I have been known to pop smoke in an area that I have no intention of going to. I use it as a diversion to repair. If the other side is blind and they see smoke guess where they are shooting? Meanwhile it gives me the chance to retreat and repair.

Smoke is for incompetent players that lack the skill to play at a high level.  Due to their lack of skill they need things (smoke, tuning, escorts, etc) to give them more of an edge.

This badly hurts the player base.

Rehor likely knows what I am talking about here, but many of you likely will not... the lost art of dodging DB's... NOBODY can do this anymore in GB's.  They pop a smoke, I wait for a few seconds till it goes away, and I bomb them... over and over.  The other day a SS5 smoked rushing, did not turn, and I manual DB'd him to cries of "hacker!!!!!!" over and over, lol.

Smoke has decreased the overall skill level in NF.

Lol

In WW2 they used smokes also (just bad burned oil in a special gun)
Smokes and overvetting keep this game alive.  

Yeah, holy NOOBCAKES the players have gotten worse over the last three years.

Welcome back, now it's P2W. 

smokes hides the humiliating destruction of their crippled ship :D thats what i see everyday...