Spotting range

[MasterBurte]

The spotting range doesn't work currently. My very advanced BBs always get spotted very early, what is ok due to their size. But they in return spott enemies from 3 to 5 km away. I don't know how this range gets calculated but it's very unrealistic. This is the fundamental base on which all naval encounters play out. First spot the enemy and then maneuver in a good weapons position. Not first get shot with small caliber rounds, then spott the enemy as he is nearly at ramming distance.

To get it more realistic we should recognise several base parameters. The single most important thing is the height of your hull and struktures above whater and how big you silhouette is at the horizon.

1. For the own spotting ability we need to recognise the height of your look out. That would normally be you highest tower position available (main or secondary) or if they are destroyed the highest viewpoint from the hull or another structure. Also take into account the height of funnels and their current smoke output and if the smoke is obstructing the look out. This would benefit building your main tower on a higher part of the hull.

2. When we look at your own signature there are 3 possibilities. One is you are behind the horizon and the enemy can only see your smoke. The other is you are partially visible with you superstructures becoming visible and you hull might still be behind the horizon. The last is you are fully visible with you crosssection.

Of course weather could still hinder the detection. To make the calculations easier the ships crosssection could be divided into height sections. The lowest section would always be you lower hull, followed by upperhull/lower deck, mid deck, high deck and antennas. The crosssection would naturally get smaller with the higher sections. You just need to recognize the signature/crosssection of parts and their position on the ship.

Also some parts that currently make your signature bigger but wouldn't in real life are casemate guns and other weapons structures that are just in front of big structures. They could help in identifying ships but not in detection.

Finally we need to calculate this crosssections from various angles. In practice you should then detect most ships when part of them becomes visible with X chance. The more you can see, the higher the chance gets to detect them. This should then result in bigger ships beeing spotted quite early and even torpedo boats only beeing able to close the distance undetected with very low visibility weather like fog.

[madham82]

A rework of the spotting systems has been acknowledge by the Devs to be coming sometime before summer. I and a few others have made numerous threads about the unrealistic results the current systems generates. The problem seems to mainly be "target signature" values being out of balanced, weather ones too. 

In the meantime, admiralsnackbar's rebalancing mod has found a way to produce more realistic spotting and engagements.