Webster

yes the AI cheats, there is no denying it.

its designed like that to make the game challenging to players. the trick is to learn how the game cheats and the ways you can fool or get around its attempts to cheat. you can even use its cheating against it to cause it to chase ghosts.

its a skill set to learn and it takes time but once you get used to it you learn how to limit the things you do in the game so it isn't able to be as successful at cheating you.

bottom line is, it is a learning curve you must master to be able to balance the games cheating with things you can do to limit how the game can cheat.

think of night as a clear bright day because they can always spot you at night just as if it was a clear bright day.

even when there is no way for the enemy to know your position and you are making no noise with the scope down and all engines at full stop and are completely silent, a DD will still be able to zoom in from 6000m away and park exactly on top of you and drop charges when it isn't possible to ever detect you to that level of accuracy. the enemy ships deck guns can hit a nail on the head from 10,000m away 3 out of 5 shots so your periscope or conning tower are both spotted and hit by shells beyond any realistic human degree of detection. these gunners that are more accurate from a moving deck platform have to be the best snipers in the world to make such blatently unrealistic shots.

the only thing that can help you beat the games AI in most cases is the thermal layer and to a lesser extent the weather like storms and fog because it misdirects the enemy sensors enough so you can escape detection.

the game does many unrealistic things to try and keep you challenged and into the game and give you a realistic "feeling" of impending doom even though the way things function and happen in the game is very often far from being realistic about the things subs did in real life.

you cant do night attacks under cover of darkness because the games AI doesn't detect you any less at night then during daylight. you try a surface night attack, even in bad weather, and your dead.

there is a long long list of things wrong with the AI in the game that isn't realistic but its not as much about the settings and how they work as it is about the overall feel you get when playing. they are trying to give you the "feeling" that you are really there facing things real captains did.

another thing I hate about the game is when you are inside a convoy or task force, how every ship in the game always knows exactly where you are at periscope depth, even without ever putting your scope up, and manages to be able to drive right on top of you and ram your tower every time. battleships, cruisers, carriers, and freighters all will play pinball with your tower.

sometimes when a ship is near you, the AI tells it to stop and mirror your movements to stay "too close" for your torps to arm so you stop they stop you turn they turn and it is not possible for then to have that close a fix on you speed, position, and range or be able to create a Mexican stand off like that. its simple to break free by suddenly hitting full reverse and break free to avoid it but the realism killer for a battleship to stop dead in the water just so you cant get enough space for your torps to arm is beyond a realism killer for me.

the truth is, if the game didn't cheat it would quickly become boring and no challenge to play it.

the first thing I suggest is do a mod soup cleanup then try again and see if things are better, the game will always cheat "some" so don't expect it to stop all the unreasonable detections. also as torpx mentioned there is a mod conflict issue that if you combine certain mods it can cause you to be constantly detected all of the time even when you shouldn't be so list your mods and the install order lets see if anything is wrong with it.