«Camouflage» in World of tanks represents the ability of a tank to hide from the enemy. If used correctly, it helps to attack the enemy from a concealed position or to hide in a way that the enemy will not see you.
View range is considered a point in the middle of a tank turret and a fixed radius around it. So a tank can see in all directions equally well. The maximum distance to spot an enemy is 500 meters. All the enemy tanks spotted by the allies are seen at 700 meters. Artillery can see «Spotted» tanks at any distance.
The distance of spotting the tank is a totality of 3 parameters
- Visibility of your tank
- Presence of masking objects between your tank and opponent (bushes/trees/hills/buildings, etc.)
- Signature of an enemy tank
For the tanks at a small distance, the conversion of visibility updates about once per second. The farther the enemy is the slower visibility is updated (up to once in 5 seconds). This is due to a very time-consuming process, which takes up to 50% of the server resources of the cluster.
A tank is invisible if bushes\trees\houses\rocks hide the whole outline profile of the tank, which may interrupt or disrupt your vision ray.
However, trees and bushes stop hiding the tank at a certain distance, ~50 meters.
The Camouflage Net effect does not work when the tank is moving. It takes 5 seconds after the vehicle stops to take effect, and will reduce your visibility by 25%.
You will need to wait for 5 seconds after each new movement.
Camouflage skill works all the time. It doesn`t matter if you are shooting, moving or sitting idle, and the camouflage net reduces the radius of your visibility. So if you have this skill it helps you to be seen on shorter distances than tanks without this skill.
Also if you hide in bushes or behind a tree there is a chance you would be seen just after you shoot. The effect of the Camouflage Net and the skill of the masking area added together, to a maximum possible bonus of 125%.
Tank destroyers have extra Camouflage that helps them to remain invisible at closer distances. Tank destroyers are less noticeable with the same height and width. Their maximum camouflage can be a bit better (+20-25%) around 145-150%.
Visibility also depends on a tank`s size. Each tank has its own signature factors and these factors can be changed by the «Camouflage» skill and «Camouflage net». The 100% visibility means that the tank is visible in the maximum range of view. The visibility of 0% means that the tank will only be visible from 50m.