Spotter Planes.

[AngryPitSnipe]

I was thinking that it would be nice if our Battleship and cruiser spotter planes were called such, rather than fighters (as in "fighter plane launched"). They weren't put on Cruisers and Battleships to defend the ships , but as spotter planes for over the Horizon shooting. They were also used as recon/search planes (like the Japanese used them at Midway). 

I don't think it would be that difficult to patch the game so the Spotter Planes actually spotted  and searched, instead of flying anywhere and everywhere except someplace useful. The only thing they seem to be good for is target practice "fighter plane destroyed" (as if we actually new where it was, or could do anything about it at the time anyhow).

I think this would be an excellent update. 

[PotatoMD]

Well, once in a blue moon, the fighter will actually fight enemy planes! Particularly bombers. Surprising, right?

[Quaffer]

For the first half of Alpha, battleships and cruisers used their planes for spotting.  You could set way points for them and send them anywhere you wanted to on the map.  They had a flight time of about 5 minutes and then they would return to the ship. Assuming of course that they were not shot down.  Enemy spotters were always a priority for AA and fighters as putting them out of commission meant you crippled the long range shelling capability of the planes ship. At least until you had the next plane up.  As I recall most of the battleships had three planes and most cruisers had two.  It was set up so you could only have one plane up at a time.

 

Battleships were more interesting to play back then, because you could go to the tactical map and set way points for your plane, while you waited for your guns to reload.

[Umikami]

That is a rare moon indeed!

[Captain_Dorja]

I kind of thing WG aren't sure what to do with the catapult planes, but they don't want to remove them. I forget who it was, but I saw someone with in interesting idea on how to make ships like Oyodo playable, and it was a really interesting idea and seemed pretty cool. If anyone wants to find that and read the OP, it might be interesting if catapult planes worked in a similar manner.

[PotatoMD]

For the first half of Alpha, battleships and cruisers used their planes for spotting.  You could set way points for them and send them anywhere you wanted to on the map.  They had a flight time of about 5 minutes and then they would return to the ship. Assuming of course that they were not shot down.  Enemy spotters were always a priority for AA and fighters as putting them out of commission meant you crippled the long range shelling capability of the planes ship. At least until you had the next plane up.  As I recall most of the battleships had three planes and most cruisers had two.  It was set up so you could only have one plane up at a time.

 

Battleships were more interesting to play back then, because you could go to the tactical map and set way points for your plane, while you waited for your guns to reload.

 

Wait, why did they remove this?

[Amogussy]

For the first half of Alpha, battleships and cruisers used their planes for spotting.  You could set way points for them and send them anywhere you wanted to on the map.  They had a flight time of about 5 minutes and then they would return to the ship. Assuming of course that they were not shot down.  Enemy spotters were always a priority for AA and fighters as putting them out of commission meant you crippled the long range shelling capability of the planes ship. At least until you had the next plane up.  As I recall most of the battleships had three planes and most cruisers had two.  It was set up so you could only have one plane up at a time.

 

Battleships were more interesting to play back then, because you could go to the tactical map and set way points for your plane, while you waited for your guns to reload.

 

Might I ask, why was this removed? I see no problem with it to be honest, sure there would be a lot of spotters, but as you said, they were priority targets.

 

[PotatoMD]

 

Might I ask, why was this removed? I see no problem with it to be honest, sure there would be a lot of spotters, but as you said, they were priority targets.

 

 

I dunno, maybe DDs were complaining that a BB even could keep em permaspotted, at least until it runs out of fuel.

[Crucis]

I think that that's the fear of controllable scout planes, i.e. that they'd be used to keep DD's perma-spotted.  It's rough enough for DD's that rely on stealth when there are games with CV and having to deal with the existing ship carried planes, as well as having to deal with planes that circle the area for like 3-5 minutes around where their mother ship sunk without adding in planes that would exist for one reason and one reason only ... to find DD's. 

 

 

BTW, Those "circle the sunk mother ship" planes are particularly annoying because if you're desperately trying to stay unspotted, those planes create a very large area that you cannot pass through.  If you're lucky, you'll be on the right side of that area and not have to worry about it.  But if you're dead unlucky, you might find yourself on the exact wrong side of that no-go area and be forced to waste like 5 minutes trying to circle it without losing your concealment.  God, how I wish that when you sunk a non-CV ship, its planes disappeared with it!

 

[Captain_Dorja]

I'm guessing half the reason they removed the control ability from catapult aircraft was what Crucis said, but WarGaming also didn't anticipate the community reacting against carriers so hard that carriers would be nerfed until even die hard carrier drivers rarely played them. It's pretty clear from things WarGaming have said and done that the intended scout class in this game is the CV, with DDs as the sort of back up scout. Well no one players carriers, so they aren't scouting. The weakness of carriers is like 75% of why DDs have been so amazingly powerful in the last few months. Their main natural predator is extinct.

[Quaffer]

 

 

 

Here are some images from early in Alpha.  With a nod to Bacon for the jpegs.  Trust me they are rare.

 

If you look at the minimap you can see the white ship that is Bacon and a strait line leading to a blue wedge. This wedge shows the point of view that Bacon is looking at, i.e. what you see on the screen. This is not the point of view of the scout plane. Back then you could press Shift and pan and rotate your point of view anywhere on the map. Just like the view from SPG's in Tanks. It was called Artillery view.  The thing was, that if an enemy could not be seen by your scout, by your ship, or by a team mate, you would look and see no sign of it in your view. Scouts were valuable for long range fire.

 

The green ellipse shows the anticipated dispersion of the shells.  It started large, got smaller for the second salvo, and smaller still for the third and subsequent salvos. You could move it a little without consequence but a large movement brought you back to the large ellipse.

 

You had a real sense of what naval combat was like.

 

For the curious, the blue bar represented the buoyancy of the ship.  When it reached zero you sank, regardless of your hit points. Torpedoes were hell on waves at taking away buoyancy.

 

It was proposed that the Artillery view be eliminated and long range targeting be achieved by binocular view.  There was a great deal of discussion about this, not all of it was civil. Testers became polarized, I might say, emotional, on the subject.  Well if you have played the game you can see who won. Sigh.  Welcome to World of Speed Boats and RPG's.

 

When they eliminated the Artillery view they also took away control of our scout planes.  I still consider this to be an unfortunate choice on the part of WarGaming.  But it's their game. I just play it.

 

[AngryPitSnipe]

I think the quick fix is to make the spotter planes always  patrol on the side of the ship that is facing the enemy and have them actually spot. Fire control is fine the way it is, we just need the spotter planes to spot where the enemy is. We don't need to lock fire control to them.

 .

[Thorthemighty]

I wish they retained the game in Alpha. That looked so much more fun then what it is now. Actual virtual naval combat that was similar to what was IRL.

[Misniso]

I wish they retained the game in Alpha. That looked so much more fun then what it is now. Actual virtual naval combat that was similar to what was IRL.

 

Complicated as heck too.  It wouldn't be half as popular as it is now.

 

...although it does look way more interesting.