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Post by janxol on Oct 28, 2019 14:19:42 GMT -6
After several carrier engagements I am 80% certain the enemy always knows where your carriers are. There were several situations that made me reach this conclusion.
Firstly, the recon wave, or rather lack of thereof. By the time my recon planes reach enemy position and I get a contact report, my ships are already under air attack - the first planes that come are with naval strike order. Interestingly enemy scout floatplanes from AVs also come with naval strike order rather than recon, so perhaps it is a bug?
Secondly I had a large and very climatic fleet battle with separate BB, BC and CV forces. My CV force at no point made contact with enemy ships (which means it was not spotted). It was also not spotted by enemy aircraft. Despite this, enemy squadrons immediately came for them with naval strike orders and they were pestered throughout the battle despite any course changes. While I originally thought it possible that enemy recon planes are simply too far to see them but close enough so they see me, they simply didnt have the time to spot me and launch strike afterwards and I know this because that's exactly what I did (readied strike and waited for contact report). Enemy strike came shortly before my recon planes spotted enemy CV.
On at least one occasion I spawned in with a bunch of cruisers (no carriers of my own) against enemy carrier-assisted force (and that's okay). By the time my catapult-launched floatplanes made contact with anything i had dive bombers over my head. (This also made my wonder about readying time for AI, but I reached the conclusion that it was perfectly possible for fairly fast enemy dive bombers to reach me after readying before my slow-as-hell floatplanes traveled the same distance. Still, the strike aircraft would have to know exactly where my ships are though.
Did you have similar experiences? Am I correct with my observations? If so, is it working as intended or not? (In my opinion even if "internally" the metagaming AI has to know where my ships are for gameplay reasons, force it to send recon in my general direction first and make contact before sending airstrikes)
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Post by Fredrik W on Oct 28, 2019 14:53:08 GMT -6
The AI does not know where the players carriers are until it has spotted them. The AI will not launch an airstrike unless the target has been spotted by something.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Oct 28, 2019 15:09:33 GMT -6
After several carrier engagements I am 80% certain the enemy always knows where your carriers are. There were several situations that made me reach this conclusion.
Firstly, the recon wave, or rather lack of thereof. By the time my recon planes reach enemy position and I get a contact report, my ships are already under air attack - the first planes that come are with naval strike order. Interestingly enemy scout floatplanes from AVs also come with naval strike order rather than recon, so perhaps it is a bug?
Secondly I had a large and very climatic fleet battle with separate BB, BC and CV forces. My CV force at no point made contact with enemy ships (which means it was not spotted). It was also not spotted by enemy aircraft. Despite this, enemy squadrons immediately came for them with naval strike orders and they were pestered throughout the battle despite any course changes. While I originally thought it possible that enemy recon planes are simply too far to see them but close enough so they see me, they simply didnt have the time to spot me and launch strike afterwards and I know this because that's exactly what I did (readied strike and waited for contact report). Enemy strike came shortly before my recon planes spotted enemy CV.
On at least one occasion I spawned in with a bunch of cruisers (no carriers of my own) against enemy carrier-assisted force (and that's okay). By the time my catapult-launched floatplanes made contact with anything i had dive bombers over my head. (This also made my wonder about readying time for AI, but I reached the conclusion that it was perfectly possible for fairly fast enemy dive bombers to reach me after readying before my slow-as-hell floatplanes traveled the same distance. Still, the strike aircraft would have to know exactly where my ships are though.
Did you have similar experiences? Am I correct with my observations? If so, is it working as intended or not? (In my opinion even if "internally" the metagaming AI has to know where my ships are for gameplay reasons, force it to send recon in my general direction first and make contact before sending airstrikes)
I believe Fredrik has said that the AI does not have any more information than the player. If the AI's planes have not spotted your ships then the AI will not send a strike. I don't want to discount the possibility that something strange is going on here but before jumping there let me offer some possible explanations. You should probably not be so certain that your force was not spotted by enemy aircraft. Enemy aircraft within spotting range of your ships are often not visible to you. Regarding the timing of the AI strikes - in the situations you mentioned, is it possible that land-based search planes spotted your ships more quickly than your carrier search planes spotted his carriers? If the AI had floatplane equipped battleships or cruisers that were closer than his carriers, which is almost universally the case, it would take far less time to reach and detect your carriers. Later in your post you mention searching with floatplane scouts. If you were using floatplanes to search with and the AI was searching with any aircraft other than floatplane scouts his planes were possibly twice as fast as yours. Readying and spotting times can vary quite a bit between ships. If your times are quite slow and you are used to that prep time, while the enemy's prep time is quite fast, the speed that a strike can reach you may be quite surprising. A confluence of the above circumstances, or even one of them taking place, could account for the speed at which the AI struck your ships. In the situation where your CV force was struck repeatedly while you maneuvered, you have to remember that many striking squadrons will send in a spotting report before they attack so if you are being struck frequently then your position is likely being reported almost constantly. This is one of the reasons we start seeing so many sighting reports pop up all over the place in big carrier battles. I'll be curious to see if others are reporting similar occurrences. |
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Post by janxol on Oct 30, 2019 10:13:01 GMT -6
I also do not wish to jump to conclusions. This is the impression I got from the battles I had. Unofrtunately theres no post-battle pathing for planes like there is for ships so I can't check exactly where they were.
Regarding the situations I experienced:
1. The carrier situation.The enemy land bases were definitely too far away to matter in this battle so this had to be carrier planes or catapult scouts. By the time my carrier's scout planes reached enemy carriers, the enemy carrier strike reached my carriers. My TBs were the scouts, the enemy strike was dive bombers, which were somewhat faster than my TBs. But this mean that (in the fastest scenario) they readied a strike, I was spotted, they launched and reached me. All that in time it took to ready and laucnh my TBs. It is possible that the catapult scouts from enemy battleline spotted me first. I am also not sure what influenced readying speeds and how to judge whether my carriers or their carriers are faster at it (I would assume carrier crew experience could be a factor, while I can't judge enemy crew experience, all of my carrier crews were elite at that point).
Regarding maneuvering I was maneuvering not only under attack, but also in response to the battleship engagement (making sure I stay close but dont end up in path of battleships). Without post-battle pathing I cannot now for certain if there wasn't a scoutplane in the vicinity of my carriers. But the maneuvering was completely out of line with strikes, so I'm pretty sure that no returning attack squadron should give a report with my true course.
2. Floatplanes. Yes, I fully acknowledge my floatplanes are slow as snails and about as agile. Still, these two actions would have to happen in the same amount of time: 1. My floatplanes ready, catapult launch, and reach enemy. 2. Enemy carrier scouts readies, launches, reaches my ships, enemy strike launches and reaches my ship. I have no idea if that is possible with readying times, and can't check after battle if recon planes were near.
I am going to pay close attention to carrier battles trying to figure out what's going on. I can of course be wrong, but again, this is the impression I got.
Also regarding post-battle analysis, here's a suggestion: While pathing for planes would probably get confusing, could all ships get a log entry for "[timestamp] launches [number] [plane type] [plane name] [mission type]". So for example "11:33 Launches 10 TB Grumman Catalina N Strike". Similarly to how all ships get log entries for "main battery scores hit on X".
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Post by dorn on Oct 30, 2019 10:19:59 GMT -6
Did you star your search automatic on turn 0?
In this case aircrafts are considered as spotted.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Oct 30, 2019 11:12:20 GMT -6
Also regarding post-battle analysis, here's a suggestion: While pathing for planes would probably get confusing, could all ships get a log entry for "[timestamp] launches [number] [plane type] [plane name] [mission type]". So for example "11:33 Launches 10 TB Grumman Catalina N Strike". Similarly to how all ships get log entries for "main battery scores hit on X". A heads up - this information is currently available in the log. |
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Post by janxol on Oct 30, 2019 12:16:29 GMT -6
Either I missed it among the "evading air attack" spam or didn't think to look for it back then. Will definitely take a look at it in next battle. Also yes, these are all automatic turn 0 searches. I only tweak the cone so that planes dont stray over landmasses if possible.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Oct 30, 2019 13:40:20 GMT -6
It's easy to miss notices of things like take-offs, landing and aircraft repairs since they are not in bold text, so become lost among the dense textual weeds of the log.
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Post by janxol on Oct 30, 2019 14:02:02 GMT -6
It's easy to miss notices of things like take-offs, landing and aircraft repairs since they are not in bold text, so become lost among the dense textual weeds of the log. I meant the after-battle log, just to be clear. Where you go into ships details and you can see what hits it dealt and received. |
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Post by brygun on Nov 1, 2019 7:08:26 GMT -6
I wonder if one factor is that the enemy planes might report on your CV positions but the scout plane itself was never observed by your ships. That is a real life possibility IMHO.
One tip is that the game starts ships on courses where the fleets are likely to encounter each other. Turning your carriers ASAP will reduce the chance of them being spotted.
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Post by janxol on Nov 1, 2019 8:54:05 GMT -6
Also regarding post-battle analysis, here's a suggestion: While pathing for planes would probably get confusing, could all ships get a log entry for "[timestamp] launches [number] [plane type] [plane name] [mission type]". So for example "11:33 Launches 10 TB Grumman Catalina N Strike". Similarly to how all ships get log entries for "main battery scores hit on X". A heads up - this information is currently available in the log. This information appears to not be available in the logs. This carrier for example, launched at least 6 coordinated strikes during the battle, as you can see none of them are in the log. Also just to be clear I meant the after-battle log, not the one that scrolls on the left during the battle. It would be nice to have information i mentioned earlier in the post-battle log.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Nov 1, 2019 9:35:37 GMT -6
Information is presented in the log rather than the ship's log because the log provides ongoing information that is of importance during the course of play. It would be difficult to dig information about take offs out of each individual ship's log while fighting a battle (or even at the conclusion of a battle). The scrolling log in the left panel is compiled into a single master log that covers every minute of the battle. This compiled log is available at any time during the battle and at the conclusion of the battle if you want to examine it then. The button to access this compiled log is in the top button row - it looks like an open book.
Adding information about air activities would certainly be a nice addition to a carrier's ship log, but personally, I prefer having it in the master log. Of course, there's nothing to prevent the information from being placed in both the master log and the ship's log (other than Fredrik's time ;-).
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