>>>Core Patch 1.0 Feedback<<<

[DougToss]

9 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Have you not heard of 'concentrate your fire', human very good at it, human can sink first ship, then the next, and and and...... even easier for human if human can see AI has ducks in row for 20km out.

I know better than to argue with you by now, but this is the opposite of reality. I cannot stress that enough. For most of the dreadnought era, the larger fleet would be unable to use a numeral advantage because they could NOT concentrate fires. They had no way to coordinate, and no way to tell their own splashes apart from those of friendly warships and make adjustments. It made their gunnery effectiveness and accuracy much MUCH worse.

Later, range clocks, bearings painted on turrets, dye bags and better signals remedies this somewhat, but good lord you could not be more wrong if you tried. 

[RedParadize]

3 minutes ago, Danelin Aruna said:

I am well aware that weather is in the game. But if the enemy can see you, you can see the enemy. This insanity of ships shooting from concealment is beyond comprehension. Especially when they shoot. Yes its harder to see at night and during weather. I understand that, but weather and night conditions do not give ships the ability to not be seen especially when they are shooting at you. RtW does this a lot better imho. So you finding the argument mildly annoying is hilarious, as for historical references, look to Jutland the battle of Saragaso straight, Leyte Gulf, Iron bottom sound, Battle of cape Esperanza... the list goes on and on. what they have right now is a half backed poorly implemented gimmick so you can have "tactics" which is not close to the realm of realistic.  Look at the evolution of naval warfare, for the most part its form a battle line and slug it out, well trying to gain the advantage by crossing the T. This game does not do well at any of these points, sight ranges are to low and the AI just loves to flee.

Not all ship are equal in term of sighting, a "wet" open bridge isn't equal to a fully protected one. The biggest factor against the "You see me, I see you" argument would be the ship size. But now I am the one that is too picky. These factor could be removed. The game would be just fine if the "You see me, I see you" would always be true.

As for the tactical aspect of your argument, such as crossing the T and all. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Its one of the aspect that lack the most in the current iteration of the game. Would you not agree that deserve much more attention than spotting mechanics?

[DougToss]

4 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Would you not agree that deserve much more attention than spotting mechanics?

You can’t manoeuvre your fleet to cross the T of the invisible fleet that is firing on you from 3000m away on a clear day.

 

Real tactics require real conditions. Consider the speed and turning radius of a warship - those manoeuvres exist on a battlefield that can be seen to the horizon, and planned accordingly.  

[RedParadize]

2 minutes ago, DougToss said:

You can’t manoeuvre your fleet to cross the T of the invisible fleet that is firing on you from 3000m away on a clear day.

Real tactics require real conditions. Consider the speed and turning radius of a warship - those manoeuvres exist on a battlefield that can be seen to the horizon, and planned accordingly.  

As of version 0.98, you do see ship further away than 3000m on a clear day. Exept if its 1890s, because tower balance.

[DougToss]

6 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Exept if its 1890s, because tower balance.

Do you see what @akd @Steeltrap @ColonelHenry and @Littorio mean yet?

Listen, if you just say “I like WOWS mechanics”, it’s fine. I disagree, of course, but then I won’t have to try to convince you of something you are dead set against being convinced of. Right now it seems as if you keep missing what everybody else is saying, despite them putting quite a bit of work into their arguments.

Edited December 13, 2021 by DougToss

[catloverjerrygarcia]

5 minutes ago, DougToss said:

Do you see what @akd @Steeltrap @ColonelHenry and @Littorio mean yet?

Listen, if you just say “I like WOWS mechanics”, it’s fine. I disagree, of course, but then I won’t have to try to convince you of something you are dead set against being convinced of. Right now it seems as if you keep missing what everybody else is saying, despite them putting quite a bit of work into their arguments.

We have a bunch of Ostrich's with their head in the sand.

[RedParadize]

@DougTossDesprite its size, that tower have a +7650 spotting value, so more or less average. And no there no radar.

To be honest, crossing the T kind of maneuver would not happen when at that stage. Its something that is planned trough intel and scouting prior to the battle.
 

8 minutes ago, DougToss said:

Do you see what @akd @Steeltrap @ColonelHenry and @Littorio mean yet?

Listen, if you just say “I like WOWS mechanics”, it’s fine. I disagree, of course, but then I won’t have to try to convince you of something you are dead set against being convinced of. Right now it seems as if you keep missing what everybody else is saying, despite them putting quite a bit of work into their arguments.

I do not like WOWS spotting mechanics. I said it explicitly before. I also have the feeling my point is completely missed here. So let me summarize it one last time. Spotting mechanics, by that I mean the code, is fine. There is balance issue trough. Do I need to point out that compared to say, the AI ship builder, it isn't such a issue.

Edited December 13, 2021 by RedParadize

[DougToss]

17 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

compared to say, the AI ship builder, it isn't such a issue.

Motte

17 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Spotting mechanics, by that I mean the code, is fine.

Bailey

or, if you like;

18 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

the code is fine

Motte

18 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Spotting mechanics (..) [are] fine.

Bailey

Edited December 13, 2021 by DougToss

[RedParadize]

Oh well... if we are gonna go that way:

36 minutes ago, DougToss said:

You can’t manoeuvre your fleet to cross the T of the invisible fleet that is firing on you from 3000m away on a clear day.

Lie or exaggeration?

[RedParadize]

This is about the best tower there is in the game:


With a +10600 tower (no radar) you can spot large ships at 27 km:

If all towers spotting range would get to be raised to say +6000 to up to +10000. Player would end up seeing up to that range, provided target signature size, time of day and weather allow it.

Edit:
Talking about target signature size. In that battle I spotted the CA at 21km and the DD at 15km. All other thing been equal, that give you a idea how target size influence spotting range.

There is unintended consequence with this however. Atm, game goes to 5x time speed as soon as you get in sight. That mean that player would have to wait quite a while before getting his pre-dreadnought within firing distance. Considering battle are already unacceptably long, faster game speed would be needed to do this.

Edited December 13, 2021 by RedParadize

[Danelin Aruna]

1 hour ago, RedParadize said:

This is about the best tower there is in the game:


With a +10600 tower (no radar) you can spot large ships at 27 km:

If all towers spotting range would get to be raised to say +6000 to up to +10000. Player would end up seeing up to that range, provided target signature size, time of day and weather allow it.

Edit:
Talking about target signature size. In that battle I spotted the CA at 21km and the DD at 15km. All other thing been equal, that give you a idea how target size influence spotting range.

There is unintended consequence with this however. Atm, game goes to 5x time speed as soon as you get in sight. That mean that player would have to wait quite a while before getting his pre-dreadnought within firing distance. Considering battle are already unacceptably long, faster game speed would be needed to do this.

That's all well and good, but that's not how spotting works irl. as 27 km is over the horizon it makes sense but the minimum range to site the destroyer shouldn't be under 20km and in fact would be a little more. As the higher your tower the farther you can see. That it takes you an extra 12 km before you can make out destroyer is asinine and not realistic in the least. As has been pointed out before by many people that's not how sight works, we just want it to work like it should not be obscured and hampered by some artificial construct.

[Littorio]

Ok so I see where everyone is coming from and I will endeavor to reconcile it:

12 hours ago, Skeksis said:

It's all situational, as you know, examples are not absolute and are generalized. Without fog-of-war the AI would be massively disadvantaged, and so IMO, detrimental to the game. I'm not defending the game, I just don't think to the horizon visibility would work. 

@SkeksisYou are of the belief that the current spotting mechanics are necessary to keep the game fun and entertaining for lack of a better word, because you think otherwise the AI would be at too severe a disadvantage. For the sake of argument, even assuming that that is true (which I don't believe it is), there at least has to be an improvement from where we are. My bottom line is invisible ships firing on you.

 

4 hours ago, RedParadize said:

It isn't stealth, its weather and time of day. Its already in the game, it just isn't displayed. You can argue that view range is too short across the board and cite example that support this, I will gladly concede that it is true. But there is also instance where ships had to get right next to each other.  All thing considered, what we got isn't that far from reality.

I find the realism argument mildly annoying at this point. Because when it come to what is actually wanted, this is the kind of answer I get:

The dev could redo spotting mechanic, make it calculate mast high, structural stability, heat wave from funnels, number of windows and so on... Or they could take a exel sheet and re-balance the spotting value of every tower... Effectively, its the same thing! Except one detail: The first option could take weeks and that the later could be pulled off in a single day.

But you know what? Either way it doesn't matter. At the end of the day it would still fell like arbitrary values. Because spotting distance rationals can't be easily explained to the player. We would end up exactly in the same situation as we are in now.

I have been around since 2017. Back then noone was really complaining about spotting distance. Why? there was 10 towers, all more or less balanced against each other. But over the course of the last 4 years they added dozens of them across era that were not covered before. It ain't a surprise that it need some readjusting. Considering what is left to do, that part of the game is more than fine.

Now, @RedParadize you said a lot so I will try and do this piece by piece. I know all about the weather and posted separately on that. But weather and day or night affect both sides mostly equally as far as spotting goes. Yes, there can be large differences in hitting a target effectively - see IJN night sights and training doctrines - but by and large given the same conditions both sides are seeing each other roughly the same. Night will reduce visuals across the board for each fleet, for example. The only thing that would truly change that, is radar, which we are not talking about for this discussion.

The only thing that truly changed "spotting distance" in reality, in real naval battles using actual designs in history, was tower height. It's true that certain designs could fit more spotters with bigger optics and better fire control systems, but all that these things served to do was make hitting targets that you have already acquired easier.

A bigger pair of binoculars that let's me zoom in to see a single porthole, on a single ship, on a single bearing, doesn't do a damn bit of good more to "spot" the enemy faster (though past a certain point in tech it will help more quickly identify the exact type of enemy vessel - name, class, etc). It's just as good as the Mk.1 eyeball seeing smoke on the horizon. Optics advanced technologically not to see the enemy farther...that's impossible. The horizon is the horizon and it bends where it bends. Period. That's physics and how the Earth is made. Optics became more advanced to better hit what you had already seen.

You say that "...spotting distance rationals can't be easily explained to the player." Why not? It wouldn't take very much effort from the devs if they actually tried to. I know for a fact that many here would listen attentively and ask the relevant questions in response so as to better understand what is going on in-game.

I honestly don't understand getting mentally caught-up over some idea that this topic is very difficult to comprehend. It isn't...or shouldn't be anyway. The current system of basing everything on arbitrary "spotting values" is far more opaque and confusing than simply adopting realistic, horizon-based physics.

4 hours ago, RedParadize said:

Not all ship are equal in term of sighting, a "wet" open bridge isn't equal to a fully protected one. The biggest factor against the "You see me, I see you" argument would be the ship size. But now I am the one that is too picky. These factor could be removed. The game would be just fine if the "You see me, I see you" would always be true.

As for the tactical aspect of your argument, such as crossing the T and all. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Its one of the aspect that lack the most in the current iteration of the game. Would you not agree that deserve much more attention than spotting mechanics?

Come now, stop arguing semantics. No one here is truly debating bridge design with wet decks. We're talking about roughly equal BBs trying to engage and one has a large, unrealistic difference in acquiring a basic visual. As I have said above, the ship with the "more advanced bridge" or what have you should possess bonuses for actually hitting the enemy, accuracy per say. But the idea they can "detect farther" given some type of newfangled tower just doesn't make sense.

The spotting directly ties into tactical decisions on the battlefield, and that needs work before we have any discussion of realistic tactics en masse.

 

3 hours ago, RedParadize said:

@DougTossDesprite its size, that tower have a +7650 spotting value, so more or less average. And no there no radar.

To be honest, crossing the T kind of maneuver would not happen when at that stage. Its something that is planned trough intel and scouting prior to the battle.
 

I do not like WOWS spotting mechanics. I said it explicitly before. I also have the feeling my point is completely missed here. So let me summarize it one last time. Spotting mechanics, by that I mean the code, is fine. There is balance issue trough. Do I need to point out that compared to say, the AI ship builder, it isn't such a issue.

Uhhh, I think you should be careful with how you are using the words "intel" and "prior." Intelligence gathering is something that happened in reality, and that the game should handle, on the operational level at the very lowest. We don't really have that yet so for now it's moot. But, no one gathering intelligence would be able to suggest "crossing the T" or any such thing. That was a decision for the admiral in the field, a tactical choice.

Now scouting, yes that is a tactical element. But I would argue that scouting is part of the battle per say, and not something truly done "prior" to it. In your picture, an admiral might very well begin planning to cross the T from 20km away. In fact, they often had given the immense battle lines they had to deal with (Jutland for example). Swinging all those vessels into a cohesive formation optimized to hurt the enemy as much as possible while receiving the least amount of return fire took time.

I would argue that you're thinking too small in terms of speed, distance, and time. Of course, the lack of truly unlocked time compression doesn't help us at all. They should unlock it enough so that we can go max speed until contact, and then if we choose to, return to high speed, knowing full well that the enemy may be able to pull some good move or fast torpedo strike while we are zooming around. It's the price we pay for impatience. Now, if you actually get hit while in high time-compression, I think that could slow things down to x1. At the very least, give players game option toggles to control these things. All of that would help make some of the current difficulties given the spotting system better.

 

1 hour ago, RedParadize said:

This is about the best tower there is in the game:


With a +10600 tower (no radar) you can spot large ships at 27 km:

If all towers spotting range would get to be raised to say +6000 to up to +10000. Player would end up seeing up to that range, provided target signature size, time of day and weather allow it.

Edit:
Talking about target signature size. In that battle I spotted the CA at 21km and the DD at 15km. All other thing been equal, that give you a idea how target size influence spotting range.

There is unintended consequence with this however. Atm, game goes to 5x time speed as soon as you get in sight. That mean that player would have to wait quite a while before getting his pre-dreadnought within firing distance. Considering battle are already unacceptably long, faster game speed would be needed to do this.

Lastly, as I have said before and will say again: "spotting range" is bogus. What they should offer instead is something like an "identifying range" which is tied to the tower. You can see the enemy smoke with a Mk.1 eyeball from a lowly TB, but the BB next to you with huge towers can much more quickly figure out if that distant ship is a BB, CL, etc, and the relevant class, armament, and what have you.

Furthermore, you could tie actually identifying the vessel to a large increase in accuracy. Sure, you can fire on a spotted but as of yet unidentified vessel, but your accuracy will suffer. Historically, identifying a vessel was important for naval warfare because it helped gunnery/torpedo solutions by allowing mast height calculations via stadimeters and such.

Edited December 13, 2021 by Littorio

[RedParadize]

35 minutes ago, Danelin Aruna said:

That's all well and good, but that's not how spotting works irl. as 27 km is over the horizon it makes sense but the minimum range to site the destroyer shouldn't be under 20km and in fact would be a little more. As the higher your tower the farther you can see. That it takes you an extra 12 km before you can make out destroyer is asinine and not realistic in the least. As has been pointed out before by many people that's not how sight works, we just want it to work like it should not be obscured and hampered by some artificial construct.

I added the range at wish I spotted the CA and DD for to get to that point. The difference between the spotting distance of the BB (27km), CA (21km), DD(15km) is solely due to target signature metric. A topic I covered long ago and that has been improved since then. I like to think that I contributed in that improvement. If I may say, to be understood by the dev, one must point at the right place. Preferably with some meat to substantiate the argument. Trough all that heated discussion, what have been bugging me wasn't the claim that there was issue with spotting mechanic. Its was that calling for a complete rebuilt of sighting mechanics was not helpful.

As for the spotting distance difference between a DD and BB. I am fairly open to have it simplified/leveled.

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by RedParadize

[Skeksis]

35 minutes ago, Littorio said:

@SkeksisYou are of the belief that the current spotting mechanics are necessary to keep the game fun and entertaining for lack of a better word, because you think otherwise the AI would be at too severe a disadvantage. For the sake of argument, even assuming that that is true (which I don't believe it is), there at least has to be an improvement from where we are. My bottom line is invisible ships firing on you.

The second thing is, players have tried since day one, actually many years now, and nothing, the visibility mechanic has not changed, not once, Dev’s are firm on this one, the concrete is set in this part of the game.

We all know it’s not RL but it is what it is, that’s real enough!

Best we can do is offer changes to spotting parameters. E.g. increase 1890 TB initial target signature or 1890 CA tower spotting range. But you have to prove to Dev’s that changing parameter X would improve gameplay, that's the catch!

[akd]

7 hours ago, RedParadize said:

As of version 0.98, you do see ship further away than 3000m on a clear day. Exept if its 1890s, because tower balance.

It is not simply the value assigned to tower spotting that is the problem.  It is the gross simplification of deciding absolute range of vision vs. an object by simply comparing tower spotting value with visual signature value (with modifiers for conditions).  This is a not a realistic system and results in deeply unintuitive outcomes that are baffling, and combined with borg targeting, deeply, deeply frustrating and confusing.  Again this system allows the following: ship A has range of vision to ship B and can engage ship B.  This is not a probability of detection, it is an absolute range of vision for this object.  If Ship B moves a bit away, it disappears; if it moves a bit closer it reappears.  At the same time ship C can be in between ship A and ship B and be completely invisible to ship A at a given range.  Again this is absolute, not a lower probability of “noticing” ship C.  If ship C moves a bit closer, it becomes visible, if it moves a bit further away it becomes invisible. All the while ship C is able to see and shoot A so in any system at all connected to reality, there must be possible line-of-sight between ship A and ship C (i.e. this is not some tiny globe where a small ship can dip below the horizon from a BB at a few thousand yards; but even if it were, ship A must have clear LOS to the full hull-above-the-horizon Ship B because engagements beyond the visible horizon were not possible until the advent of radar. If ship B is completely hull-up to Ship A, ship C in between must be also.)

 

The game needs two separate spotting calculations:

• The range of vision - the absolute distance a ship can see given current conditions.  For clear day and night, this is the visible horizon (plus a bit for initial detection).  For conditions with any level of obscuration (rain, fog, mists, smoke, haze; day or night) the absolute distance a ship can see is limited to less than its visible horizon.  Now you could say this needs to be calculated against the height of the object detected (i.e. the top tip of the mast), but this really not very important because:
  • ships needed to be hull up above horizon to be engaged.
  • all ships could be detected (but not engaged) for a variable and not perfectly fixed distance beyond the horizon due to funnel smoke.
  • You could probably use just use broad categories as below if needed.
• Visual signature - once an object is within the potential range of vision of a ship, it should then start having a chance of being seen that is modified by the object’s visual signature.  During daylight clear conditions this modifier should have little to no effect (these are all large objects that are easily seen during the daylight clear conditions once within the visual horizon).  It should have its greatest effect on a dark night (when you are attempting to spot a dark object against a dark background, visual signature size is going to have its greatest effect).  Under the following conditions the spotting chance modifier should be removed and the chance of detection would be 100% within the range of vision of the spotter (e.g. horizon on a clear day, possibly only a few thousand or even hundreds of yards in fog or heavy rain):
  • Ship has already been detected by the spotter (i.e. once detected you remain detected unless you move out of the absolute range of vision of the spotter).
  • Ship is firing guns.
  • Ship is on fire.
  • Later: ship is using spotlights.
• Probably there should also be a % increase in visual signature based on speed because bow waves from ships going full speed are highly visible at night compared to a ship holding it’s speed down.  I.e. by going fast at night you could remove any advantage gained by being small as long as you are within the potential range of vision of the spotter. (Also, please stop having all ships default to max speed!)

Those two factors together can be used to create a consistent spotting system that will interact logically with the tactics of the time.  Tower modifiers would work against the chance of spotting (e.g. more spotters, better optics, etc.) to be rolled against the visual signature modifier if in effect, but it should be relatively minor with crew training being a more decisive factor.  Absolute range of vision under clear conditions should just be set by broad class (e.g. B/BB/BC/CA has longest range of vision, CLs medium, DDs and TBs least.).  If range of vision is limited to less than the visible horizon for the smallest ships, then it becomes the same for all ships (e.g. if a ship disappears into mists at 5,000m, it does so for everyone at that distance).  Contrary to what was stated earlier in this thread, later battleships did not have signifcantly higher top spotting positions compared to earlier ones.  There was of course variability, but for example the early US cage masts offered some of the highest top spotting positions. It is simply not logical that later towers see further.

Edited December 13, 2021 by akd

[RedParadize]

@Littorio Sorry lol, your answer is even longer than the message it reply to. I am gonna skim over what I believe are the key part, If you feel that I skipped important one, feel free to point them out to me.

I cited Guadalcanal only for two reason. 1: battle happened at fairly close range, in part because both sides could not see each other. 2: Seeing flash at the horizon do not give you a firing solution. We seem to agree on these two part. I have no real issue with the rest of the comment regarding this.

About the modern tower providing greater spotting. The "wet" open bridge was just a example among others. Another way to say it would be that crew condition much worst on older ship, degrading their awareness. If you also look in previous message, I also mention the greater number of spotter in later tower etc. To do justice to this, there should be some chance of spotting, as you technically could see the enemy anyways. Yes... RNG... don't worry I am not arguing for that either. I am just saying that there is reasons why more modern ship should see further. Do I want to have that into the game? I am not sure.

I as for the tactical maneuvering part. I would rater not debate about this now. But be certain that I really wish to have that kind of stuff in the game.

[DougToss]

58 minutes ago, Littorio said:

Optics became more advanced to better hit what you had already seen.

I think this sums it up.

People are used to games where you can hit whatever you see. It’s why they complain that accuracy is too low (it’s not, and should be lower but I digress) and that visibility is too far.

They, naturally, want there to be distances where ships can’t be hit - @Skeksis argument - by virtue of not being seen. That makes sense in gameplay terms as they understand it. They want units to be survivable, or else it would be a battle of annihilation - but that’s only true if gunnery and fire control were exponentially better than in reality! 

What I’m saying is, Detection ≠ Engagement! Seeing a distant ship and hitting it are not the same thing! This is what @Littorio means! The better optics let you better engage (hit) them, because otherwise they may as well be invisible - you can’t hit them anyway. In reality, we are talking about single digit hit rates on warships that can only be sunk by cumulative damage (another thing they complain about)!

 

Seeing the enemy ≠ shooting the enemy ≠ sinking the enemy. 
 

[DougToss]

1 hour ago, Littorio said:

I would argue that you're thinking too small in terms of speed, distance, and time.

This seems to be the main issue for nearly all of this - gunnery, fire control, floatation, survivability, propulsion.

On the scale of the ocean, 20km is a tactical distance, like 400m is to the rifleman. 

[DougToss]

34 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

The second thing is, players have tried since day one, actually many years now, and nothing, the visibility mechanic has not changed, not once, Dev’s are firm on this one, the concrete is set in this part of the game.

We all know it’s not RL but it is what it is, that’s real enough

Sorry for tripple-posting, but you say this about every single game system, endlessly. We’re here, prior to release giving feedback, because we paid money with the understanding our input would change things. Otherwise why have early access?

Listen, I don’t really understand what your deal is or why you so vehemently oppose other players on this for seemingly no reason, maybe you think if we clam up the game will be “finished” sooner, but “Oh well fellas, it is how it is.”  is worse than counterproductive. If you’re happy with how things are - great! You don’t have to provide feedback then, and I’m glad for you, but running interference when other people try is not doing the Devs a favour, it’s just bad form.

[RedParadize]

42 minutes ago, akd said:

It is not simply the value assigned to tower spotting that is the problem.  It is the gross simplification of deciding absolute range of vision vs. an object by simply comparing tower spotting value with visual signature value (with modifiers for conditions).  This is a not a realistic system and results in deeply unintuitive outcomes that are baffling, and combined with borg targeting deeply, deeply frustrating and confusing.  Again this system allows the following: ship A has range of vision to ship B.  This is not a probability of detection, it is an absolute range of vision for this object.  If Ship B moves a bit away, it disappears; if it moves a bit closer it reappears.  At the same time ship C can be in between ship A and ship B and be completely invisible to ship A at given range.  Again this is absolute, not a lower probability of “noticing” ship C (although this concept is pretty ridiculous in a clear daylight engagement without obscuration).  If ship C moves a bit closer, it becomes visible, if it moves a bit further away it becomes invisible. All the while ship C is able to see and shoot A so in any system at connected to reality, there must be possible LOS between ship A and Ship C (i.e. this is not some tiny globe where the a small ship can dip below the horizon from a BB at a few thousand yards; but even if it were, ship A must have clear LOS to the full hull-above-the-horizon Ship B because engagements beyond the visible horizon were not possible until the advent of radar.)

I have no issue with that. I am just saying that there is some reason to have lowered sight on older ship, and as I said before it should not be a drastic difference. But you cover that better in the rest of your post.

 

42 minutes ago, akd said:

The game needs two separate spotting factors:

• The range of vision - the absolute distance a ship can see given current conditions.  For clear day and night, this is the visible horizon (plus a bit for initial detection).  For conditions with any level of obscuration (rain, fog, mists, smoke, haze; day or night) the absolute distance a ship can see is limited to less than its visible horizon.  Now you could say this needs to be calculated against the height of the object detected (i.e. the top tip of the mast), but this really not very important because:
  • ships needed to be hull up above horizon to be engaged.
  • all ships could be detected (but not engaged) for a variable and not perfectly fixed distance beyond the horizon due to funnel smoke.
• Visual signature - once an object is within the potential range of vision of a ship, it should then start having a chance of being seen that is modified by its visual signature.  During daylight clear conditions this modifier should have little to no effect (these are all large objects that are easily seen during the daylight clear conditions once within the visual horizon).  It should have its greatest effect on a dark night (when you are attempting to spot a dark object against a dark background, visual signature size is going to have its greatest effect).  Under the following conditions the spotting chance modifier should be removed and the chance of detection would be 100% within the range of vision of the spotter (e.g. horizon on a clear day, possibly only a few thousand or even hundreds of yards in fog or heavy rain):
  • Ship has already been detected by the spotter (i.e. once detected you remain detected unless you move out of the absolute range of vision of the spotter).
  • Ship is firing guns.
  • Ship is on fire.
  • Later: ship is using spotlights.
• Probably there should also be a % increase in visual signature based on speed because bow waves from ships going full speed are highly visible even at night compared to a ship cruising.  I.e. by going fast at night you could remove any advantage gained by being small. (Also, please stop having all ships default to max speed!)

Those two factors together can be used to create a consistent spotting system that will interact logically with the tactics of the time.  Tower modifiers would work against the chance of spotting (e.g. more spotters, better optics, etc.) to be rolled against the visual signature modifier if in effect.  Absolute range of vision under clear conditions should just be set by broad class (e.g. B/BB/BC/CA has longest range of vision, CLs medium, DDs and TBs least.).  If range of vision is limited to less than the visible horizon for the smallest ships, then it becomes the same for all ships (e.g. if a ship disappears into mists at 5,000m, it does so for everyone at that distance).

To be explicitly clear, I agree with about all of what you said here. But minus some factor, such as the "firing guns" and RNG part, it already work mostly the way you describe it.


Its separated in two factor, namely "tower spotting" and "target signature". Sorry to post that link for the 3rd time, but the visual signature as you describe it is something I advocated for long ago here. I am not against RNG based change of detection, it would certainly be a good representation of reality. Also, The "gun fired" part would be nice, once we have time of day and weather it would be great to have the enemy ship momentarily revealed. But given how people are confused with the simpler mechanism we currently have, I am doubtful that adding more factor would help.

Edited December 13, 2021 by RedParadize

[Skeksis]

20 minutes ago, DougToss said:

Sorry for tripple-posting, but you say this about every single game system, endlessly. We’re here, prior to release giving feedback, because we paid money with the understanding our input would change things. Otherwise why have early access?

Listen, I don’t really understand what your deal is or why you so vehemently oppose other players on this for seemingly no reason, maybe you think if we clam up the game will be “finished” sooner, but “Oh well fellas, it is how it is.”  is worse than counterproductive. If you’re happy with how things are - great! You don’t have to provide feedback then, and I’m glad for you, but running interference when other people try is not doing the Devs a favour, it’s just bad form.

Oh discussions is good, it is a forum! but at some stage the past is the past, no offence.

Dev’s just posted a feature/ new suggestion request, IMO this is where we can do the most good to help Dev’s improve the game, are you onboard?

[RedParadize]

3 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

Oh discussions is good, it is a forum! but at some stage the past is the past, no offence.

Dev’s just posted a feature/ new suggestion request, IMO this is where we can do the most good to help Dev’s improve the game, are you onboard?

I am, this is >>>Core Patch 1.0 Feedback<<<. The dev expect comment on stuff they are currently working on.

[akd]

1 hour ago, RedParadize said:

Its separated in two factor, namely "tower spotting" and "target signature". Sorry to post that link for the 3rd time, but the visual signature as you describe it is something I advocated for long ago here. I am not against RNG based change of detection, it would certainly be a good representation of reality. Also, The "gun fired" part would be nice, once we have time of day and weather it would be great to have the enemy ship momentarily revealed. But given how people are confused with the simpler mechanism we currently have, I am doubtful that adding more factor would help.

No, there are two factors used in a single calculation (edited above for clarity) to determine the absolute distance an object can be spotted for a given spotter.  As described above, this results in big problems and inconsistencies, chief among them: if I can see and shoot at you then you must at least have a chance of seeing me (I’d argue that once firing with guns it is 100% and that uncertainty then falls into the realm of ID and firing solution, not knowledge of a contact that can be engaged, but even if you only engage with torpedoes, this still demands that you must be able to see my ship to get a torpedo solution, so there must be a chance that I can see your ship even that chance is very low because you are a widdle TB creeping about with low power on a dark night).  That is not at all how it works in current system.

 

Only radar modifies this, and then really only later generation fire control radar for breaking the requirement that if I can see you and shoot you, then there must be a chance you can see me.  1st gen radar would give you knowledge of a contact range and rough bearing, but not much else that can be used to get a full gunnery solution.  It would, however, increase the chance of acquiring visually to near 100% once within the maximum visual range of the spotter not matter how low the target’s visual signature*.

*I am assuming we are continuing to discuss ship-sized objects here.

Edited December 13, 2021 by akd

[vyprestrike]

Since the roll rework this patch, secondaries and torps don't cause massive roll penalties anymore which is quite nice. However, the old problem of roll now applies to pitch and it's so much worse. We used to be able to put a 2 inch gun on the very end of a ship and have it maybe introduce 0.1% weight offset, now putting a secondary in the middle of a ship can add upwards of 0.5% offset. This makes superstructures with secondaries impossible to balance since moving the superstructure even one space can go from a massive fore offset to massive aft offset with nothing in between. If you could combine the new roll behavior with the old pitch behavior that would allow us more more flexibility in our designs (aka designs that don't have impossible to resolve offsets).

[RedParadize]

2 minutes ago, akd said:

No, there are two factors used in a single calculation to determine the absolute distance an object can be spotted for a given spotter.  As described above, this results in big problems and inconsistencies, chief among them: if I can see and shoot at you then you must at least have a chance of seeing me (I’d argue that once firing it is 100% and that uncertainty then falls into the realm of ID and firing solution, not knowledge of a contact that can be engaged).  That is not at all how it works in current system.

I knew I should have been more clear on what I meant. You added allots of element and factor in your description, and quite frankly, given how much message I had to answer I did not wish to get in to much of these details. I mostly agree with what you said after all. Where I disagree is that require graphical cue and maybe even text/voice message to explain it, it would certainly be even more confusing that current mechanic.

Excluding "firing reveals" part (I already stated what I think about it), how much of the problems and inconsistencies is truly attributable to spotting mechanics (as the code itself)?

Before answering that, note that at least two person trough that if they could not see a ship at 3000m it was attributable to the mechanics. I demonstrated that it isn't, its balancing.