The "Royal Navy Cruiser Smoke Bug" - Myth or Reality?

[Procrastes]

 

The "RN Cruiser Smoke Bug" - Myth or Reality?

 

In a Belfast game two days hence, I popped smoke going just a teeny bit too fast, and ended up sitting still in the water looking stupidly back at one, lonely puff of smoke hovering a cable-length or so astern.

Then I died to a massive hail of shells from a grateful cruiser and battleship community (but that's beside the point, really).

 

I assumed this was the infamous "RN Cruiser Smoke Bug" at work. I didn't die because of it, since I would have sailed out of a second puff of smoke as well, if it had been there - but as it was, there was no point in even bothering to go into reverse.

 

Yet now I read, in a number of posts, that there is no RN Cruiser Smoke Bug. So, it's right up there with Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil?

 

[Blitzkrieguk]

Lets clarify. It isn't a bug. It's how the smoke mechanic currently works. It happens on all Destroyers however it massively effects the RN cruisers due to the very short duration.

 

WG have stated recently they are looking into how to rework the smoke to try and eliminate this issue.

[XbodzioXplX]

Nope - there is no bug. People just don't see the second puf 

 

Video -

[Procrastes]

Reply to post no 2: Thanks for the quick and informative answer!

Reply to post no 3: Good video! It sure looks weird...

(...and isn't that Bigfoot, manning one of the for'ard AA guns?)

[HotshotJimmy]

Basically there are a set of rules you need to follow to be gaurunteed 100% that you get your 2 puffs (still arguing with some that this is not true aswell)

 

1. You need to be sailing in a straight line

2. You need to be coming to a full stop

3. You need to be between 19kts and 15kts for both puffs to appear

 

Now as we all know there are 2 reasons you are smoking up.

1. You are about to open fire close the enemy and want to be concealed.

2. You've been spotted by something you didn't think was there and are now scrambling to stop in time beforw you are deleted into oblivion.

 

Which one happens more often I wonder...

 

Bottom line is it's a pain in the [edited]and in my eyes it is a bug. Gauruntee us in turns and at speeds that we get 2 puffs and i'll be a happy chappy. Doesnt need to be bigger or longer or more than 2 puffs. Just that the current mechanic works.

[von_chom]

WG admitted that there is something fishy, tho they didnt explicitly said its bug or if the mechanic was explained wrongly.

one way or another, it will be "fixed"

 

source : https://www.twitch.tv/wargaming/v/116062668

 

[RambunctiousRat]

From my experiences, particularly with the Neptune, anything less than 17knots and you very rarely get the 2nd puff. For the Neptune the window seems to be 21knots - 17knots. This might be due to the ship decelerating faster than other RN Cruisers, I don't know. What I do know is that you have to be very careful to be decelerating and for your speed to be in a very narrow window when you deploy smoke to get both puffs. Hopefully this is addressed soon as playing RN cruiser is just a very frustrating experience at the moment. With the AP only and how fragile they are they are already difficult ships to consistently do well in (but you can have monster games in them, don't get me wrong, I don't consider them bad ships overall), the smoke issue / bug adds an unnecessary extra complication to playing them.

[AnotherDuck]

It's not a bug. It's crap game design. WG, fix your game.

 

When I read "Myth or Reality?" the first thing that popped into mind was that it was about the legendary second puff. I see it so rarely it might as well not exist.

[Phroco]

For me the most irritating thing about the bug/feature is that even if you sail out of your first puff you can still see smoke spewing out of your smokehole (or whatever it's called) then as soon as the counter hits zero all this smoke that has emerged for those last few seconds immediately vanishes!

 

So you can (by then) be sat completely still and see smoke being squirted out of your ship but that smoke magically has no effect at 0.0 because some programming parameter or other decides that smoke only exists in circles and because you were going a little too fast (or too slow) the smoke that you saw being generated was never deemed to have existed. The whole mechanic seems just very poorly implemented.

[HotshotJimmy]

Yup, i'm happy with the ships it's just this little niggle that kind of spoils the whole line. If we shout about it enough they'll sort it 

 

[Procrastes]

you can still see smoke spewing out of your smokehole (or whatever it's called)

 

I think it's called a "funnel". Or possibly "smokestack".

You can never be quite certain, when you're on naval terms...

[cracktrackflak]

Basically there are a set of rules you need to follow to be gaurunteed 100% that you get your 2 puffs (still arguing with some that this is not true aswell)

 

1. You need to be sailing in a straight line

2. You need to be coming to a full stop

3. You need to be between 19kts and 15kts for both puffs to appear

 

etc

 

 

I think a lot of players have experienced that that procedure is not guaranteed to work 100% of the time.

 

You can try every single "working as intended" solution put up in these forums and still get the smoke failure. As the failure can occur once or twice out of four identical manoeuvres in the same ship in the same game, then that would seem to indicate that it is indeed an intermittent failure in the client - or what is commonly accepted as the definition of a "bug".

 

 

[HotshotJimmy]

 

 

I think a lot of players have experienced that that procedure is not guaranteed to work 100% of the time.

 

You can try every single "working as intended" solution put up in these forums and still get the smoke failure. As the failure can occur once or twice out of four identical manoeuvres in the same ship in the same game, then that would seem to indicate that it is indeed an intermittent failure in the client - or what is commonly accepted as the definition of a "bug".

 

 

 

Couldn't agree more which is why in brackets I say this is not true lol

[thestaggy]

Basically there are a set of rules you need to follow to be gaurunteed 100% that you get your 2 puffs (still arguing with some that this is not true aswell)

 

1. You need to be sailing in a straight line

2. You need to be coming to a full stop

3. You need to be between 19kts and 15kts for both puffs to appear

 

Now as we all know there are 2 reasons you are smoking up.

1. You are about to open fire close the enemy and want to be concealed.

2. You've been spotted by something you didn't think was there and are now scrambling to stop in time beforw you are deleted into oblivion.

 

Which one happens more often I wonder...

 

Bottom line is it's a pain in the [edited]and in my eyes it is a bug. Gauruntee us in turns and at speeds that we get 2 puffs and i'll be a happy chappy. Doesnt need to be bigger or longer or more than 2 puffs. Just that the current mechanic works.

 

Flamu gets two puffs of smoke at 35 knots. He gets one at about 20/21 knots.

 

 

Broken mechanic is broken.

[Tuccy]

Not a bug, but not desirable in the long run.

 

As mentioned, it is a game mechanic that is working as intended... but since the way it actually demonstrates to players is rather annoying and hard to get (and very situational), SOMETHING will be done.

 

Now that something can be easy (if it works) - by tweaking the smoke charge parameters. IF that works, great. IF that does not work, a more complex solution will have to happen and unfortunately so far we do not have a clear prediction that would allow us to say when exactly it will be changed to a more satisfactory solution 

[Bellegar]

Reminds me of the Situation Awareness "bug". Whole community (well except for iChase maybe ) sees some game mechanic is bugged, WG just tells us everybody's hallucinating and just move along

 

[Vanhal]

 

You can never be quite certain, when you're on naval terms...

 

It gets much simpler with the age of sail end. 95% of worst naval jargon was about wind, sails and ropes.

[AnuSuaraj]

I really don't get what's the issue here...like one of the devs said you just slow down to 12 knots and the smoke envelopes you every time.

[JapLance]

I really don't get what's the issue here...like one of the devs said you just slow down to 12 knots and the smoke envelopes you every time.

 

Sure , because slowing down to 12 knots or less is what you want to do when there are 3 enemy BBs aiming at you...

 

Smoke is supposed to be a defensive measure to be used exactly in that situation: ooops, lots of enemies, I pop up smoke and hide BEHIND it. The stupid "fire from inside the smoke" is a WoWs arcadey mechanic that should be eradicated.

[cracktrackflak]

I really don't get what's the issue here...like one of the devs said you just slow down to 12 knots and the smoke envelopes you every time.

 

Well, no it doesn't from time to time.

 

Why do some people insist that the problem does not exist when it so obviously does? Your stats seem to indicate that you have 8 battles in a Leander, and no other RN CA battles. Probably you have been fortunate to have functioning smoke in those few battles.

 

 

[mikelight1805]

Interesting topic, considering i watched this today. The reason i watched it was because i had been free from this issue up until recently. It seems to be effecting me more regularly now

 

 

[Gojuadorai]

Not a bug, but not desirable in the long run.

 

As mentioned, it is a game mechanic that is working as intended... but since the way it actually demonstrates to players is rather annoying and hard to get (and very situational), SOMETHING will be done.

 

Now that something can be easy (if it works) - by tweaking the smoke charge parameters. IF that works, great. IF that does not work, a more complex solution will have to happen and unfortunately so far we do not have a clear prediction that would allow us to say when exactly it will be changed to a more satisfactory solution 

 

i cant belive its a difficult change to the code to make a smoke puff spawn when the generatior timer runs out.....

(and i also cant see any reason to not solve it that way)

[Deckeru_Maiku]

 

Now that something can be easy (if it works) - by tweaking the smoke charge parameters.

 

Just tell the guys they should change the smoke generator so that it ALWAYS pops the second cloud, independend from the ships' position. 'Cause to me it seems the problem originates from too much of the ship still being IN or too much of the ship already being OUT of the first smoke pop. And the margin to get it right is quite tight - you need to go at about 15 to 19 knots to just not drive out of the first pop and get a second one... most of the time, that is...

 

In the end, I rather have two smoke pops seperated a bit from another, when that makes sure that I stop in the second when going full speed back to stop asap.

[HotshotJimmy]

I really don't get what's the issue here...like one of the devs said you just slow down to 12 knots and the smoke envelopes you every time.

 

With respect come back to us when you have more than at least a hundred battles in RN ships. At least a good 10% of those will end very quickly or frustratingly from no second puff on ye olde smoke. 

[robihr]

idk how was this game "designed" that if you go full speed, you get 2 puffs, if you go slower than 15kts you get 2 puffs, but there is one magical range of speed between 15-20kts where you only get one puff.

 

tell designer to leave the heavy drugs out when he is working...