Forcing spots

[Daft Loon]

Click the spy glass onto a target continuously for 5-10s and it forces the spot, ignoring the usual visibility criteria.

It would be nearly impossible to spot a ship of unknown location and with 3 spotters per ship (4 if its also applied to captains spot) the oddities of client side cloud rendering should average out a fair bit.

Thoughts?

[Arturo Sanchez]

certainly gets rid of the fundemental problem.

But therre is the issue of shaking spots.

[Dementio]

Imagine you know there is a ship is behind the rock or behind the arch in the middle of Northern Fjords. Now imagine all the possible ways he could go from there. He could go left or right around it and may even be at a different altitude to add as a surprise effect, he could go above or below it even if the structure allows him to or even he could go backwards and away in order to ambush from a completely different route.

I can see it being a solution to the current cloud "features" where you can sometimes see a ship, but not be able to spot it or sometimes when a ship is somehow too far away from being spotted, while clearly visible (#WaterHazard). Being able to spot a ship behind hard cover however should not be a thing, because it would negate literally every single advantage that the hiding ship has, and if it is hiding while you are already aware of his position, he can really need those advantages. In order to avoid being spotted through sheer luck the pilots would then have to be constantly moving around at extreme speeds, because those airships base speed can be rather slow. Try to avoid being spotted like that in a Pyramidion or Galleon or, god forbid, a Spire.

There is also the thing where a spotted ship stays spotted for a short period of time when line of sight is lost and so this proposed mechanic can be used to chain spot somebody indefinitely, which may be an undesired side effect.

Essentially it all comes down to a spot being a spot and our in-game characters translate the spot into information displayed on our map. If you want everybody to know that a ship is behind a rock, then you are looking at a different mechanic, a mechanic where you mark a specific location on everybody's map, telling your team that something is there.

[Arturo Sanchez]

But shaking spots should be doable via clouds too.

Or else you can have the reverse problem of ships remaining spotted while clearly out of line of sight of all ships. You can't simply dismiss clouds and their use as soft cover.

[Daft Loon]

Somehow forgot rocks were a thing  , the idea is aimed entirely at spotting visible but not spottable ships, so: 'Ignoring the usual visibility criteria with respect to clouds'.

How it might work with shaking spots is also an issue. I'm thinking it could allow normal spot shaking, a temporary spot would be enough to be better than trying to describe their exact location. Preventing the 5-10s timer from starting while the ship is still spotted could be enough to prevent chaining spots, particularly if its closer to 10s.


Edit: Thinking about it 10s is far too long a time for a worthwhile spot, some of that time would have to be a 'cooldown' preventing forced spots right after a spot is shaken, with an initial spot taking less time.

[Arturo Sanchez]

The fact that the can't be spotted in the first place means the spot will be instantly shaken.

As the game detects it as within cover despite you clearly seeing it.

[Daft Loon]

I was thinking of the way spots persist for a few seconds when ships go behind hard cover, do clouds allow faster spot shaking?

It should be long enough for the rest of the crew to note the spotted ships location, but short enough to not invalidate breaking line of sight.

[Richard LeMoon]

Depends entirely on how spots are calculated. Are rocks and clouds treated the same? If so, not much you can do. If not, then they could do something about it.

I would say that you would have to be zoomed all the way in to get the auto-spot as well as the time limit.

Another option may be that you would need two spyglasses to fully spot a ship partially hidden in clouds. Or a spyglass and rangefinder, which would make a lot of sense. "The enemy is that direction, this far away."


Side thought: What if spyglass only spotted ships for your own team inside a certain radius (say, 800m). Outside of that radius, you would have to also mark it with a rangefinder to mark it for an ally ship.

[Arturo Sanchez]

I'm still waiting for captain spot being an AI command to have AI use spy glass to spot what I mark as a pilot.

[Daft Loon]

I'm still waiting for captain spot being an AI command to have AI use spy glass to spot what I mark as a pilot.

That would be amazing.