Balancing smoke grenades

[Soandso]

Shevaars and Hovernets see through it.

[Soandso]

The only use of smoke I find is covering civilians against Taman.

[DarkRain]

@Soandso: In fact all aliens know where you are (well in reality what they know is if they'll be able to see/shoot you from any given position *before* moving there) but they can't see — and thus can't shoot — through smoke, unless they are right next to you, so yeah if they can get to point black inside the smoke you are toast, so it's clearly *not* for CBQ engagements.

So, we have those who say smoke is OP, and now someone who say it is pretty much useless, and of course those who say it is *the only way* to play, so say smoke is nerfed, will that make the game impossible hard for a few/some/most people?

[Soandso]

I mean they shoot all the time through smoke as if it isn't there.  Maybe it is a bug in the current build, but they definitely shoot through it.

[Noordung]

you have to be in smoke not behind it.

[DarkRain]

Well yes, aliens are just like your soldiers: if one sees you, all of them do — but, unlike you, aliens do have a justification for this: they are a hive mind.

[mikehg]

...
So, we have those who say smoke is OP, and now someone who say it is pretty much useless, and of course those who say it is *the only way* to play, so say smoke is nerfed, will that make the game impossible hard for a few/some/most people?

It'd depend how you did it. But I think it's definitely an exploit that if you stay in smoke, you'll basically never get shot - it certainly feels like cheating.

Some mechanism that meant you had to keep moving to avoid return fire would feel more realistic, and it'd still be possible for a patient player to stay fairly safe.

[Noordung]

maybe staying in smoke would mean accuarcy by aliens -50% RF cost by aliens + 50% dmg by aliens - 50%. but you could see outside and aliens could see you. maybe this could be fair. becouse its annoying that i have to step out every time i want to shoot alien
RF cost would be essencially since sometimes in first round its impossible to shoot aliens becouse of their RF in start.

anyway also unability to deploy troops as i want in base defense feels like cheating from alines. i know they are coming to attack me and i cant event prepare for it? so there may be feel like cheating many times. sometimes you are overpowered sometimes aliens are, but its hard to balance everyting. and if you feel smoke is overpowered you can simply not use it...

[anonymissimus]

If the goal is to go through the campaign with zero losses of valuable units without saveloading, smoke in combination with cannon fodder is the only way I found, allowing to control where aliens will shoot. And melee weapons still can kill you in smoke. You need to know all of the alien spawn points as well so that Sheevars don't run to you and kill your Colonel with their plasma blade.
It feels like hard cheating to me that aliens have (most of the time) the better equipment, know from where they can see/shoot me before they start their turn (wow, what could I do with that), have much better starting positions most of the time, do not need to protect a bunch of wildly running around weaklings, can live with the fact that whether reaction fire will work depends basically on chance only due to engine buggyness as they don't need their units to survive, have better physical stats (hitpoints or resistances for sure, and I think also chance to hit), can be in greater numbers frequently (for base attacks and bombers is seems kinda unlimited), ...
Some cheats in the opposite direction are fine, such as shooting through walls or over them for instance. What, aliens can't do that ?
All of that adds to the fact that damage in 2.6 is so ridiculous that any single shot is instadeath, armor does not even protect from stray shots anymore and there's the well known suffocation from smoke, being a problem for any unit without nanocomposite armor.
So those who think that smoke is overpowered, may I ask you to provide a screen video or the like, showing how you play your missions without loosing valuable units ?

[mikehg]

The issue is largely on outside maps. If you throw a smoke grenade, then walk into the smoke, you are essentially invisible. You can step out of the smoke to locate enemies, step back in, and kill them without much risk. It isn't foolproof, as enemies will randomly walk into the smoke and find you, but it doesn't feel realistic or fair to me - I think a soldier firing from smoke without moving should cause enemies to fire back (even if inaccurately).

I took it as read that you ought to expect to lose some soldiers on hard / very hard.

[anonymissimus]

I just lost my first non-cannonfodder unit (June 2084). At least I don't need to blame myself for anything...she was hit twice by stray shots in the same turn. She was well covered by smoke. RIP.

[DarkRain]

Well that's what I'm getting at, I mean there are a lot of other thing to improve before nerfing smoke too much,
I mean I'd love nothing more than to give shevaars and ortnoks IR sight as their autopsy says, but of course with the way the visibility system works (or does not, if you will) that would make smoke utterly useless for as long as one of those aliens is on the map (save for maybe for the largest maps where you *might* be out of their sight range if you are at opposite corners of the map)
So yes things might be a bit (or a lot) weird now, but just give it some time (or rather a lot of time, sadly development has been waaaayyy too slow these months — you are welcome to lend us a hand or both )

[Noordung]

Well that's what I'm getting at, I mean there are a lot of other thing to improve before nerfing smoke too much,

yep smoke is not the main problem. for me the main problem is that aliens dont find way to me and in some maps i use too much time to find the last living alien.

I mean I'd love nothing more than to give shevaars and ortnoks IR sight as their autopsy says, but of course with the way the visibility system works (or does not, if you will) that would make smoke utterly useless for as long as one of those aliens is on the map (save for maybe for the largest maps where you *might* be out of their sight range if you are at opposite corners of the map)
So yes things might be a bit (or a lot) weird now, but just give it some time (or rather a lot of time, sadly development has been waaaayyy too slow these months — you are welcome to lend us a hand or both )

i think IR vision really should be limited in range. like it it with our soliders. maybe a little grater range. but still even if they get IR vision shooting in smoke should somehow penalise their shot. lets say tey couldnt see clearly...

[Soandso]

I realize now why aliens walk in circles when I corner strafe on long walls.  The only movement logic is searching for a vantage point in one turn.

The best option for smoke may be remove visibility effect and replace with spread coefficient upon aim vector intercepting smoke.