World of Warships: More Details on Upcoming Smoking Changes

If a ship is inside or behind a smoke screen firing the main battery will result in increased detectability. Each ship receives a new spec (shown in port and in combat in [H] tooltip) – “detectability in smoke when firing main battery”. The exact value is determined based on gun caliber and the basic concealment of the ship. It is not modified by upgrades, camos, or skills.

Reasoning and Goals

The major problem Wargaming is handling now is the overuse of smoke screens in the competitive modes when up to half of a team, including battleships, stays in the smoke for a long time, firing from there. This tactic is effective, often used, and makes battles less dynamic. Players’ feedback on Season 6 of Ranked Battles called Wargaming attention to this problem.

Wargaming is striving for the following results:

• Minimizing the effect of using smoke screens for camouflaging allied ships in Standard Battles.
• Reducing the advantage of staying in the smoke and firing from there in Ranked Battles and other competitive modes. In game modes battles should be more dynamic.
• In general, this change will be implemented to decrease the number of cases when there is a single tactic that is superior to all others on the battlefield. The fact that several allied ships, including battleships, which should be moving and conducting attacks can be concealed in smoke has a bad impact on the game. After the changes such situation is unlikely to cause problems anymore.

Tricks and Tips

1. Conceptually, in order to understand the new mechanics, you should abandon the old question “What happens, if I fire from the smoke screen?” and ask the new question “What happens, if there is smoke somewhere in the line-of-sight between me and the enemy?” Smoke is not cloaking device anymore, it can be transparent in certain conditions, and this works in both directions.
2. Let’s imagine you’re playing DD and standing in the smoke. At 5 km a hostile BB is passing by (his detectability after firing from smoke is 18 km). Nobody else has LOS on him. He fires and you detect him immediately. Actually, he may be inside the smoke, and you may be outside; you both may be inside, or you both may be outside, and the smoke can be somewhere between you – it does not matter. A BB will be detected.
3. Team spotting is still working. If you’re detected when firing from smoke remember that all enemies who have enough range will be able to engage you.
4. The timer for this debuff is the same as for regular main battery fire – 20 seconds. These debuffs are closely connected. For example, let’s imagine that regular firing detectability is 20 km and smoke firing detectability is 5 km. You are 1vs1 with the enemy, he is at 6 km, you are standing still in the open, and fire once. He detects you, and the 20 sec timer starts to tick. Then you deploy smoke and he cannot see you anymore. However, in 15 seconds he gets to 5 km, within smoke firing detectability and he sees you. And he will see you for 5 seconds more.
5. One more way to explain this is by answering the question “I’m in battle. I shoot. Which ships can see me?”. The answer will be:
   • All ships with LOS on you within your firing range;
   • All ships with LOS on you with the smoke somewhere on this LOS, within your smoke firing detectability.

About Author

Harkonnen

Tank Nut and Gamer Wannabe! Huge fan of tanks and World War II history. Playing video games since I was six years old, from Streets of Rage on my Sega Mega Drive to World of Tanks, I’ve never stopped since and will always love games.

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