- Yes
- No
Do you like the searchlight mechanic?
- Yes
- No
With Ground RB battles recently making night battles an optional thing, I thought it might be worth suggesting the same be applied to other game modes too. For Naval RB, the gameplay differences Night Battles brings largely come down to two parts:: reduced selection range and searchlights.
The reduced selection range is fairly straightforward, with the enemies being only reliable locked on at a much closer range compared to standard and only when you are pointing your cursor directly on the vehicle (as opposed to hitting X and it just locks onto something within your field of view). Locating the enemy in the dark would often come down to finding them through muzzle flash when they fire. Ships with surface search radar would be less hampered by this limitation and can consult their search radar to know more precisely where to start looking.
To those without surface radar, an option exists in the form of searchlights. When turned on, the light beam is tied to your camera (and therefore follows your view in a free cam) until you lock onto the target, When you illuminate the target, you increase your lock on range on that particular ship for yourself and your allies to non-Night Battle conditions. As a victim, this searchlight will “blind” your gunnery crew and make you unable to target the ship that is shining on you unless you have surface search radar. The downside of the searchlight is, of course, that you also make yourself an extremely visible target in the darkness and make yourself as easily targetable as non-Night Battles until you turn the lights back off.
As with Ground Battles currently, Night Battles for Naval would also have its own special rewards for playing on it to incentivize people to play on it.
