finnbear
commented
2 years ago This is with both of us not using sonar and with them using ships or subs
Turning off your active sensors might as well have the following disclaimer: "By clicking this button, you void your expectation to see enemy ships. The developers make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any passive sensor detection information. I understand that I will promptly get sunk if I don't use this feature properly."
there must be some trick to doing this type of strong stealth where they can fire away and I never even see them
Yes, there are some tricks, that roughly correspond to characteristics of real naval battles.
The visibility of an enemy ship to you is determined by:
- the enemy ship size
- the enemy ship stealth
- the enemy ship depth/altitude (deeper is less visible to radar and visual)
- the enemy ship's speed (faster is more visible to passive sonar)
- your ship's innate sonar, radar, and visual ability
- your ship's speed (faster makes them less visible on passive sonar)
- whether you have active sensors on (active sonar paints them with sound waves that reflect back to you)
- whether they have active sensors on (their active sonar would make noise that is detectable by passive sonar)
- Whether they have un-reloaded weapons (only affects outcome in some special cases)
As you can see, if you assume passive sensors only (no active), then you are very much at the mercy of your speed vs. their speed. Speed generates noises. On your end, noise significantly impedes your passive sonar. On their end, a lack of noise also impedes your passive sonar.
If I had to guess, most of what you observed has to do with a combination of 0) relying on passive sensors to detect a stealth ship 1) your speed being relatively high 2) their speed being relatively low (below the cavitation threshold of ~12-15kn, the exact number depends on depth and ship type.
To give an analogy, two warships are like two people in a very-dimly lit room. Active sensors are like flashlights. If you both have your flashlight off, you can get within inches without making a detection. Passive sensors are like your ears. You can hear the other person making noise if they move quickly, but if you make too much noise, your hearing is washed out.
mitm001
I am not certain but either there is a bug in stealth or there is a trick I am missing.
The issue is with one certain player they are never visible to me until my sub sinks. This happened half a dozen times last night. They would be almost within the sea wolf speed ring and I couldn't see them. This is with both of us not using sonar and with them using ships or subs. They can see me though as they are firing on me when we are 1 to 2 inches apart. Their torpedoes don't show red triangles either until the very last moment. He says its working that way for him against me also but he obviously sees me every time before I see them as they are firing on me first.
One particular battle I attacked a destroyer close range at a dock, sinking it, I immediately attacked a sub right next to that ship, sinking it. I turned on sonar, saw nothing and surfaced. As soon as I surfaced, his ship turned visible, I was right at his bow but never saw them yet I was so close I could see docks without sonar, just not his ship.
On another occasion, I had attacked a ship but as I was out of ammo so I decided to move under the ice around an large ice island and circle around to allow ammo to restore. This trip took about 45 seconds to a minute. The entire time I was doing this I kept seeing torpedoes appear without the red triangle every 10 seconds or so. I thought at first it was from the sea side being fired by others in a battle and it was just coincidence they were tracking on me. After about the fourth decoy, realized it was this same person chasing me the whole way. I only saw who it was after they were almost on top of me, which was weird as we both had the same sub yet they caught up to me and they could see me the whole time obviously as they were firing away.
This same pattern repeated itself a few other times where I would never see their sub until after I was sunk. Even the torpedoes would stay masked until right before impact.
You cannot defend against what you don't see so I figure there must be some trick to doing this type of strong stealth where they can fire away and I never even see them. I questioned them on this and they said they were using no sonar also and the sub itself was stealthy. Whats weird is I could see them perfectly fine half a screen away with a golf submarine. This makes no sense that a golf sub could see them but my sea wolfs vs sea wolfs couldn't.
I can tell that others can see me when attacking without sonar a little over two inches away most ships as they start evasive maneuvers before I fire torpedoes.