Enemy smoke is detected from...

[Scratch]

For the love of anything and everything sane this message needs to tell us from >>where<< (and / or which ship / division) the sighting occurred from.

I don't mind the fact that chasing fast Italian BCs is difficult. I do mind the in-game "direction help" being... less than helpful.

[mlangsdorf]

As far as I can tell, smoke sighting is always relative to your flagship. Given that my flagship tends to be a 21 or 24 knot BB, knowing that smoke is NE of the flagship isn't helpful when my fast DDs are 70 knots away to the north. Have I overshot or not?

RDF solves the problem, though. Green lines to an unseen enemy ship. I've used RDF to dodge around a BB defending a convoy and hit the transports because my CA could not duel that monster. Radar is even better, of course: an actual blip showing the approximate location of the enemy ship.

[chiyen]

That is an OLD MAJOR problem, which is still unsolved.

People seems are more interested and motivated by adding some tiny nice-to-have adjustments and make some of them add to the game.

[Steeltrap]

Originally posted by chiyen:

That is an OLD MAJOR problem, which is still unsolved.

People seems are more interested and motivated by adding some tiny nice-to-have adjustments and make some of them add to the game.

Don't get me started, LOL.
The number of things people are complaining about now that I (and others) raised YEARS AGO in the closed testing is as remarkable as it is sad.

[Hidden Gunman]

Wish they'd scrap the invisible over the horizon smoke detection...tired of chasing chimeras at flank speed till i get bored.

[Steeltrap]

Originally posted by Hidden Gunman:

Wish they'd scrap the invisible over the horizon smoke detection...tired of chasing chimeras at flank speed till i get bored.

Usually putting something into AI control will have it change course to be heading directly at the enemy.

What OUGHT to happen of course is your own fleet would keep a battle log. One thing that would CERTAINLY be recorded would be the last sighting of any ships, the time of sighting and bearing from which ships (and THEIR position at that time), the estimated course and speed of those ships, and of course the nature of the ships.

It is absolutely ridiculous NOT to know this.

An easy FIX IMO would be to enable the RDF direction line for any ships YOU SIGHTED AT ANY TIME IN A BATTLE, even if you DON'T have that tech.

Even if you lose sight of them, you'll have that green line flashing now and again telling you where they were.
What's more, have the apparent ships listed next to the green RDF line, too, so you know what they are.

It's not ideal, but it would be immediately and immensely superior to the current system that often tells you complete BS, LOL.

Problem solved?

[Hidden Gunman]

I think part of the problem is in the recon mechanic. On the strat map its stated as quite large depending on your fleet size and composition, but translated to the battle map your fleet is generally only a couple of miles in size, with related visibility range, ie strat map detection distance of 100nm, fleet visibility range of 10nm...by the the time you close to where they were,they are now x distance somewhere else.

The strat map detection mechanic does not translate well to the battle map. Your destroyers give you a detection advantage, but when it goes to the battle map instead of being out scouting away from your main force they are relatively scraping barnacles off the main force.