Today we’re going to start describing the working principles
of one of World of Warships' most important mechanics—
the Spotting System.
It consists of a number of different components.
In this episode, we’re going to touch upon the basic ones:
how ships spot each other,
the difference between detectability range and viewing range, and, finally,
you’ll learn how Yamato can fire at Z-52 while remaining unspotted.
Let's take a look at the Minimap.
You’ll see several concentric circles displayed around your ship.
To enable or disable them, press and hold CTRL in battle
and click the gear icon located above the Minimap.
Today, we’re interested in the one highlighted with a dotted line—
this is your ship's detectability range.
Your ship is invisible to any opponents
until at least one of them passes within your detectability range.
The indicator, which will be displayed on your screen
whenever your enemies see you, will notify you about this.
As soon as the enemy leaves your detectability range,
or after you put enough distance between you,
your ship immediately becomes invisible to them again.
The minimum time for your ship to be visible to your opponents is 2 seconds.
The base detectability range directly depends on the size of your ship.
Let's replace one Yamato with destroyer Khabarovsk.
The destroyer's detectability range is 10 kilometers.
The distance between the ships is 18 kilometers.
But while Khabarovsk will spot Yamato at this distance,
the battleship will need to approach within 10 km to see the destroyer.
Without special consumables or upgrades,
you can only spot the enemy ship when within her detectability range.
The question here is,
"What part of the ship needs to appear in the enemy's detectability range
for the ship to be spotted?"
The answer to that is:
the detection point located at the center of every ship
on the upper border of her highest armored item.
This point performs two important functions.
Firstly, it helps you spot and see the enemy.
Secondly, it’s the reason your enemy sees you.
During battle, the game server constantly checks the distance
and availability of obstacles between the points on all ships.
If there is an island between the point on your ship
and the point on the enemy ship, you won't see each other,
even if you are within each other’s detectability ranges.
You need to remember, though, that not every island can hide your ship.
The detection point on battleships
is usually positioned significantly higher than on destroyers.
Can you spot a ship hiding behind an island? Sure.
In World of Warships,
there is a 2 kilometer "range of assured acquisition of enemy ships."
With this distance between the detection points on your ships,
you will be visible to each other regardless of any obstacles between you.
In that case, the indicator will look like this.
However, there are often situations in the game
where you might be out of an enemy ship's detectability range,
but you can still see her.
This means the ship has been spotted by one of your allies
who is passing over the information about her to your team.
That's how allied spotting works.
When an enemy ship is spotted by your ally, her icon appears on the Minimap.
But you won't always see her in the binoculars.
The thing is that every ship has a viewing range.
The gray sector on the Minimap
displays the viewing angle of your camera in the game.
Its furthest border represents the end of your viewing range.
Under no circumstances will you see any ships located beyond that border.
The viewing range is a value assigned individually to every ship in the game.
It’s affected by many factors, but is primarily influenced
by the height at which your ship's range finder is positioned.
In certain situations, viewing range can be very important.
For example, on the Ocean map we have Yamato and Shimakaze in one team,
and Z-52 in the other.
18 kilometers separate the battleship and the German destroyer.
Yamato can’t see her, while Shimakaze is approaching the enemy.
Now Z-52 is visible to both Shimakaze and Yamato.
But the most interesting part is that now Yamato can fire at the German destroyer
while remaining invisible, despite the fact that her detectability range
increases sharply after the shot is made,
because the viewing range of Z-52 is 17.8 kilometers.
When Yamato fires a shell, her visibility radius increases
to the maximum firing range of the primary armament.
It's displayed both on the Minimap and near the reticle in the interface.
Therefore, after a shot, the Japanese battleship will be visible
not from 18 kilometers, but from 26.6 kilometers.
If you improve the firing range using Spotting Aircraft, upgrades,
or Commander skills, the post-shot visibility range will increase.
If enemies don't detect you immediately after a shot,
the radius will return to its initial value instantly.
However, if an enemy detected you,
the increased radius lasts for 20 seconds after the last shot.
But there's a trick: if you leave the visibility zones of all nearby enemies
or hide behind an island after a shot,
the 20 second visibility penalty will be reset in two seconds.
It would be natural for secondary armament shots
to also increase your visibility,
but we don't have any ships with a secondary armament firing range
greater than their visibility radius in the game, even when fully upgraded.
Another important factor for the visibility system is fire.
Instances of fire increase your visibility radius by 2 kilometers.
If our Shimakaze is on fire,
enemies can spot her from 9.1 kilometers instead of 7.1 kilometers.
However, fire doesn't add any visibility bonuses
when a ship is behind a smoke screen.
For the visibility system,
the area of a smoke screen acts like a very tall island.
It doesn't matter how deep you hide in the smoke.
It's important that your detection point crosses the boundary of the smoke screen.
At that moment, your visibility range is reduced to the assured acquisition range.
However, you also suffer from partial blindness.
For example, you can't spot a non-firing enemy
until they come within your assured acquisition range.
However, the smoke screen won't stop you from seeing any enemies
detected by your allies, and of course, firing at them.
Firing changes everything again.
The visibility range also increases
after firing primary armament shell from within a smoke screen.
The exact value depends on the ship type.
Shimakaze's radius is 2.6 kilometers,
cruiser Zao's—7.2 kilometers,
while the giant Yamato will be spotted from 19.3 km after firing from smoke.
You can check the visibility range of a ship firing from a smoke screen
under the Concealment tab in the Port, or directly in battle by holding H.
If there's a smoke screen between your ship's detection point
and the enemy's detection point, the visibility ranges when firing
will be calculated as if the ships were both firing from within smoke.
However, If both you and your enemy are within smoke screens,
the effects of both screens don’t stack for anyone.
It's important to remember
that if your ship is detected while firing from smoke,
then its visibility range will increase for 20 seconds.
If you enter a smoke screen within the 20 second-period
of the increased visibility range after firing your primary armament guns,
the countdown will continue,
but the range will be lesser due to the smoke screen’s effect.
If there is an enemy within the reduced range, you'll still be spotted.
If there are none, or there are islands between you and them,
you'll vanish in two seconds after entering a smoke.
By the way, firing secondary armament guns from smoke
won't give away your position.
It's quite possible to encounter a destroyer
firing at you from 5 kilometers away,
but you can't detect it when playing a cruiser
hiding behind a smoke screen, firing, and being spotted.
The issue of how to spot enemies from smoke becomes highly important.
The solution is consumables—
Surveillance Radar, Hydroacoustic Search, Fighter, or Spotting Aircraft.
Surveillance Radar guarantees the detection of ships at great distances,
regardless of obstacles, smoke, and differences in ships' visibility ranges.
For example, cruiser Moskva can spot any ship within a 12-kilometer radius.
As soon as you activate Surveillance Radar,
you'll immediately see all the enemies within its operating range.
The detected ships will appear on the Minimaps of your allies immediately,
but they will only be able to spot enemies after 6 seconds,
and under the condition that the enemies
were within the operating range of the radar all that time.
The disadvantage of Radar when compared to Hydroacoustic Search
is its short operation time.
You can increase its operation time by 20% by installing a special upgrade,
Hydroacoustic Search works the same way as Radar,
but it has a longer duration.
Moreover, Hydroacoustic Search increases torpedo detection range,
which is also crucial.
The downside is its lesser range of effect than Radar.
You can install a special upgrade
that allows you to increase the duration of Hydroacoustic Search by 20%.
Note that if any enemies have detected you
using Surveillance Radar or Hydroacoustic Search,
the detection indicator will look slightly different.
This is how the indicator will appear if you've been spotted from an aircraft.
Let's assume we're going to enter a battle
on one of the stealthiest destroyers in the game—Shimakaze.
We'll begin with preparation and improve her concealment.
Camouflage is a simple solution, but not the most effective.
It's available for any ship,
but decreases the visibility range by only 3%.
Of course, this 3% might be all it takes to win a battle.
Only ships with a fifth slot can install the Concealment System upgrade.
In return, it will reduce the ship’s visibility range by 10%.
Finally, the Concealment Expert skill provides an additional 10%.
With these changes, we can reduce the visibility radius of our Shimakaze
from 7.1 km to 5.6 km.
That's a great result!
We enter battle and the first opponent that we face is a bomber squadron.
The spotting mechanics work in the same way as for ships.
There's a detection point at the center of the aviation squadron.
If the range requirement is met
and there are no islands or smoke between the points,
the squadron will be spotted.
The visibility of almost all aircraft is 10 km.
The exceptions are Japanese torpedo bombers,
which have a 7.5 km visibility range.
You can reduce the spotting range of an aviation squadron
with the Concealment Expert Commander skill and Concealment System upgrade.
But each ship has its own visibility radius from the aircraft.
You can turn on the display of the detection icon in the Minimap settings.
Shimakaze has a default range of 3.4 kilometers,
but after the concealment enhancements, the value is 2.7 kilometers.
Any aircraft within this radius will spot your ship.
The bombers are getting closer.
The distance to them is already 5.8 kilometers,
so Shimakaze’s AA guns start firing.
As a result, she is spotted.
You can see that it's the aviation that spotted us
by the airplane icon on the detection indicator.
The thing is that AA guns increase the visibility radius to their firing range.
The only solution is to shut down the auxiliary armament.
The default key for that is P.
We're concealed again immediately—
the AA guns don't have a 20 second timer after firing.
The airplanes are getting closer, and we're spotted once again.
The bombers are preparing for a run to attack,
and, on top of that, enemies are focusing on us.
The only solution is to hide behind a smoke screen.
Aviation doesn't have a guaranteed detection range.
Now we can't see the bombers either, but that doesn't mean they flew away.
An ally comes to help us and detects the aerial beasts.
It's time to turn the AA guns back on
because firing them from within smoke won't give away our position.
The enemy sees our AA guns working as if the entire smoke is firing at them.
It's very hard to determine the location of our ship,
which is why we can shoot down
the enemy aviation highlighted by our allies with impunity.
The bombers are returning to the carrier
and leave the spotting range after gaining enough altitude.
Our Shimakaze is leaving the smoke and trying to approach the enemy.
Suddenly, the Radio Detection indicator lights up.
This means that someone from the red team
has the Radio Location Commander skill.
It shows the approximate direction of the closest enemy ship,
regardless of whether she's been spotted or not.
Now, an experienced enemy
may assume where our torpedoes can be launched from,
but since when did that stop anyone?
It's more important
that the enemy hasn’t also upgraded their torpedo detection.
That's because torpedoes, like ships,
have their own visibility radius that depends on the torpedo characteristics.
For example, our Type 93 Mod.3 torpedoes
are spotted from 1.7 kilometers.
At the same time,
the majority of deepwater Pan-Asian destroyers' torpedoes
have a visibility radius of just 800 meters.
The record holder here is Khabarovsk.
Although the range of her torpedoes is just 6 kilometers,
they're visible from only 600 meters.
You can't affect the visibility range of your torpedoes,
but you can significantly improve
the ship's acquisition range of enemy torpedoes.
The Torpedo Lookout System upgrade
guarantees the detection of any torpedoes at distances of up to 1,800 meters.
When combined with the Commander's Vigilance skill,
it increases the range to 2,250 meters!
However, there's no doubt that Hydroacoustic Search is best—
it can also stack with the Vigilance skill.
The earlier you spot torpedoes, the more time you have to evade them.
Another important issue— aircraft can't detect torpedoes at all!
Let's return to our destroyer.
After a shootout, a fire starts.
The fire increases the ship's visibility range for enemy ships by 2 kilometers,
and for aircraft—3 kilometers.
Damage Control Party is recharging,
however, fortune is still on our side—a cyclone starts.
Aside from the visual effects, downpour, wind, and fog,
bad weather makes visibility worse:
all ships and airplanes have their viewing radius reduced to 8 kilometers.
However, the cyclone doesn't affect Radar and Hydroacoustic Search.
Sure, the ships' visibility ranges don't change,
but if you detect an enemy 10 kilometers away using Radar,
you can fire at them with impunity.
However, your allies will see the enemy only on the Minimap.
If they want to see the enemy through binoculars,
your allies have to reduce the distance to 8 km
or wait until the bad weather passes.
Fight wisely, and see you in the next episodes of How It Works!