km of the closest friendly ship to that enemy. Therefore, it would take 1 minute to identify a ship at 1.2 km distance, 5 minutes at 6 km, or 10 minutes at 12 km.
• Only the single closest friendly ship is counted; multiple ships do not speed up the process.

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 8, 2021 by Skeksis