Get rid of the WOWS style concealment/spotting system. really.....

[ReefKip]

How is it even possible that my 1900's technology CA cannot spot a DD unless it is at 1,5 Kilometer distance at clear weather? and that in a  game that wants to create a realistic potrayal of early 20th century naval combat....

Same situation for BB's spotting other BB's. Its a bright clear day, the sun is shining but no one, literally no one of your 800 men crew notices a floating 170 meters long metal island with 69 barrels sticking out of it coming towards them until it is so close it basicly blocks the sun. 

This is all with level 5 towers equiped on my BB by the way.

Historically DD's did not have cloaking devices that shielded them from being spotted until at point blanc range. Their relatively small size and manouvrability is what kept them alive, But instead they got  fantasy World of Warships style concealment on top of that manouvrability making the entire way they play right now pure fantasy.

[DougToss]

Coal burning ships were routinely spotted over the horizon. In clear skies, a ship at sea can be seen from the horizon at least, which from mast height is ~12km I think? Maybe more? I think the game needs to show the clear different between spotting and hitting, especially early on. You could see a ship from several kilometres, but couldn't hit until they were within a few thousand metres, closer to hit reliably. 

 

So, ideally ships can be spotted from very far away, but that doesn't translate into combat results. This was the reason for the design of Victorian Cruisers - they were expected to be in bow or stern chases for hours. 

Edited November 29, 2021 by DougToss

[o Barão]

You where probaly fighting a night battle and didn't noticed. What you see on screen doesn't matter. What shows in the weather panel is what matters.

[ColonelHenry]

In normal condition, a battleship needs to be like 3-4km away from a DD/TB to "see" it in game for the early campaigns... which is just ridiculous. Again, you can't see black smoke, moving hunk of metal in the middle of the sea on top of a battleship? Please remove this "spotting" mechanic, or rework it.

[FlyingToaster]

The spotting ranges really need to be changed. In a daytime campaign battle today I had a CA attacking an enemy convoy protected by 2 CLs. After chasing 'smoke to the east' I found the enemy at about 4km range. Later on my CA was shooting at a CL until the CL moved just outside of some short spotting distance and vanished.
I've also had enemy ships shooting at me from about 4km away, but I cannot see them. Even if the big floating castle of steel is somehow invisible, the huge fireballs of firing guns would be visible.

The tiny spotting distances also mean that most of my battles are 15 minutes of chasing smoke sightings because the enemy is running away and I can't spot them until I'm within ramming distance.

This report from the battle of Tsushima tells us that spotting distances of 8km were considered very short:
"Though a heavy fog covered the sea, making it impossible to observe anything at a distance of over five miles..."

[ReefKip]

21 hours ago, o Barão said:

You where probaly fighting a night battle and didn't noticed. What you see on screen doesn't matter. What shows in the weather panel is what matters.

Nope it was with daylight and  clear weather. not night time.

[ReefKip]

9 hours ago, FlyingToaster said:

The spotting ranges really need to be changed. In a daytime campaign battle today I had a CA attacking an enemy convoy protected by 2 CLs. After chasing 'smoke to the east' I found the enemy at about 4km range. Later on my CA was shooting at a CL until the CL moved just outside of some short spotting distance and vanished.

Your ship's spotting range seems to be a circel around your ship that spots everything within it. but when something crosses the circle line and goes outside of it it vanishes. Just like in World of Warships. Things like weather and ship size influences this circle even more. Which is  all fine and well for balancing ships in an arcade game like WOWS. but it should have no place here.

 

[DougToss]

I think the problem is that we are so used to modern sensors and weapons systems that we think Detection = Engagement. Hence the “stealth” stats.

 

This is incorrect. For most of these weapons, detecting the enemy, engaging them, and hitting them were three different things. It was not one continuous and speedy sequence like firing a Harpoon missile. You could see the enemy, and be unable to shoot them. You could shoot at them, and be unable to hit them.

All of that to say, effective range was very close, but the range of detection, and subsequent length to close to range was very long. Friedman’s Victorian Cruisers details this very well. 

[UnleashtheKraken]

On 11/30/2021 at 8:16 AM, DougToss said:

I think the problem is that we are so used to modern sensors and weapons systems that we think Detection = Engagement. Hence the “stealth” stats.

 

This is incorrect. For most of these weapons, detecting the enemy, engaging them, and hitting them were three different things. It was not one continuous and speedy sequence like firing a Harpoon missile. You could see the enemy, and be unable to shoot them. You could shoot at them, and be unable to hit them.

All of that to say, effective range was very close, but the range of detection, and subsequent length to close to range was very long. Friedman’s Victorian Cruisers details this very well. 

This is LITERALLY the reason that everything up through WW2 ships had very tall masts with spotters freezing their bits.  They aren't there for show, and the detection/spotting ranges are very, very silly.  The way sea searches happens at the beginning of the 1890's, with 'enemy smoke spotted to the ....' messages, is really bad.  Give me a F***ING BEARING TO THE SMOKE.

I had a battleship I had just built after several tech upgrades, incorporating better steam engines and lighter, the nickel armor progress, new riveting techniques, etc.  She's doing 20.5 knots at flank.  i'm chasing a british BB with a known top speed of 17.6 knots.  I'm following the 'smoke spotted' indications, and I NEVER get close enough to have the ship rendered, until finally time runs out and I end with a draw.  Some of these systems really do need serious rethinking and rework.

Otherwise it's brilliant, I've watched things improve since I bought in, and I'm eager to see the campaign fleshed out with more features.

[madham82]

17 minutes ago, UnleashtheKraken said:

This is LITERALLY the reason that everything up through WW2 ships had very tall masts with spotters freezing their bits.  They aren't there for show, and the detection/spotting ranges are very, very silly.  The way sea searches happens at the beginning of the 1890's, with 'enemy smoke spotted to the ....' messages, is really bad.  Give me a F***ING BEARING TO THE SMOKE.

I had a battleship I had just built after several tech upgrades, incorporating better steam engines and lighter, the nickel armor progress, new riveting techniques, etc.  She's doing 20.5 knots at flank.  i'm chasing a british BB with a known top speed of 17.6 knots.  I'm following the 'smoke spotted' indications, and I NEVER get close enough to have the ship rendered, until finally time runs out and I end with a draw.  Some of these systems really do need serious rethinking and rework.

Otherwise it's brilliant, I've watched things improve since I bought in, and I'm eager to see the campaign fleshed out with more features.

Not saying this is acceptable, but when you see the message about smoke pop up pause the game. Look at your selected ship, there should be an arrow point towards the bearing of the sighting. It only lasts for a few seconds. That's why most people miss it.

[UnleashtheKraken]

1 hour ago, madham82 said:

Not saying this is acceptable, but when you see the message about smoke pop up pause the game. Look at your selected ship, there should be an arrow point towards the bearing of the sighting. It only lasts for a few seconds. That's why most people miss it.

I'm familiar with this if you have radio detection or advanced radio, but I'm in the 1890's, the ships don't even have radio sets yet.  When I see the message pop up, i definitely looked for the indicator, but did not see it.  Normal campaign difficulty, playing as ze germans.

[madham82]

14 hours ago, UnleashtheKraken said:

I'm familiar with this if you have radio detection or advanced radio, but I'm in the 1890's, the ships don't even have radio sets yet.  When I see the message pop up, i definitely looked for the indicator, but did not see it.  Normal campaign difficulty, playing as ze germans.

Ah didn't know it was tied to radio components. Disregard!

[UnleashtheKraken]

1 hour ago, madham82 said:

Ah didn't know it was tied to radio components. Disregard!

To be fair, I hadn't much played anything before 1920's in custom battles, I've largely ignored the academy stuff, so figuring out how to handle armored cruisers and these super early BBs has been interesting.  Anyways thanks for offering the help.  I like the community here.

[admiralsnackbar]

I agree that this is stupid, it's especially dumb when a torpedo boat appears in front of your battleship 200 meters away. No ship that small has a cloaking device.
Hopefully with mods players will be able to do some fancy calculation on the tower/smokestack heights of various ships to make a system where visual spotting is always a  mutual affair, if they can see you, you can see them. Radars for detection can basically eliminate/reduce any reductions to maximum spotting distance that might occur from darkness or weather. 

Though this is one of many things that people have complained about for ages and AFAICT there's been no response about it. People arguing with each other endlessly about gunnery systems that will never be implemented in the base game in a million years. 

[TBRSIM]

Yes, totally concur. Current spotting, even more than "accuracy" mechanism and the "angling for ricochets" is so jarringly arcadey that it suspends the suspension of disbelief.

This mechanism is so divorced from reality (i.e. tries to simulate/abstract something that is not even there in reality) that it is the part which bugs me about the game as is massively. Mostly because I have been an active duty naval officer and have quite some experience in how well (or badly) you can see at sea (NPI) under very different conditions.

The current "spotting" mechanism "might" work, with some re-work focusing on the basics (i.e. look at what aspects of reality you want to simulate/abstract, not what kind of gameply mechanism you want to preserve from early programming) for night/fog action but not at all for anything close to average daylight conditions, even the sub-average winter/autumn conditions in the Baltic and North Sea.

Until we get diesels and/or gas turbines visual range from spotter position (i.e. eye height) equals detection range for both sides. If anything a battleship, with its higher masts and larger crews (i.e. more dediccatred spotters on watch higer up), could "sight" a TB/DD/CL earlier (since the smaller ship would only have the top opf the mast above the horizon when its hull is visible to the lookouts on the battleship mast. But the smoke from oil, and especially coal, propulsion simply would serve to "guide" the lookout's eyes to what part of the other ship is above the horizon.

As is the easiest abstraction for spotting range is what RTW does, have a "spotting range" as a weather condition that is shared by all ships. Modify by directionality (sunrise/sunset, glare etc.) and, at night, have firing guns and fires onboard (as well as, may I hope, searchlights and flares) modify spotting range dynamically and have crew experience influence speed of classification (i.e. target or friendly) and identification (as is in game, i.e. what type of ship, what class of ship etc.). Heck, every other naval computer wargame (Fighting Steel, Distant Guns Series, Age of Sail series) did this right. Frankly, but for this game "World of Warships" is the only other naval computer game I know of that gets visual spotting so massively wrong.

 

 

[akd]

On 12/3/2021 at 2:48 PM, TBRSIM said:

Yes, totally concur. Current spotting, even more than "accuracy" mechanism and the "angling for ricochets" is so jarringly arcadey that it suspends the suspension of disbelief.

This mechanism is so divorced from reality (i.e. tries to simulate/abstract something that is not even there in reality) that it is the part which bugs me about the game as is massively. Mostly because I have been an active duty naval officer and have quite some experience in how well (or badly) you can see at sea (NPI) under very different conditions.

The current "spotting" mechanism "might" work, with some re-work focusing on the basics (i.e. look at what aspects of reality you want to simulate/abstract, not what kind of gameply mechanism you want to preserve from early programming) for night/fog action but not at all for anything close to average daylight conditions, even the sub-average winter/autumn conditions in the Baltic and North Sea.

Until we get diesels and/or gas turbines visual range from spotter position (i.e. eye height) equals detection range for both sides. If anything a battleship, with its higher masts and larger crews (i.e. more dediccatred spotters on watch higer up), could "sight" a TB/DD/CL earlier (since the smaller ship would only have the top opf the mast above the horizon when its hull is visible to the lookouts on the battleship mast. But the smoke from oil, and especially coal, propulsion simply would serve to "guide" the lookout's eyes to what part of the other ship is above the horizon.

 

As is the easiest abstraction for spotting range is what RTW does, have a "spotting range" as a weather condition that is shared by all ships. Modify by directionality (sunrise/sunset, glare etc.) and, at night, have firing guns and fires onboard (as well as, may I hope, searchlights and flares) modify spotting range dynamically and have crew experience influence speed of classification (i.e. target or friendly) and identification (as is in game, i.e. what type of ship, what class of ship etc.). Heck, every other naval computer wargame (Fighting Steel, Distant Guns Series, Age of Sail series) did this right. Frankly, but for this game "World of Warships" is the only other naval computer game I know of that gets visual spotting so massively wrong.

 

 

This. A thousand times this.

I will note that in RTW2, there is a max surface visibility range for the map based on current time / weather conditions, but that different ships have different visual ranges.  However, I believe this is simply decided by broad class, not by individual ship properties, i.e. battleship / heavy cruiser visibility equals the listed max surface visibility for the map, light cruiser a bit a less, destroyers the least.  Just fired up RTW2 and started a fleet exercise with pre-built 1900 ships.  Conditions: Day / Clear. Day Visibility = 28,000 yards (I believe that this can max out at 31,500 yards, but there are variations in even in clear conditions). Night visibility = 5,000 yards. The Bs (pre-dreadnoughts) have their visibility ring (i.e. distance to horizon) out to 28,000 yards, the DDs to 22,400 yards. Encounter starts with closest enemy vessel a bit outside the farthest (battleship) visibility ring, unidentified, but with an exact location on the map.  I believe they can only be identified if brought within the horizon ring.  Radar is a separate sensor with its own "ring," i.e. radar does not extend visual detection range.

I also, I believe ships must be able to see a target themselves to fire on it in RTW2. No using other ships as spotters.  The whole system is much simpler, clearer, and much more authentic to the time and tactics.

Edited December 6, 2021 by akd

[Danelin Aruna]

this is also my one of my biggest gripes right now. The "spotting" mechanics need to be thrown out and reworked. And when they say we see smoke in the distance, if its spotted they should render it on the map. But the entire thing with disappearing ships reminds me so much of WoWs, its not even funny.

multiple times in campaign ive been so screwed over by this. even in night actions you dont need to be 200m away to see a ship, i mean maybe in a hurricane. and when the enemy ship opens up on you able to stay invisible, i mean were in reality is that coming from? the big flashes should light the ship up like a christmas tree.

[The_Real_Hawkeye]

8 hours ago, akd said:

I also, I believe ships must be able to see a target themselves to fire on it in RTW2. No using other ships as spotters.  The whole system is much simpler, clearer, and much more authentic to the time and tactics.

Correct.

A ship that want's to shoot at a target has to actually _see_ said target.

[madham82]

17 hours ago, akd said:

I also, I believe ships must be able to see a target themselves to fire on it in RTW2. No using other ships as spotters.  The whole system is much simpler, clearer, and much more authentic to the time and tactics.

 

9 hours ago, The_Real_Hawkeye said:

Correct.

A ship that want's to shoot at a target has to actually _see_ said target.

What's funny is even WoWS understands this is an issue and has a simple mechanic to balance it. When you fire, your detectability increases to your max firing range. So no stealth ships firing with impunity. Yet some people defend how the game does it today.  

[Danelin Aruna]

The thing is on the ocean the horizon is 12 miles away. So on a clear sunny day you should be able to see everything within 12 miles. You cant tell me during a battle they wouldn't have lookouts out. Now weather will effect this. And no you don't need to see a ship to engage it, look at battles such as the Guadalcanal campaign during WW2 they were still  even at the battle of Salvo island the range was still about 2km at night. not needing to get right on top of the enemy. 

even at the battle of Surigao Straight the Americans used radar to fire on the enemy battle line well crossing there T. Yes this was '44 but the basic end game tech is the same, gen 2 radar you don't need to "see" the enemy to shoot on them. With these low spotting ranges, it makes it really hard to avoid enemy torpedo volleys, and in later campaigns this leads to the problem of your ships getting hit by torpedo swarms.

I think my lowest spotting range where i was able to see the enemy was under one Km. It was night and stormy, and of course it was a battle where they wanted to run away so the torpedo's flowed, it was really bad and then when they would turn away they would just be gone even though they were set on fire. but there smaller light cruisers could still spot my Heavy cruisers because reasons. This whole mechanic is divorced from reality, on top of the horizon most of the time you could see ships beyond that especially the big ones due to them cresting the top of the horizon with there masts. 

Even at Jutland the ranges were around 9000 meters or more, which is almost impossible to maintain with this game, due to the spotting mechanic.

[TBRSIM]

On 12/4/2021 at 11:05 PM, Danelin Aruna said:

Even at Jutland the ranges were around 9000 meters or more, which is almost impossible to maintain with this game, due to the spotting mechanic.

+1

[llib]

There are number of things here...

1) Smoke screens... them giving malus to aiming is fine, ships blowing smoke would get almost covered in it, this would make rangefinders harder to align. Not so good that smoke screen isn't staying, though... and not sure if its currently obstructing the view beyond it or not (it should).

2) Bearing to smoke on the horizon... yes, that should exist, or at least be better than 90% degree range we have now. A bit complicating this issue is that campaign isn't probably going to be what I hoped it to be (i.e., campaign where actually ship positions are controlled and tracked and combat starts when ships actually meet) rather than chance encounters we look we are going to get, which means there is need for some abstraction in some unintuitive ways (in real life, you could not shoot at first contact because ship could be yours or neutral).

3) Need to check weather/time indicator, indeed - got my first night battle, and oh is it easier to get torpedoed at night...

4) Spotting distance... this probably needs some tweaks, though sometimes it feels right, sometimes it feels wrong one way or the other, and I haven't been watching the weather indicator usually.

5) Not sure right away but crew levels may matter in this.. how much and whether sufficiently, not  sure, but recalls recalling yesterday watching Drach's video on UK involvement in Baltics where they sneaked torpedo boat on Soviets and blasted them from point blank range, and Soviets were definitely shooting someone/were in combat...

[WhoCares]

On 12/4/2021 at 11:05 PM, Danelin Aruna said:

The thing is on the ocean the horizon is 12 miles away. So on a clear sunny day you should be able to see everything within 12 miles. You cant tell me during a battle they wouldn't have lookouts out. Now weather will effect this. And no you don't need to see a ship to engage it, look at battles such as the Guadalcanal campaign during WW2 they were still  even at the battle of Salvo island the range was still about 2km at night. not needing to get right on top of the enemy. 
...

Interesting that you mention the Gudalcanal campaign.

Battle of Savo Island

Quote

... When Blue was less than 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) away from Mikawa's force, she suddenly reversed course, having reached the end of her patrol track, and steamed away, apparently oblivious to the long column of large Japanese ships sailing by her.

... The Japanese ships passed as close to Jarvis as 1,100 meters (1,200 yd), close enough for officers on Tenryū to look down onto the destroyer's decks without seeing any of her crew moving about. If Jarvis was aware of the Japanese ships passing by, she did not respond in any noticeable way....

On the other hand...

Quote

... Two minutes after sighting Jarvis, the Japanese lookouts sighted the Allied destroyers and cruisers of the southern force about 12,500 meters (13,700 yd) away, silhouetted by the glow from the burning George F. Elliott.

... At 01:43, Patterson spotted a ship, probably Kinugasa, 5,000 meters (5,500 yd) dead ahead and immediately sent a warning by radio and signal lamp:

... At this same time, lookouts on Chōkai spotted the ships of the Allied northern force at a range of 16 kilometers (9.9 mi). ...

So in one battle examples of apparently somewhat blind American ships and good lookouts of the Japanese (suppoted by some back lighting). Especially in the early war the Japanese often managed to launch surprise torpedo attacks, even with heavy cruisers.

 

That said, I still agree that the current spotting needs some work. I mean on one end I don't like the idea of a 200t TB popping up at <500m in the night, but at the same time I'd like to execute a torpedo ambush against an unaware enemy at night...

At daytime I'd expect the spotting advantage on the bigger ship over the horizon. In the night the horizon is somewhat irrelevant and large silhouettes may stick out more when getting closer.

[ReefKip]

4 hours ago, llib said:

There are number of things here...

1) Smoke screens... them giving malus to aiming is fine, ships blowing smoke would get almost covered in it, this would make rangefinders harder to align. Not so good that smoke screen isn't staying, though... and not sure if its currently obstructing the view beyond it or not (it should).

2) Bearing to smoke on the horizon... yes, that should exist, or at least be better than 90% degree range we have now. A bit complicating this issue is that campaign isn't probably going to be what I hoped it to be (i.e., campaign where actually ship positions are controlled and tracked and combat starts when ships actually meet) rather than chance encounters we look we are going to get, which means there is need for some abstraction in some unintuitive ways (in real life, you could not shoot at first contact because ship could be yours or neutral).

3) Need to check weather/time indicator, indeed - got my first night battle, and oh is it easier to get torpedoed at night...

4) Spotting distance... this probably needs some tweaks, though sometimes it feels right, sometimes it feels wrong one way or the other, and I haven't been watching the weather indicator usually.

5) Not sure right away but crew levels may matter in this.. how much and whether sufficiently, not  sure, but recalls recalling yesterday watching Drach's video on UK involvement in Baltics where they sneaked torpedo boat on Soviets and blasted them from point blank range, and Soviets were definitely shooting someone/were in combat...

Another thing about DD  smoke screens is that. unlike the black coal smoke of ship funnels, it does stay rendered even after the DD is not visually  spotted anymore.

Don't believe me? try it out in a custom battle against enemy DD's. let them come into range. drop their smoke and then disengage. you will notice the enemy DD's dissapearing when you are outside of spotting range, HOWEVER the smokescreen they just laid  is still visible. even outside of the spotting range.

This means that the game engine is already capable of rendering smoke at large distances. But for some reasons the devs only aplied this for smoke screens. not smoke in general. their reasons for this baffles me. If i can see a DD's smoke screen from 8KM away. then why the hell can't i spot black funnel smoke from a dreadnought at 4KM?

They  could easely fix this issue by applying the visibility mechanics for smoke screens on just all smoke in general. instead of having this contradicting mess of spotting mechanics we currently have.

Edited December 6, 2021 by ReefKip

[madham82]

On 12/4/2021 at 5:05 PM, Danelin Aruna said:

And no you don't need to see a ship to engage it, look at battles such as the Guadalcanal campaign during WW2 they were still  even at the battle of Salvo island the range was still about 2km at night. not needing to get right on top of the enemy. 

even at the battle of Surigao Straight the Americans used radar to fire on the enemy battle line well crossing there T. Yes this was '44 but the basic end game tech is the same, gen 2 radar you don't need to "see" the enemy to shoot on them. 

Yes you do need to see a ship to engage it. Radar just provides sighting without using an eyeball. At Guadalcanal, they were so close that you just had to aim at the flashes/fires on the opposing ships to have a reasonable chance to hit. There was also friendly fire going on due to the chaos. 

At Surigao, US radars were advanced enough to see their shell splashes, which is exactly how you can shoot accurately at something with radar. Without being able to see the splashes, you cannot adjust fire and therefore are just "blind firing". 

The problem in the game is that blind firing has no accuracy penalty. If one of their ships spots yours, all of their ships in range can fire as accurately as they could if they were in direct line of sight, radar or not. This makes completely unrealistic tactics like sailing one of your DDs into spot their fleet, while the rest of your fleets fires from outside visual range with impunity.