[TorpX]

Originally Posted by WH4K

It's not just you. I've noticed this, and it's irritating.

For me, it seems to happen with every harbor, not just harbors of a certain size. Every time I go harbor raiding, the ships become visible first. The docks pop into existence once I reach a certain distance.

The method of viewing (TBT, periscope, binocs) matters not. With the unmagnified bridge view, the docks are being drawn by the time I'm close enough to see anything. But you can't set up torpedo shots from the unmagnified view, and getting close enough for the docks to appear when on the surface is usually suicide.

As noted, the "docks popping into existence" effect makes long-distance torpedo shots practically impossible. I generally have no choice but to barge right into a harbor if I want to sink anything.

The dock draw distance cannot be explained away as "curvature of the earth." If I can see a ship at dockside, all the way down to the waterline, I should also see the docks. They are by definition higher than the water's surface, and close to the ship.

I run SH4 with the U-boat missions, that is, v 1.5. Using TMO 2.0 only for now. I don't think any of that affects this phenomenon.

You are right about it not being due to curvature of the earth. Docks, cranes, buildings, everything will become invisible. It irritated me quite a bit too, for different reasons. I had wanted to use Celestial Nav. in the game and was taking bearings on landmarks. But this doesn't work very well when they just evaporate into thin air. Mountains, no matter how high, cannot be seen more than 10nm away. It's not very satisfactory.

Edit: I don't think any of the mods we have change this.