Ship ID at night

[Segwin]

I can't see a ship at 1,000 yrds let alone ID it in the dead of night. This got me to wondering if my LCD monitor is not bright enough. Should you be able to ID a ship at 1000 yrds at night or is it normal not to be able to see it.

tia

[Sailor Steve]

What is the weather like? On an overcast, cloudy night target ID could be a real pain. On a cloudless, starry night it should be easier. With a full moon you should have no trouble at all. But then neither should he.

[Segwin]

There was light fog present but even in good wx I can't see 'em.

With the external camera I have to be right on top of the ship to be able to see it.

[Sailor Steve]

This was a topic of much discussion on the SH3 boards some time ago. Part of the problem is monitors and gamma settings. SH3 players would complain that they couldn't see anything on the best of nights, and I would turn right around and complain that I could see everything far too well. It seems that the fancy LCD monitors make things much darker, and I have an old 19" CRT.

People trying to help suggested adjusting gamma settings, or adjusting the monitor itself. I never found a real solution. I could make it darker, but then everything was far too dark in everyday use. You might try adjusting your settings, but it might make all your other uses way too bright.

I don't know a certain answer, but then I'm no expert; just throwing out ideas.

[Raptor1]

Did you try adjusting the in-game Gamma or the monitor settings?

I also have an old 19" CRT, but everything was waaaaaaay too dark, so I just tuned up the Gamma and it sorted it out

[Pisces]

Personally I have better experience (CRT) with lowering contrast alone, as opposed to gamma. That way you also lower the intensity of any bright GUI elements. Gamma has the tendency to distort color balance. During the night stay away from your map if you want to look into the dark. It's far too bright. The same goes for bright lamps in your playing environment. Kill those. Once you let your eyes get accustomed to these lower light intensities you'll see much more.

[AVGWarhawk]

As Raptor said, adjust your ingame gamma slider. This should brighten it up. I have mine just a tad above the half way mark. Once thing is for sure, that gamma control can make it as dark as coal.

[Feltan]

This isn't so different from real life, what subs actually experienced. Identifying ships in limited visibility was difficult. I have read that some called it "Blobology." And there always seemed to be someone on board who was able to distinguish ships while others only saw the blob.

Regards,
Feltan

[Hitman]

Actually I suggested long ago that all visibility mods or mods that shipped tweaks to the environment shipped a sample screenshot for calibrating the monitor. Otherwise you can't know for sure that you are seeing what the modder saw when he balanced his creation. Too many times I have seen people yell against such a mod before actually realizing that they had inapropiate monitor settings to run it.

I personally do a series of calibration runs by setting all parameters to darker and waiting till my crew spots a ship in a sample mission I have. They I point at that bearing and rise the light until I can barely see the ship, and now I know that I see the same as my crew :D

And yes, identifying well a ship in a dark night is a pain. Herbert Werner in Iron Coffins told that when doing surface attacks at night they just aimed at the barely visible shadows, so go figure how difficult getting details would be.

[Sailor Steve]

I personally do a series of calibration runs by setting all parameters to darker and waiting till my crew spots a ship in a sample mission I have. They I point at that bearing and rise the light until I can barely see the ship, and now I know that I see the same as my crew :D
An elegant solution, as is usual from Hitman. I'm still new to SH4, and had forgotten that you could now pause the game and adjust parameters while still playing. Brilliant, both on the part of the devs and of yourself.

And yes, identifying well a ship in a dark night is a pain. Herbert Werner in Iron Coffins told that when doing surface attacks at night they just aimed at the barely visible shadows, so go figure how difficult getting details would be.
Jurgen Östen said the same thing when he described the torpedoing of HMS Malaya for the SH3 videos - shooting at shadows.

[Hitman]

Cheers Steve :up:

I meant primarily tweaking monitor settings, but yes in SH4 we know also have that in-game gamma setting which is great :yep:

[NeonsStyle]

Do what I do. Turn off the light. Playing at night with a light on, or in the day (real) is very difficult, as you can't see squat. Much better than upping gamma, which sort of defeats the purpose in my eyes. Besides, with the light off, its more immersive. :)

[LeeVanSpliff]

Do what I do. Turn off the light. Playing at night with a light on, or in the day (real) is very difficult, as you can't see squat. Much better than upping gamma, which sort of defeats the purpose in my eyes. Besides, with the light off, its more immersive. :)

Yeah ... with daylight streaming through my windows many a ship that my crew spots during night looks suspiciously like a reflection of my face. Mostly I save the game and load it up again when it's dark outside.

[Frying Tiger]

I've discovered if I move my head a foot or so to the right or left, I can make out more on my 19" LCD screen... Sort of like averting your eyes at night to see better! (Grin)

[Arclight]

As far as I figure your not supposed to see anything. I think best (most immersive and realistic) solution is to DL scope mod to give you a night scope, like in RL. I did some modding on it myself and made my obs. scope a little brighter and gave it a green filter. Great nightvision without messing with gamma every time and sticking to realism.

Maybe I could make it available as mod if you can't find anything to suit your taste?

Attack scope: http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj2/EZatHome/SH4Img2008-07-04_013130_875.jpg
Night scope: http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj2/EZatHome/SH4Img2008-07-04_013151_906.jpg

[Sailor Steve]

The problem people have isn't just with the scopes - sometimes they can't see anything from the bridge either. The observation scope let in more light than the attack scope, but still wasn't as good as a surface attack. They didn't have night-vision equipment like they do today.

[Arclight]

Well, on a cloudless night I can make out just enough to see my target, but then I don't want to be on the surface, because he can see me too. If it's cloudy, I can't see squat either, but I still think it's supposed to be that way.

I didn't create nightvision, just added a coloured filter, like they had for real.

Anyway, the Nvidia control panel has a wizard that lets you optimize your display. Results aren't super, usually a bit too dark, but it's better then the standard "overexposed" setup. Don't know for ATI.

A lot of games also have a greyscale bar (?); Bars that get gradually lighter, with a line above which the bars should all be black. You can use that to set up your screens brightness correctly. Should have added such a thing to SH.

Well, it works for CRT, don't know for LCD, but you should be able to determine if your screen is to dark or to bright.

[Hitman]

I think best (most immersive and realistic) solution is to DL scope mod to give you a night scope, like in RL. I did some modding on it myself and made my obs. scope a little brighter and gave it a green filter. Great nightvision without messing with gamma every time and sticking to realism.


Indeed tru to life for the german subs, as their periscopes had three different colour filters, green for night time use, yellow for seeing better against the sunset/sunrise and light blue to help making out ships on the horizon (The idea being to make out the darker ship in a more uniform light blue background). Also any commander could choose specific colours and reticles for the scope :up:

What I don't know is if the US subs periscopes had a similar item :hmm:

[raymond6751]

I can't see a ship at 1,000 yrds let alone ID it in the dead of night. This got me to wondering if my LCD monitor is not bright enough. Should you be able to ID a ship at 1000 yrds at night or is it normal not to be able to see it.

tia

Two points: Yes, adjust your monitor brightness. If you can see your deck and crew - that is enough; in reality, you would not be able to ID at night so let us take realistic steps.
1> Shadow target until daylight (realistic)
2> Judge target nationality based on your location vs enemy areas.
3> Use time to plot estimated course and speed and calculate daylight intercept.:arrgh!:

[Sailor Steve]

in reality, you would not be able to ID at night so let us take realistic steps.
Except for all the captains who made successful night surfaced attacks.

[Arclight]

What I don't know is if the US subs periscopes had a similar item :hmm:
From Fleetsubmarine.com:
"The knob on the upper right side of the periscope is used to adjust the focus. The black plate, with the eyepiece in its upper half, is the rayfilter assembly. This contains a disc with three coloured — and one clear — filters, which can be rotated in front of the eyepiece to aid visibility under different lighting conditions. The filters are red, green, and yellow in colour."
http://www.fleetsubmarine.com/periscope.html

Except for all the captains who made successful night surfaced attacks.
Making a succesfull attack doesn't necessarily require identification. AFAIK it is only strictly necessary if you want to use the stadimeter for ranging.

[Sailor Steve]

Except for all the captains who made successful night surfaced attacks.
Making a succesfull attack doesn't necessarily require identification. AFAIK it is only strictly necessary if you want to use the stadimeter for ranging.
True, but I was responding to the claim that the 'realistic' thing to do would be to wait until daylight.

[Arclight]

Sorry, my bad, I misunderstood. ;)

On topic; Wouldn't know about the stalking till daylight. Even if you can't see your target at all, you could get in close and use sonar only for attack. Doesn't require ID at all. Also when doing night scope or surface attack, you can use sonar for range instead of stadimeter, again not requiring ID.