Spotting power shouldn't be the average of the Task Force, it should be the total accumulation

[Riekopo]

This is really weird and nonsensical in my opinion. I don't understand why they did it this way. Maybe just a mistake. But it seems like the spotting ability/power of a Task Force is the average of all the ships. Instead of it being the total accumulation of all the ships.

So basically, a single ship with lots of spotting ability is better than an entire group of ships. Which makes no sense and is completely counter-intuitive and is not explained in the game either.

 

[BeauNiddle]

This is really weird and nonsensical in my opinion. I don't understand why they did it this way. Maybe just a mistake. But it seems like the spotting ability/power of a Task Force is the average of all the ships. Instead of it being the total accumulation of all the ships.

So basically, a single ship with lots of spotting ability is better than an entire group of ships. Which makes no sense and is completely counter-intuitive and is not explained in the game either.

Because ships in a task force tend not to operate alone. If they sail in a fleet then they 'waste' a lot of their surface detection on areas already covered by other ships.

The advantage of a larger patrol force is it can deal with small threats by itself and wont be instantly knocked out by running into the wrong opposition.
The advantage of a small patrol force is it's more IC efficient but can be destroyed by whatever they find before the strike force get there.

 

[Voigt]

It should be atleast a weighted avarage like for Armour for Tanks.

If I have 2 CLs with Seaplanes, why should they have less spotting if I add also 8 Destroyers, which sail along?

 

[SophieX]

I will not exclude that I might misunderstand something; but I didn't found any indication, that leads to the conclusion, that "Spotting power = average....." as mentioned in the title.

In the defines there are listed more than 20 factors which affects "spotting-effiency".
In contradiction to the title, I assume that the number of ships increases your spotting-power ( the more the better until a certain point is reached ).

As I said; I could be wrong because the explanations of some define-factors are "confusing" for me.

Example:
BASE_SPOTTING = 1, -- base spotting percentage for navy
BASE_SPOTTING_ACTIVE_NAVY_MULT = 0.1, -- multiplier for your navies base spotting percentage
"navies" means what? units? taskforces?

I think it would be more helpful at first, to know exactly, how spotting works in the actual version of the game.

Let's work out, what we have and then we could discuss, what we want to change.

 

[Voigt]

You can testing spotting yourself quite easily ingame. Have an enemy taskforce around in a seatile, try to spot it with your fleet, how does the daily progression change.

With only 1 ship with high spotting you can have extremly high spotting progress, but if you add new ships with low spotting value taskforce your daily progress goes down, until it even goes into negative.

So yeah spotting is avaraged over the taskforce.

 

[Harin]

I agree with the OP. Of the options available, averaging spotting power makes the least sense to me. For example, if you believe that a patrol task force sails together, say a cruiser with a float plane and 4 destroyers as escorts, then instead of spotting power being averaged, it should equal the highest spotting power of any ship in the patrol, in this case the cruiser. In real life, the presence of the destroyers does not reduce the spotting ability of the cruiser in any way, shape, or form.

If you believe that patrol fleets spread out, say form a picket line, and methodically search the area for enemy ships, then the spotting power should be aggregated, because every ship is using its search power.

I cannot imagine a scenario where a ship formation would equal an average spotting power of all ships in the task force.

 

[DaleDVM]

The OP is right about the problem... That said, I think the prescription for fixing it is wrong.

I think that surface detection should be first quantified by task force. Each task force, ships grouped together, should have at least the value of the highest surface detection ship in their group. It SHOULD NOT be the average. However, it also shouldn't be purely additive. I will explain why below.

Having multiple task forces in a sea zone SHOULD certainly be additive. Each task force can fully add their detection in that sea zone because they cover more area.

As per the example above, adding destroyers to a escort CV task force doesn't diminish the CVs surface detection. But it doesn't help much either. Why? The destroyers which are sticking close to the CV to protect it are not going to spot enemy ships much better than the CV they are near. More likely the height of the CV makes it better for spotting directly thorough LOS, and the aircraft, if they can fly missions, are going to spot anything way before the surface ships see anything on the horizon. If anything destroyers in a CV task force might add a little surface detection.

If you want destroyers to use their speed to move about the sea zone trying to find ships they should be in their own task force moving separately from the CV task force in the scenario above. Screening ships shouldn't be allowed to add their full surface detection and be able to screen capital ships in a task force at the same time. In a separate task force with their speed they should be capable of spotting the enemy and attempt shadowing any slower ships until another task force closes and engages in combat. Perhaps if you exceed the needed ratio of Screens/Capital ships the screening ships should add more to detection values?

Now I will admit that having multiple ships in a task force does increase the task forces spotting abilities a little bit... However, it isn't increasing it by its full value at all. Two ships of any type that are staying close together do not have double the surface detection as one. However in separate task forces spread out they do. Also, having 10 ships with radar in the same spot does not cover much more area than 1 ship with radar. However spread those 10 ships out all over a sea zone and you get some real coverage. Perhaps adding more ships to a task force can have a small additive effect?

The most confusing scenario is this. Lets say I have several types of ships together. A CV with its aircraft that have a very high detection during the day. Another ship has radar which is a different type of detection which also works at night unlike aircraft. And finally I have fast ships which have their LOS detection which greatly benefits from the speed of the ships.

Therefore if the system was to be perfected... IMHO, I think there should be three types of surface detection factored and then added into each task forces detection abilities.

One for air spotting provided by catapult aircraft and CVs (these should have some additive factor, more aircraft results in better spotting). One for radar from the ship in the TF with the best radar. One value for task force spotting by line of sight (LOS) incorporating both the speed and size of the task force. The slowest ship in the TF would define the base speed since the ships should be staying close together. Finally (Perhaps) per my previous example if you have extra screening ships above the needed screen/capital ratio those extras could boost the "speed" and size LOS detection value for the task force. This makes sense because the excess screens could spread out for search duty while still staying somewhat close to the main TF.

Then those values (air, radar, direct LOS) detection should be added together to give a final detection value for each task force.

Sub detection should be done in the same way but sonar would be added on top of the other 3 factors.

Finally, the game would need to be balanced again. However, this is the realistic solution I think everyone would love to see.

Unfortunately, I have no idea exactly how it works in game now? I can only guess from the information that has been provided by others on this forum. If it does average (which is how it appears to work) it is wrong. If it was additive within a task force it is also wrong. My prescription is how it did work in reality.

 

[Androbey]

Just a Check with an example. In 1944 US TF 38 was composed of 94 ships, 17 Carriers, 6 BB, 13 Cruisers & 58 DDs. Visual LOS from a CV was approx. 26 km, to another ship of the same height increase that by 30%. But you would probably spot the engine smoke first, so say maybe 34 km. BB gun action shouldn't start until about 15.5 km.
That is why large ships had seaplane catapults. With 6 BBs and 4-6 CAs that could be 24 scout planes with a range of 1296 km. This does not even count the scouting groups on the carriers. A scout plane at 10000 m could theoretically see out to 300 km. Of course that would be mitigated by weather. Of course actual spotting range and the ability to identify types and numbers is much shorter, it is also much greater than surface ship detection.

The main spotting components should be 1. number of scouting planes, 2. Level of intelligence on the opponent. (this would allow you to focus your efforts in the proper area. 3. Visual & Radar LOS spotting should be the least valuable, except in restricted areas.

 

[bitmode]

In the defines there are listed more than 20 factors which affects "spotting-effiency".
In contradiction to the title, I assume that the number of ships increases your spotting-power ( the more the better until a certain point is reached ).

As I said; I could be wrong because the explanations of some define-factors are "confusing" for me.

Example:
BASE_SPOTTING = 1, -- base spotting percentage for navy
BASE_SPOTTING_ACTIVE_NAVY_MULT = 0.1, -- multiplier for your navies base spotting percentage
"navies" means what? units? taskforces?

I think it would be more helpful at first, to know exactly, how spotting works in the actual version of the game.

Let's work out, what we have and then we could discuss, what we want to change.

This should cover most of the defines (names are in tooltips): https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/index.php?title=User:Bitmode/Naval_warfare&oldid=27678#Spotting
The latest version has condensed formulas but does not show the defines: https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/User:Bitmode/Naval_warfare#Patrol

BASE_SPOTTING is simply the "Base: 1%" listed under "Base detection in region" (yes, the base has a base...).
BASE_SPOTTING_ACTIVE_NAVY_MULT is used in the formula for the second line, "Task Forces in Region": BASE_SPOTTING_FROM_ACTIVE_NAVY * (1 - 1/2^(BASE_SPOTTING_ACTIVE_NAVY_MULT * <detection strength>)). The balancing on that formula is grossly wrong, so this define can be safely ignored (edit: unless modded of course).

 

[Cavalry]

It should be atleast a weighted avarage like for Armour for Tanks.

If I have 2 CLs with Seaplanes, why should they have less spotting if I add also 8 Destroyers, which sail along?

More ship in sea zone does increase detection rate per day, not necessary in the patrol. What the OP said, is about hourly spoting
The game also say that if enemy detect your patrol then they will be harder to find.