Target Signature & Size rework proposal

[RedParadize]

Hi dev

I first need to stress that while I am about to critic your work I do enjoy the UA:D allot. I just want to help you improve the game with my modest contribution. I have been testing various built style for the last few days. It highlighted few critical flaw in the mechanics of the game. Mainly, armor, speed hit malus and Target signature/Size mechanics. Armor mechanics already have been covered by myself here and @Evil4Zerggin did a good job at analyzing speed hit malus here. I may come back on these two subject later. One things that fell out of the radar is Target signature/Size. According to my test, Target signature/Size turn out to be a huge factor in the success of my small trimmed down ship versus super battleship.


How Target Signature and Target Size currently work:
In builder we only see Target Signature and in battle only the Target Size hit chance bonus. I am not 100% certain of how these two relate to each other. My assumption is that Target Size is a combination or multiplication of ship displacement and Target Signature, tool-tip seem to confirm that. There is no way to see the effect of displacement on Target size, so I will leave that aside.

At the moment, each part added in builder add a bit of target signature. This do not take in consideration if the part added increase the ship silhouette or not. Here is a example of this, same ship with and without overlapping object (casemate guns, torpedo, sides or tower mounted turrets):

These two ship have about the same silhouette, yet one is nearly twice bigger in term of target signature.

Proposal: 2D calculated target signature
The beauty of this proposal is that it is for the most part already implemented. The Idea is to take the side view of the ship used for in the plan tab, use its alpha to calculate the surface visible. If the picture is perfectly encapsulating the ship and exclude underwater section, then its simple math: (length * Height) * alpha coverage. This would be calculated only once and would be visible both in builder and in battle.

Example:


Alpha cover 27%ish of the above water area. Ship is 235m long and 47m tall. So (235*47)*0.27= 2982m².

Target size VS Target angle:
Ideally, the target size would vary depending on the angle of target. A relatively simple solution would be to also do a "2d target signature" from the front and interpolate between the two value depending of angle.



I hope my modest contribution will inspire you in making this game even better than it is. Thank you in advance!

[Evil4Zerggin]

Here's how Target Signature/size works. I didn't retest for the latest hotfix but it may be the same as the base Alpha 4. For BBs displacement would seem to matter more than Target Signature in Alpha 4.

Edited February 17, 2020 by Evil4Zerggin

[Accipiter]

+1 i like this a lot.
but this whould need to be tempered with other factors though, because if we just did Line of Sight like you propose, all the secondary turrets and other things whould make basically no difference in target signature... while in real life they make the ship more recognizable.
"target signature" in game is (at least in my mind) not only the ability to see a ship but also how immediately recognizable it is, as opposed to any other warship. which in turn is important for targetting and judging distance better, ect... exemple: "this distant silhouette looks like it has big guns... but is this a heavy cruiser at 10 km or a BB at 20km...?"

so for exemple a ship with 1 turret forward 1 aft and a superstructure in the middle, compared to the same ship but with both turret forward and the superstructure at the rear of the hull. both of those ships whould have exactly the same signature in your system, but logically speaking, the 2nd one should be much more unique and recognizable even as just a silhouette from far away. because All-forward turrets ships are much more uncommon globally, ect...

other considerations beyond just the angle of apsect:

-target signature could increase if the the ship is on fire

-target signature could increase if the ship has fired recently (particularily main battery big guns for BB, which makes huge clouds of smoke that fly high and persist a long time after firing)

-target signature could increase in case of funnel damage and/or low funnel efficiency ship (lower efficiency= more opaque smoke and more of it, since it's not properly dissipated)

-target signature could change depending on fuel type (much more for coal, much less for oil)

Edited February 18, 2020 by Accipiter

[Tycondero]

Also the impact of speed on accuracy should be reworked. A flat malus depending on speed is not correct. The relative speed and direction vectors between the attacker and its target should impact the malus. Two ships moving in the same direction and speed should have much less trouble to hit eachother no matter the speed of both of them. It's the difference that counts.

[arkhangelsk]

11 hours ago, RedParadize said:

Target size VS Target angle:
Ideally, the target size would vary depending on the angle of target. A relatively simple solution would be to also do a "2d target signature" from the front and interpolate between the two value depending of angle.

The main practical functionality of the Target Signature modifier is not its visibility, but the chance to hit. While I don't deliberately shoot for "minimum signature designs", the fact I don't put a bunch of secondaries on my ships is usually enough to give me an advantage in signature. And I do see the difference in hit rates. But they still often detect me first.

If the primary function of the modifier is the hit chance, since the volume of the ship is the same it shouldn't be changing just because has turned from a side to a end-on profile.

From that perspective, perhaps the better route is to reduce the amount of things that have signature. Towers, sure. Main guns, certainly. But secondary guns probably should just have the increase waived - one by itself isn't that much of a deal but once people (or AI) start putting them on, they put a bunch of them on and it adds up.

[Accipiter]

^that is a good point and i realize now i was kind confusing target signature and surface visibility.

all of the points i've made still stants mind you, but just for surface visibility.
so as for target signature, if i get this straight this is basically the "target size modifier" value we have on the accuracy window while in battle?

in that case that should only be affected (imo) by, like, 70% Hull, 20% Superstructure and 10% Main turrets number, size and placement.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Accipiter

[RedParadize]

in case it was not clear, my main concern is hit chances and not detection distance.

[Accipiter]

yeah don't worry it's clear now. i was the one being dumb.

for hit chances alone though, i think the only issue i can see with your method is that it does not account for hull width (beam) which can be important especially at longer ranges where the fire is more plunging, a broadside ship around 10 metres wide (like a big DD) or around 30 metres wide (most BB) whould make a big difference in hit chances then.

[RedParadize]

@Accipiter This tread is more or less a follow on to my meta analysis, that part was not clear. I do not know if you have read it, but you can get a huge bonus to hit from "ship size". From -15% to more than 600% and a big portion of it is target signature. I do not know how that percentage is applied trough, it seem that a good speed malus can reduce it allot. I guess its a multiplication or maybe its capped regardless of the number. Regardless, the "target size" almost negate the need for a good tower and else. It need some rework.

[Accipiter]

yeah i agree 100% that ship size is ridiculous especially in the way it scales, and totally needs to be reworked. a ship with 1920 tech and old towers should NEVER have 2X higher hit chances at long range than a modern BB let alone a modern BB with radar.
target speed penality as a whole is F***ed and should be removed entirely in my opinion anyway.

like, from a realistic point of view, as long as a target ship sails in straight line at a constant speed, it doesn't matter if that constant speed is 5kts or 45kts, it won't hardly (if at all) make any difference in how long it takes to calculate a good firing solution and how hard it is to hit it.

it is variations of speed (and/or course) that should give a targeting penality by reducing the lock/on of the weapons to like 50% locked on (not back all the way to zero obviously, and more or less depending how big was the change in speed and course), and then you go back to locked-on over time, until they maneuvre or change speed again obviously. i know this is already implemented in the game but it should have a much, much bigger impact.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Accipiter

[arkhangelsk]

Well, whatever we do, we need more size malus for destroyers. I was just doing one of those early tutorial missions (Speed 2) and I noticed: 900 ton destroyer, size malus -15.4%. That is to say, insignificant and as a result it was killed with ridiculous speed.

We need to make this game more historically accurate and the destroyers harder to hit, or we'll never be able to recreate tactics like ships cutting in close to make torpedo attacks - the enemies will hit too quickly.

Edited March 1, 2020 by arkhangelsk

[Nick Thomadis]

Target signature is going to be improved in upcoming patch. Guns will not have such drastic effect and player will not exploit this to create less targetable ships by having less secondary guns.