Okay, this is just silly...

[frankiealaplaaja]

So here I am: the Batlle of the Mediteranean in full swing, patrolling around Malta, sank HMS Nelson two days earlier, when I get the call: "Schifschrauben!" from the far side of the islands, headed toward the port there.
I plot an intercept course taking my U boat between the islands to cut off the contact before they reach the harbour.

No land in sight. A smoke plume is visible though. Five minutes later the smoke is not to be seen anymore, because an entire island pops up.

In short:
When is the game going to properly going to display land when is should be visible?

[Dewgle]

When there are no other entities around you; That is no land, no aircraft, no ships, then the game will unload those assets so that the only thing being rendered is the water, your boat and the sky box. This is known as "travel mode" and is what allows you to enter very high time compression.

Whenever you are close to land or another vessel, the game then attempts to load those assets into the engine for display. This is the "instance" mode.

2 years ago before the B129 update, the game would have to pause to 'load' scenery data whenever you transitioned between "travel mode" and "instance" mode. You can see what I'm talking about in this dev diary video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8hSGKI2vHo

Back then, depending on how fast or slow your computer was determined how quickly you would transition between this "travel mode" and "instance mode". The better your computer? The shorter the loading screen.

But after the B129 update, the devs were able to get assets to load and unload from the player's computer in real time, in the background without having to wait for a loading screen.

I don't know if you're playing on a god-tier PC master race machine or a stumpy potato but I can tell you that the reason you saw the island 'pop up' in front of you is because your PC was struggling to load game assets in the background. That island is supposed to become visible before you get too close to it and normally, it does.

[frankiealaplaaja]

So a better PC should fix this huh? Good. Another reason to get one.
So can you tell me if land becomes visible even before it gets within the 'Max Sight' radius, like a tall cliff or fyord should?
Because in today's scenario I should not have been able to spot the smoke at all.

One of the few things that impressed me about SH5 was the fyords around Narvik becoming visible so early. Something I'd like to see here as well.

[Dewgle]

Originally posted by frankiealaplaaja:

So can you tell me if land becomes visible even before it gets within the 'Max Sight' radius, like a tall cliff or fyord should?
Because in today's scenario I should not have been able to spot the smoke at all.

Yes, normally these objects are rendered before you get within max sight range. Check out this other dev diary video, in particular the section captioned "smoke over the horizon".

https://youtu.be/h8hSGKI2vHo?t=43

And in this screenshot[i.imgur.com] you can just barely make out the funnel and superstructure of a merchant over the horizon. Ideally the game will load convoys (and land) in the background before you get within visual range.

This game mechanic actually allows the player to detect convoys before their crew does, provided the player makes periodic checks with their binoculars now and then and doesn't just spend the whole game in the map view.

[frankiealaplaaja]

Yup. Even on my old(ish) system the mechanics work properly, on the open ocean. But land is appearantly too much to display properly on approach to it. It works well(ish) enough(ish) on the beaten paths though, like around ports.

I remember having to bring the time compression down to a crawl before the B129 update when approaching ports. Or run the risk to find my boat on land when the game resumed after loading the port and surrounding land. lol.

[Dewgle]

Originally posted by frankiealaplaaja:

I remember having to bring the time compression down to a crawl before the B129 update when approaching ports. Or run the risk to find my boat on land when the game resumed after loading the port and surrounding land. lol.

I remember that too! Except with my luck, before the B129 update I was trying to intercept a convoy under high time compression and by the time the loading screen finished, I found myself smack in the middle of a warship patrol xD

Glad the game has made so much progress since then.

[frankiealaplaaja]

Urgh, yeah. the bigger the convoy (back then 40 ships was not unheard of) the worse it was.

Just for funzies I made a vid of my little escapade.
Made a save prior to intercepting that contact in broad daylight right next to a Royal Navy strong point like that after sinking HMS Nelson, I had to save. So I thought I'd let you in on it...
Here's a link.
https://youtu.be/91WEBvJ9xn4

[LeftPaw]

If your seeing a ships smoke that is behind the island then obscured when the island pops up then that would be very odd. Why load a asset that is further away yet not the one that's closer?