Continuation of discussion on YouTube...
1. There is a big difference between even 90% and 100% (max value I used is 80%, by the way). Only a Sith deals in absolutes.
In practical terms there is no difference between 90% and 100%.
Can you give me an example of a scenario so that we can run the numbers on it?
2. Not really triple, since half is usually more than enough (smoke gren dropped under your feet gives 360 protection). So actually double should insulate fully against up to ~70% ThV.
In theory, ideal non-overlapping double smoke cloud from standard smoke grenade protects against approx. 85-97% ThV, depending on distance between units.
But that is extremely theoretical!
Any of the following decreases the protection significantly:
a/ enemy moving towards you (inside the smoke)
b/ enemy flanking you (around the smoke) -- this makes the most difference
c/ each turn decreases smoke density
EDIT: I removed the numbers, since they depends heavily on distance to target. But the decrease in protection can be anywhere between 0 and two thirds.
3. The world is full of psychos, and there are weapons to smoke up whole map; also player has their own ThV so can play this to their advantage.
Fair enough, I haven't seen such weapons yet.
But psychos will always find a way.
Point I am trying to make is that smoke should give some protection and/or advantage to you too...
but if you say that player has their own ThV too, maybe it's already balanced... I haven't looked which armor has ThV and how much.Majority of players are not like hellrazor (I think), in my opinion the balance should be for an average player, not for the cheesiest of the cheesiest.
4. Only few enemy factions have more than 60% ThV. Most enemies have either 0 or 40-60. They're usually mixed. So smoke does help but you gotta use hard cover too.
I still think 60% is too much (
unless the player has easy-ish access to powerful-ish ThV too of course).
Already 20% gives them the ability to completely negate "mutual surprise", which is the biggest factor (in my opinion).
40% gives them a window to spend their full TUs on reaction fire before you even spot them (in most common cases).
Linked is a Google Docs sheet, which you can use to calculate the effectiveness of ThV.
It works well for turn zero and non-overlapping smoke clouds.
With overlapping smoke clouds, margin for error should be around 10% (normal 10%, not flat).
With passing turns, margin for error should be also around 10% (not flat) until 6 turns or so, then it becomes bigger (I didn't test how much exactly).
PS: for others a table to have a rough idea how much ThV guarantees to see through smoke walls with different thickness under perfect conditions:
Note: numbers differ significantly with total distance to target, this example is with
14 tiles between units
3-4 tiles: heat vision 0%
5 tiles: heat vision 19%
6 tiles: heat vision 33%
7 tiles: heat vision 42%
8 tiles: heat vision 50%
9 tiles: heat vision 55%
10 tiles: heat vision 60%
Please note that these percentages guarantee visibility even under perfect conditions.
Under imperfect (i.e. normal) conditions, these numbers drop significantly as described above.
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