Spotting Tactics?

[Daft Loon]

Spotting the enemy in a timely fashion can be an important factor in many matches but its not something that I've really seen or heard discussed much aside from the basics of calling out the location of a sighted enemy and attempting to spot with the spyglass as soon as possible.

Do people have any particular tactics for ensuring the enemy are seen and spotted quickly and reliably, or for exploiting blind spots - both those that are part of the ship structure and those formed by crew habits.

On a related note I've had several captains both seriously and not so much cut engines and ask us to listen for opposing ships, is this really practical? and what do people think of an ear trumpet tool as a spyglass alternative, blocks out nearby sounds and amplifies those in (roughly) the direction its pointed. It could help remove some of the situations where the teams can't find each other for too long.

[Extirminator]

Do people have any particular tactics for ensuring the enemy are seen and spotted quickly and reliably, or for exploiting blind spots - both those that are part of the ship structure and those formed by crew habits.

I don't think you really have much tactics to rely on, you just open your eyes wide and try to see if you can see a ship on the field.

Though, I can tell you that sometimes I find that if I can see shots from a cloud and I try to spot to the direction of where the shots coming I can more often than not spot the ship firing. I am not sure if that is due to the ship actively shooting at us, or is it due to a weird spotting inside clouds behavior.
Sometimes I would just randomly spam spot on a cloud I know the enemy is in and I will be able to spot through it. Also, it is possible to spot through your own ship often enough, which I find very useful on parts like the engines of a pyramidion and there is an enemy unspotted up front which I can spot while repairing/rebuilding or pretty much anywhere in the corridors of the mobula, I can just spot them while repairing the armor if I know their general position in relation to us.

So I guess I'd call that more "tips and tricks" rather than tactics.

On a related note I've had several captains both seriously and not so much cut engines and ask us to listen for opposing ships, is this really practical? and what do people think of an ear trumpet tool as a spyglass alternative, blocks out nearby sounds and amplifies those in (roughly) the direction its pointed. It could help remove some of the situations where the teams can't find each other for too long.

I can tell you that you have to be extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY close to someone to hear their engines, if you are that close to them you will usually hear the sound of their weapons firing at you more often than the engines though

[Alistair MacBain]

There is no spotting tactic besides the few occasions you actually dont spot to get into better position for an ambush. Atleast nothing I know about.
Having in mind how clouds work assigning spotting areas is actually a not so good idea as you know where the enemy can come from most times anyways.
The problem with clouds is that they are generated clinet side which results in slightly different clouds for everyone. And thats the reason for all the situations where one person cant see the ship at all and the other has a clear ship and spots it.

[BlackenedPies]

The most important job of crew is spotting ships. Don't shoot an unspotted ship even if the captain sees it. Spam clicking is good and you'll often get lucky if ships are in clouds.