UZO range - am I cheating?

[panthercules]

Originally Posted by pampanito

I have just started using the Mod combining Manuel Ortega extended visibility and Beery water 1.44. The resulting night sky is IMHO the best to date and probably will become definitive, but I am a little unnerved by my newly-acquired ability to sight vessels at long range by night.

Does anyone know the effective range of UZO in a clear, moon-lit night? Would I be cheating if I use the UZO to locate targets at ranges of 15000 or so?

15,000m!??!??! Are you kidding? That sounds WAAAYYYY too far, from everything I've ever seen or heard, even for a clear day much less at night.

I tried the Beery Water 1.44 mod but took it back off again - I much prefer the blacker sky of the stock 1.4b w/ RUB1.43 than the too-bright/too-blue color night sky I was getting with the Beery Water 1.44 mod. I didn't have it on there long enough to spot any ships at night with it, but I'm already somewhat concerned about the fact that since RUB1.43 my watch crew now seems to be able to spot ships out to about 8,200-8,500m at night (I still can't see them myself at that range, but my crew can) with just RUB1.43 w/ RUB patch - even that seems a bit far to me, but I haven't had a chance to locate any real good sources on spotting distances IRL yet to confirm what they should be.