Not A Biggie , But It Just Dawned On Me ..
 

After 6 partols , I can't remember seeing smoke on the horizon. You do in SH3, unless this is more true to life about the ships in the Pacific.

Even in SH3 you don't see smoke unless you're using the 16km mod. At 8000 metres the ships just sort of appear. Aces Of the Deep had the crew tell you "Smoke on the horizon".

Man i hope the devs fix that 8km fog thing

Can't it be modded like in SH3?

I have no hope that the devs fix the 8000m visibility thing. Its probably there for a reason. TDB or Beery mentioned that you can mod it in SHIV, but its something that requires a lot of sensor tweaking too, I hear.

I really miss seeing smoke on the horizon at far ranges. Its also annoying that you cant spot a mountain more than 8000m away >.<

At about 5 miles out on the conning tower of a sub only the very top of the mast would be visable from a ship in real life, do to the curve of the earth. However you should be able to see smoke atleast 10 to 14 miles out depending on wind and how clean they are burning their fuel.

I thought on american subs the look outs were above the crew on the conning tower.

Many marus were notoriously smoky due to still being coal-burners. Japan's merchant marine was more varied than most Atlantic MMs, with a lot of very small, non-class tramp-steamer-like vessels from the inter-war period. Lots were in the 4000 ton range, which is a very small cargo vessel.

Sub crews used smoke a lot to determine approach tactics, such as the need for an end-around. As cargo ships hugged shorelines if there was shore to be hugged early sightings were pretty important to figure out how to conduct the attack.

I really would like to see smoke on the horizon.
"Rauchsaulen am horizant, herr kaleun!"

Yeah it can be, but I like to see the Devs do their job too. Once thing I hate about mods is that it breaks up potential multuiplay into little groups oh who has what mod. It reduces the chances of actually getting in a game. If the original was done right we'd have less need to start splitting up into little multiplay gangs.

Good point.