Spotting and Concealment

POSTED BY mnamestnik January 5, 2022

Spotting

  • Spotting range or view range refers to the distance at which a tank will be spotted by an enemy tank
  • Algorithm: spotting distance = enemy view range – ((enemy view range – 50) x (concealment value + foliage)/100
    • Ex. Enemy view range is 450m, stock French BC medium has camo values of 16.87/3.34, 12.65/2.51
      • 450 – ((450-50=400) x 16.87)/100 = 382.52m
      • Stationary tank seen at 383 meters, if moving, 399, firing gun 437, firing while moving 440
  • Auto-spot range is 50m, also referred to as the proximity range (or prox, for short). This is drawn as a sphere so that includes up, down, all around and at elevation angles throughout. This is a constant value that represents the range where it is assumed enemies can hear each other’s exhaust, or the commander scratching his ass with a wire brush, or whatever
  • There are 2 view range ports and 5 visibility checkpoints (images below)
    • One view range port is at the center of the vehicle on top
    • The other view range port is at the point where the gun is attached to the turret
    • View range ports emit vision rays looking for enemies 50m-445m away
    • Visibility checkpoints are how enemies can draw vision rays to you in order to spot you, so keep them covered to stay concealed
  • View range can be increased by many factors: crew training, perks, BIA, modules (turret), food, equipment (vents, coated optics, binoculars) and directives (vent purge, optical calibration). This will never result in being able to spot further than 445m away, but can result in ‘burn-through’, which will be discussed later
  • And yes, the side visibility checkpoints appear to be drawn on the size of the tank modeling ‘box’, not directly at the sides of the hull/tank
  • How to spot when side-scraping vs. how not to – This is how most people try to side-scrape, shown below. Notice that your visibility checkpoint gets spotted by the enemy before your view range port makes it around the corner so you never spot them in return, while taking incoming fire – DON’T BE THIS GUY
  • This is how you do it right, put that view range port around the corner as you back up so you spot them before getting into a position where they can damage you:

Sixth Sense

  • The minimum amount of time you can be spotted is 8 seconds if you’re using Improved Radio Set and the enemy spotting you has no bonuses applied
  • When spotted, sixth sense takes 3 seconds to activate (or 2 seconds with the Increased Focus Directive)
  • You have to get far enough away, or behind cover to break the vision rays, then count to 10 seconds from that moment before you’ll be unspotted
    • If the enemy is running Improved Radio Set, that becomes 12 seconds
    • If the enemy is running a Designated Target Perk and the Focus on Target Directive, these can increase that spotting time to be 16 seconds (this increase only applies to tanks spotted by that enemy and only to tanks within the 10 degree sector of your gun direction at the last moment of spotting)
  • NOTE: If the commander is injured, sixth sense does NOT work AT ALL
  • PRO TIP: Consider installing the mod that displays the spotted icon for 16 seconds instead of the default value, so you know for sure how long you need to remain in safety
  • Maximum spotting distance is 445m, period. Having greater than 445m spotting will give you a better chance to spot WITHIN 445m, or defeat camo faster, commonly referred to as ‘burn through’
    • NOTE: Don’t forget, draw range is 564m, so you can see enemies spotted by allies even if you aren’t the one directly spotting them
  • As you move around, the position information is being sent back to the server by yourself and enemies, and the server is using the view ports information to draw vision ‘rays’ in a circle around your tank to check and see if you can spot an enemy tank’s visibility points. Since real-time processing of this for all tanks would be impossible, time intervals are used depending on range. Checks are also performed immediately after a shot:
    • within 50m – .1 sec
    • within 150m – .5 sec
    • within 270m – 1 sec
    • within 445m – 2 sec

How Spotting and Assisted Damage Work

  • Spot the enemy (assist damage is divided evenly by the number of allies who also spotted the opponent using vision rays)
  • Track the enemy and get assisted damage (assisted damage values are divided between the first ally to track the enemy [70%] and the last to prolong the damage by re-tracking [30%])
  • First arty to stun an enemy gets the highest assistance value. If there’s three arty, first to stun gets 50%, the other 2 get 25% each.
  • Only one kind of assisted damage counts in the results, and it’s whatever was the highest value (i.e. an arty spots an enemy and stuns/damages them, along with allied players. Example values are ‘Damage on Spotting: 268’, ‘Track Destroyed: 578’, and ‘Damage on Stun: 864’ – only the 864 assisted damage would count, being the highest value, not the others, they don’t stack)

Concealment

  • Concealment is based on the type of tank (heavy/medium/light/TD/SPG), equipment, consumables, directives and crew
  • There are four concealment figures listed in garage:
    • Stationary / stationary firing
    • Moving / moving firing
  • Turret traverse doesn’t affect concealment, only if the hull moves (even the smallest amount)
  • Hull movement penalty:
    • -50% for heavy/SPG
    • -40% for TD (except for Swedish TDs which do not lose camo value on hull traverse)
    • -25% for medium
    • -0% for lights
    • Concealment will still drop if your tank is sliding down a hill or embankment, or if you get pushed by a teammate such that your hull moves
  • Firing penalty:
    • -89% for heavy/SPG
    • -86% for TD
    • -79% for medium
    • -78% for lights
    • The larger the tank and gun caliber, the more the concealment drops
    • Muzzle brake increases concealment drop effect
  • Wounded or stunned crew don’t affect vehicle concealment
  • Vehicles on fire drop even more concealment
  • #1: concealment skill of entire crew results in +.8x initial concealment value
  • #2: brothers in arms results in +.04x
  • #3: improved rations result in +.08x
  • #4: vents result in +.04x
  • #5: camo net results in +.91x, camo applied to the hull itself, +.24x
  • #6: natural cover directive results in +.1x and improved vents result in +.06xm which will max out the possible value(s)
    • NOTE: #2-4 ONLY increase camo values if the concealment skill is trained for the entire crew

Increasing Concealment – Tank-Specific

  • Camo net only applies 3 seconds after the hull stops moving
  • Camo on the hull is the only camo that counts towards concealment values, all other camo is just for looks (PAINT does NOT provide any camo value)
  • Effect of camo net and camo depend on vehicle type:
    • HT/SPG, +5 net, +2 camo
    • LT/MT, +10 net, +3 camo
    • TD, +15 net, +4 camo
  • Low noise exhaust can also be used to increase camo value by 6% when on the move. If running camo net as well, the values do not stack, only the larger value applies (in this case, 6% increase from exhaust while on the move, 10% increase from the camo net when stationary)

Increasing Concealment – Using Bushes and Trees

  • Added to concealment value in the formula (foliage in the algorithm above)
    • Small bushes and plants without foliage: +25
    • Thick plants with foliage double the bonus: +50
    • Multi bush values stack up, but the max value is +80
  • All foliage within 15m, when firing, will maintain only 20% of concealment value momentarily right after firing, but that might be all that is needed to get you spotted (burn through, commander’s vision system, etc.) so always make sure they’re opaque and stack multiple foliage entities as often as possible
  • If you or an enemy are more than 15m from foliage, it will be similarly opaque for both vehicles
    • PRO TIP: If you are sitting in a translucent bush, and want to fire at an enemy close enough to potentially spot you in return, wait until that enemy is behind a second bush at more than 15m away from him before firing as that will maintain opacity on his side. Alternatively, just roll back to where the bush is opaque first before firing (have 5 seconds before tank goes unspotted if you were the one spotting them)

General Tips

  • Players commonly have a bad habit of not moving from their last position, so blind firing last spotted positions (or commonly known locations) can often lead to a hit. They’re still ‘hittable’ whether they’re spotted or not.
  • Vision kiting is a method used to stay off within your spotting distance but outside of theirs for free damage
  • Playing between the lines is where you depend on your teammates to spot enemies outside your spotting range, but within your draw circle, so that you can dump damage downrange without fear of being spotted in return (as long as no enemies are within range to spot you, so use terrain and concealment to your advantage here)
  • Vehicles taking part in the battle, or their carcasses after they’re destroyed, DO NOT HIDE YOUR TANK AT ALL WHEN IT COMES TO SPOTTING, you can STILL be spotted THROUGH them (according to WG)

Foliage Modeling

  • Don’t forget that bushes as you see them in the game might not match exactly what the server says the bush is modeled as (examples below) so you might think you’re behind a bush, when you’re actually exposing a visibility checkpoint
  • From wotinfo.net, thank you bitwise_ (WoT in-game name), please see the linked table for some user-space generated content based on testing, which list the camo values of various foliage in the game. Official Wargaming statement is that camo values have not been shared with the public though, so take this info at face value and use at your own ‘risk’ (or really, benefit)

This training material was derived from many and various sources including WG wikis, forum posts, various materials drawn together by community contributors (13Disciple and Guido1212, for instance), WG training videos, and other materials such as Overlord_Prime’s Google Doc (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1au-7iJuzjSBsjhB6pLiAzMZNPxOOdrx_AFEGa6TU89Q) and the World of Tanks Game Manual (https://worldoftanks.com/dcont/fb/wot_guide/world_of_tanks_game_manual_en_com_web_8_8.pdf). As such, I am not the copyright holder of the information contained herein, but I AM the copyright holder for the information in the format in which it exists as presented on mtltemplar.com, so I exercise the right to demand that reuse of the content as it appears on my site requires my explicit permission.