Questions for Paradox, or beta-testers, on spotting in v1.03

[unmerged(12204)]

How does spotting work in v1.03 and how does it affect combat?

Is it the same for land units, sea units and air units?

Please answer the following questions, in details:

1) When sea units (of 2 countries at war) meet in a sea zone, do they automatically engage in combat? In 1.02, they did.

Now, it is unclear if they do or not. I've read many contradictory posts in the forums. If combat is not automatic, as in 1.02, what formula is being applied to determine if combat will occur? Please provide as much details as possible.


2) When land units (of 2 countries at war) meet in a province, do they automatically engage in combat? In 1.02, they did.


3) When air units (of 2 countries at war) meet in (or above) a province or sea zone, do they automatically engage in combat? In 1.02, they did.


4) In a province where land units (of 2 countries at war) are fighting, when you send "reserve" troops to participate in that combat, will those "reserve" troops automatically partipate? In 1.03, often "reserve" troops will not participate in the combat, they just "wait" in the province, and I don't understand why. This never happened in 1.02, or if it did, not as much because I never noticed it.

Message to my fellow HOI players: do NOT answer this post. I am ONLY interested in OFFICIAL feedback from Paradox or beta-testers.

I value the opinions of all of you, but this topic requires more than opinions, I want the facts from the people who built the code of the game.

Thank you for your understanding, and Paradox, thanks in advance for your help in clarifying this.

 

[Johan]

1) No
Its checked every hour depending on detection capabilityies of ships, and enemy visibility.

2) Yes

3) Yes

4) I found a small bug there. They are supposed to always engage.

 

[unmerged(12204)]

Thanks for the quick response Johan,

Need a small clarification though:

1) each ship attempts to detect each enemy ship, right?

2) As soon as a detection attempt is successful from any side, combat occurs?

Example:

A fleet of 6 destroyers meets a fleet of 3 subs will result in

- The destroyers makes 18 (6x3) detection attempts on the subs

- The subs also makes 18 (3x6) detection attempts on the destroyers

As soon as one unit detects another one, then combat is initiated.

 

[Johan]

Yes

 

[unmerged(13535)]

Spotting ....

I also have an issue with spotting.

I have noticed that if two fleets are engaged in combat and I send another fleet to help it occasionally doesn't spot the combat and just sits there. I don't know if this is the bug you mentioned but it is annoying.

Surely spotting should be automatic if units are already engaged in combat.

 

[Dinsdale]

Re: Spotting ....

Originally posted by shrike00
I also have an issue with spotting.

I have noticed that if two fleets are engaged in combat and I send another fleet to help it occasionally doens't spot the combat and just sits there. I don't know if this is the bug you mentioned but it is annoying.

Surely spotting should be automatic if units are already engaged in combat.

Yes I've noticed that, and also the ability to sail clear through a sea-province which has a battle going on.

 

[unmerged(12204)]

Johan,

Could you post the formula that is used for spotting for sea unit.

I'd like to make a table that would show the success ratio for a fleet to pass through (ie not being spotted) a sea zone where the enemy has sea units in it.

I think that would be useful for many of us

Thanks in advance.

 

[unmerged(12007)]

Originally posted by cyclem
Johan,

Could you post the formula that is used for spotting for sea unit.

I'd like to make a table that would show the success ratio for a fleet to pass through (ie not being spotted) a sea zone where the enemy has sea units in it.

I think that would be useful for many of us

Thanks in advance.

Are you kidding me?

Johan doesn't even share this stuff with the other Paradox programmer, much less the betas.

J/K. I know the Betas don't get this kind of info though.

 

[Steel]

Generally Paradox seems to like to keep game engine mechanics secret so I don't think you'll have much luck with that request. I agree it would be interesting to see but like all the parts of the game engine it may be considered intellectual property.

From what Dinsdale and shrike00 are saying the best way of passing unnoticed will be to send in 1 sub, then sail through with whatever transports etc that you want to keep safe and finally disengage with your masking force. Doesn't sound entirely unreasonable to use such a diversionary maneuver (especially for amphib landings) although it would be an exploit on the basis that AI probably doesn't use it.

 

[unmerged(12204)]

I am little bit surprised by the latest comment.

Intellectual property? Give me a break...

So far, there is very little information available as to what the mechanics for spotting are. This is a new feature in 1.03 for sea units, and we're just supposed to learn how it works by trial and error? Sorry, but that's not how I play strategy games. I like to understand the basics before playing the game. Doesn't everybody always say "read the manual". You know what, I read it, and the readme.txt and everything else I could get my hands on and there is very little info on spotting.

Ok, enough ranting

Thanks to Johan, he answered some of my initial questions, which was a great help to understand the new behavior of sea units in 1.03

Johan said that spotting is based on detection capabilities of ships, and enemy visibility.

All right !! This is a great start, but is this enough to understand clearly how spotting works? Not yet.

Let's compare this to the attack and defense factors. In the combat section of the manual, a lot of details is given to show how these factors affects combat. Not a formula per say, but at least we understand how they interact with each other.

Let me continue on this

1) if a sea unit has spotting of 1, and another one has spotting of 2, does that mean that the 2nd unit is twice as efficient at spotting enemy units?

Without the "formula", impossible to say. We don't know if spotting of 2 means you get two chances to spot the enemy unit, or if it means that your spotting ability is twice as effective.

2) are 2 units with spotting of 1 more effective than 1 unit with spotting of 2? Again, hard to say if we can't analyse how the "formula" works.

So far, we "know" that the spotting for a given unit is based on

- visibility of the enemy unit

- spotting ability of the unit

Now, I'd like to understand if

3) how does weather affect spotting?

4) is there a base factor that is being used: the minimum chance for spotting. Basically, when you have spotting of 1, and the target is visibility of 1, what are your probability to spot?

5) How do these probabilities improve with the increase of visibility?

6) How do these probabilities improve with the increase of spotting?


Thanks for any info you can provide to help us understand the new spotting feature; in a game that keeps getting better and better with each patch.

Continue the good work !

 

[Dev]

Oh boy, spotting (and land IntOps I guess) is completely useless then.

What good is detecting the enemy first when it just results in ordinary combat with no bonuses.

/dev

 

[Bossemanden]

Oh boy, spotting (and land IntOps I guess) is completely useless then.

Land IntOps is in no way useless. Yesterday I played as NatChi with lousy IntOps. On several ocasions I were attacked by 1? japanese divisions just to find out that it was in fact 5 or even 10 divisions. Naturally I was beaten. It is really good to have a high land IntOps

 

[unmerged(12204)]

Dev,

It's not about who detect who first, it's about what's your probability about not being detected at all? In order to figure this, we need to have more details of the spotting mechanics.

Ultimately, I want to figure out the probability for a fleet to pass-by an enemy fleet without being intercepted at all.

This, I believe, is very important for players who may want to invest heavily in submarines, like Germany.

If I want to develop submarine fleets that are less likely to be intercepted by enemy fleets, should I choose NOT to develop spotting tech for subs?

If that's the case, you have to keep your submarine ineffective spotters in order to be effective convoy raiders. Why? Because they'll have less chance to engage in naval combat due to poor spotting ability.

On the other hand, if I want my submarine to be effective fleet raiders, then spotting is very important.

Can Johan (or anyone else with the knowledge) have the kindness to answer my 6 questions above, that would greatly useful to the community.

 

[unmerged(12204)]

A comment from Paradox (or Johan?) would have been appreciated, but I guess it's not coming.

Ah well, back to trial and error mode...

 

[Doomdark]

This is certainly no secret. The formula is ridiculously simple and works as follows:

The check is made every hour, for every ship (naval division) in a sea zone against every enemy ship in the sea zone. (The check is done by both sides, of course.)

The chance of detection is basically:

DetectionCapability * Target Visibility / 10000

Example:

A fleet of one cruiser is in the same sea zone as one enemy cruiser. Let's say the surface detection of both is 5. Visibility is 80. Chance of detection is thus: 5*80/10000 = 0.04. I.e. 4%.

Rain and snow halve the chance. Storm and blizzard reduce it to a tenth, and in the next patch, Naval Intelligence Specialist ministers increase it by 20%.

 

[Steel]

Interesting, thanks!

 

[Dev]

But what's the point of having a high detection value ?

Detection upgrades (and spotting trait) seems useless to me when they don't give you an advantage.

Just let the AI waste his ICs developing it.

/dev

 

[Tel]

Now that spotting has been impemented for naval battles, there needs to be an order to avoid combat. As posted earlier, it is a disadvantage to have a high spotting rating in a weak fleet as they will attack even if they spot an enemy that has not detected them.

I can see it now - "Admiral our three transports have just spotted twelve enemy battleships who haven't seen us yet, should we try to sneak away?"
"Of course not you idiot! Charge! We can sink 'em all. The three divisions of tanks we are carrying aren't needed at the front."

 

[unmerged(12204)]

Doomdark:

Thanks for the info, I'll start working on that spreadsheet

Dev:

Until we know if surprise works or not, you're absolutely right, spotting is a waste of research IC unless you really want your fleet to be good "interceptor".

For example, research that increases spotting for destroyers versus submarines are a good investment. Research that increases spotting for subs might not, especially if you want your sub to be convoy raiders.

Tel

You're right, check this thread

http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=69015