Smoke options

[Devilfish]

Hey,
Since smoke is a pretty neat feature, I've been wondering what are all the options across all factions and docs to pop up a nice dense smoke screen. There are often cool abilities that if one doesn't stumble upon them, won't even know. For instance I think british command tank can shoot a smoke shell if I'm not mistaken. If I haven't seen someone else done that, I would have no idea.

Smokes I do know from the top of my head right now:
All men-carried mortars + PE mortar HT (no idea about RA and SE big ones, nor about US emp)
US: 105mm field howie, inf doc expensive rangers, AB field barracks
Brits: Command tank, maybe brit arty/priests? (no idea), I think RA has some CP ability of sort, not sure, dunno more
WH: Stug III smoke shot, Def field howie?, no idea
PE: Maybe some SE arty can smoke?, no idea

There is probably more that I've encountered/used, but I can't really recall anything else right now.

[JimQwilleran]

RA has a CP unlock of covering whole sector with smoke, this is an ultimate smoke ability .

[sgtToni95]

actually that ability from RA works in a weird way.. i tested it few times: it smokes on vehicles and buildings on a whole sector, but it doesn't randomly cover a sector. This does not work on infantry tho, and smoke "falls" following the path a vehicle is moving on after it passes. So, imo, its purpose is to cover buildings and vehicles from an attack, if you use that on an enemy territory with mg or bunker you just waste those 100 ammo and no smoke falls down. If you use that tocover advancing units, smoke will fall behind them so won't provide any cover. Never seen it used in pvp.
Nor howitzers nor priests nor heavy mortars from RA doc have smoke barrage salvo, command cromwell has a "line smoke barrage" ability costing 50 ammo iirc. 2 inches as other mortar squads have it for free.
WH Def howitzers have a smoke barrage salvo costing 30-50 ammo (not sure).
AB doc can request smoke barrage from mobile HQ on any point of the map.

[kwok]

Agreed with Toni, I always felt that the RA sector smoke was near useless and can be better adjusted. I like the suggestion of it being something like random drop over an area.

Other places for smoke: blitz doc tanks like the stug and tiger can drop (actually can I request that the smoke drop does not require facing? Or maybe make them like the panther smoke pop where it shoots over the unit?). Panther can pop it out over itself. These are a lot of fun with blitz doc because you can fire the smoke out at emplacements and then charge storm troopers in with bundle grenades, schrecks, and blitz ability, doable at only 5 CP. Who needs arty at that point?

[kwok]

PE mortar ht has smoke now. Fallsj can paradrop mortars that have smoke when formally that was the only way to get smoke as Pe.

[Devilfish]

So that's not too much really. It's basically mortars and very few bonus abilities.

[sgtToni95]

Agreed with Toni, I always felt that the RA sector smoke was near useless and can be better adjusted. I like the suggestion of it being something like random drop over an area.

I tried to point this out some time ago in some other topic talking about RE or smoke, can't really remember. I'd like to know the mechanics behind this sector smoke barrage CP ability. I have a theory tho: since SE sector arty seems to "prefire" where an unit will be, and this one shoots where an unit was, i think theese two abilities use paths of units to calculate where shell will fall. So to say that SE mortar shells fall on that white line appearing on minimap whenever a unit gets moving command, hitting exactly where a unit is even if it's moving, while smoke shells from RA just fall where tanks and emplacements are. (I need devs or someone's certain opinion about this, mine are just suppositions)
The purpose of theese two are mainly defensive i think, but RE smoke barrage has some delay before starting, meaning that if you're trying to defend your tanks' retreat, it would just likely come too late to save them, letting enemy units have 1-2 clear shots. On emplacements has not that big impact imo cause granades don't suffer too much smoke accuracy nerfs, effecting only enemy vehicles' shots which again will have 1-2 clear shots. It's funny (here comes the weird part i was talking about) that could be self-defeating since it "blinds" your own emplacements, making mgs and 17ps really inaccurate, decreasing suppression on enemies and exposing them to enemy's rushes with infantry. I think nobody ever uses this, and it's probably the last unlock everyone would do with RA doc cause it's not really worth it, while SE sector bombing is pretty much used whenever possible since is veeeeeeery lethal, lasts so long and has a really nice cooldown.
To make it more useful and used i have a suggestion: leaving the mechanic as it is, maybe not on emps, while reducing the delay of the barrage start, making it next to 1-2 seconds and giving it a worthy defensive purpose, maybe with a little cost drop as well (75-80 muni ?).
An other option could be making it a sector barrage usable on enemy teritory and covering only emps/trenches/vehicles, this would not work on camoed units (paks/mg squads), which is, imo, in line with the "support" purpose of this doctrine, allowing allied units to push a defensive line with nice cover: depending on the tested efficiency this could get a price raise since it could become OP if used correctly.

I had other options but can't remember them now so maybe i'll add them.

Any comments, suggestions, opinions, corrections are sincerely welcome

[kwok]

It isn't so much a "prefire", it's the timing between target recognized and shot fired. So for SE sector arty, the time from target recognized to the shell created and fall out of the sky is very small. Meanwhile, the smoke shell comes later. Reducing the time between for smoke might help. But to be honest, I don't like either ability homing in based on target positions. I'd rather it a random scatter so there's still a calculated risk in "I can keep pushing and attacking" vs "I will wait out the sector arty because it's just going to home in on me". All it does is delay the game.

[JimQwilleran]

Then let me tell you something interesting. The smoke rounds actually cause damage and kill units when fall on their heads! I bet you didn't know that, did you?

[kwok]

Actually, I did. Because when I was testing my mod, for some reason smoke rounds were killing my tanks. Lol. They count as "small explosives".

[JimQwilleran]

Darn, there isn't anything I can surprise you with, is there?

[kwok]

I mean if you came over to my house with feather coming out of your ears, that'd probably surprise me.

[sgtToni95]

I actually killed an elephant with a 2 inch mortar shell once. It already received all kind of criticals and i was smoking on it to let my allied inf close, then saw it blowing up and 2 vets flying upon mortar. That was one of the weirdest things i saw in game haha.
Coming back to solutions, maybe a line smoke barrage, like the command tank one, just a bit thicker or with longer duration. Or maybe just one on a big targeted area. Having random smoke drops on a sector and paying ammo for it could still just cover the wrong areas and making it a waste of ammo. Axis can have big and decently accurate smoke barrages with def howitzers, providing such a nice suppirt to own and allied attacks, having an ability which costs 2 CP and ammo for just random smoke seems quite not that worthy to me. But i'd like to try it first

[Leonida [525]]

I think I understood this ability (at least 1 use of it ), and its related to fake howitzers. Fake howitzers doesnt shoot, but if u use this ability while shooting with other howitzers in the same sector, enemy player sees also fake ones but he cant know which are fake howitzers or not, because this isnt normal smoke, but it really hides the view on empl howitzers.

[sgtToni95]

To be honest, to keep my howitzers safe i'd rather unlock supercharge shells, which provide longer range to howitzers, allowing them to be built more in the back where oneshot Grille would have hard time hitting them. Moreover normal howitzers already have defensive smoke courtain ablity, which covers the emplacement with smoke, costing 50 ammo. Smoke barrage ability cooldown is longer than arty salvo one's, and i still want to point out this costs 100 ammo. This means if i use it every time i want to shoot with my howitzers i'd have to spend 100 muni added to salvo cost, which is seriously a lot imo.
I checked it again and the delay is not that long actually, but still could be a little lower to provide significant cover to retreating units.
If what Leonida says is really that ability's purpose, it's probably fine as it is, tho nobody will probably use that since supercharge is available and 100 ammo for doing that is really insane imo.

[MarKr]

From top of my head:
US: 82nd paratroopers have smoke grenades; after upgrade many of their tanks (usually Shermans but I think some other too) can pop a smoke on themselves - usually good for retreating the vehicle
CW: Tommies with rifle nades upgrade gain an ability to shoot smoke nade; Commandos have (no longer ninja) smoke; Tetrarch (I think the one with 2 pounder gun, not CS version) can shoot two smoke shells at desired position; Command tank can actually create a "wall of smoke" because it uses sort of "creeping smoke barrage"
WH: Puma can deploy smoke too if I'm correct
PE: PIII has smoke ability (works same as the one on Panthers) and in the next patch PIV F2 will get this too
Generally speaking AA emplacements can cover themselves in smoke - fun fact: AI usually uses this ability when it spots a plane heading towards the emplacement which makes it very hard for the AA to hit the plane while the plane has no trouble hitting the emplacement

As for the RA sector smoke - I checked it and yes, it sends smoke shells on your or your allies' buildings and vehicles in the sector...I can see its limited usefulness so I guess nobody would mind reworking it.

[Leonida [525]]

I'm ok with changes, so it wasnt related also to fake howitzers? Just to know its purposes

[MarKr]

It is not connected to the fake howitzers - the thing is that the game reveals units in the FoW that shoot at or damage your units therefore Fake howitzers are not revealed because they do not shoot...though it would be nice if fake howitzers were revealed whenever the real howitzers hit the enemy in order to confuse him about where to counter arty...

[Leonida [525]]

Oh thx, i made a test and in the replay vs cpu i saw the fake ones red enlighted when they was in fow during the ability, but then seeing only from the cpu prospective and not switching both they were not

[Panzer-Lehr-Division]

Glad Most of you found out There is a sector smoke ability lol last years or 2 years ago i was Talking with shadow about it lol saying it's actually nice well maybe since more people Talk about it it could be adjusted/fixed