[Bullethead]

Smoke affects both spotting and the accuracy of aiming weapons. The thicker the smoke and the closer you are to it, the greater its effect. Thus, if your smoke is blowing between you and the target, it's more of a problem for you than the enemy shooting at you.

Note that the effects of smoke last a lot longer and cover a much larger area than the smoke graphics do. This is because if we made the smoke graphics linger as long as smoke does in real life, it would quickly bring computers to a stop.

Also note that the game builds up a "smoke map" as the battle goes on, keeping track of all the lingering smoke effects. If you have a bunch of ships that spend a fair amount of time in the same general area, and if the wind isn't too strong, you'll end up with a smog effect that limits everybody's visibility. This can get bad enough to cause battles to end due to nobody being able to see the enemy, even if the sun isn't quite down.

Finally, note that this lingering smoke / smog has definite locations on the map, so can cause LOS problems. So say there are 3 enemy ships in line. You might not be able to see the 1 in the middle due to an intervening clot of smog, but then it will reappear and the 3rd enemy ship will disappear briefly. This sort of thing is one of the major causes of ships switching targets unexpectedly.