The biggest problem with smoke grenades is that they are totally unbalanced. If you spend most of your time in smoke, every mission is a cakewalk. If you don't use smoke, especially in late game, the game becomes literally impossible to win. Even winning a single mission (having best troops and equipment) with at least 50% survivors is a huge and rare accomplishment.
Early missions are fairly easy to do without smokes with 1-2 light wounds tops - bar very bad luck (or moderately bad luck plus plasma grenades). The problem is, civilians are there like fish in the barrel (running around in panic without having evacuation areas on different edges like in Apocalypse) and aliens are cllairvoyant, so on a big map aliens tend to mow down a lot of civilians simply because they are already there and you will need time to get there. Thus, smoke is necessary to protect civilians.
This fits the definition of a game-breaker: a tactic which is so much better than every other, that it never ever becomes an option to use any other tactic.
It would if use of smokes in itself constitued "a tactic" - just one ay, and mutually exclusive with others. Which isn't the case, so it doesn't fit. Just like "using armor" - yes, it
is nearly impossible to play without using armor at all, but that's not what "game-breaker" means...
If every mission requires exactly the same recipe, and no other recipe works, the game becomes dull.
There are at very least labyrintine vs. open terrain.
So, how to make the game more balanced?
When you put some articulate meaning into this word, please define it. Because in computer games (and even more so in RPG) "balance" is used mostly as a meaningless word supposed to denote superiority of concepts that are too vague to actually phrase them.
1 - Applying a penalty to every shot which doesn't have a clear sight. It's reasonable, as you can aim much better if you see your target then if only someone tells you in which direction to fire.
Good point.
Technically, this can be done using a common targetting/positioning system. Which should be a separate piece of hardware with cost and weight (and destructible, when equipment will be), of course. Though it still can't be as precise as when people see "
vhat ze hell zhey are doing"(c).
Also, a better model for sniping could involve reducing the value of cover, which cannot be done well without seeing that cover from the shooter's own point of view.
If you make a step forward, notice a target, make a step back, you can hit your target better if you still see it.
Speaking of which, there's no "step back" and suchlike...
Perhaps skill such as "spatial sense" or "coordination" could be useful? That would affect things like sidesteps, throws, blind shots and wide-angle (outside the "forward" arc, but still in sight) reaction fire.
2 - Making the AI a bit smarter, by giving them a small chance to fire a random shot at a smoke cloud if they don't see any other target, or don't have anything better to do.
Make this chance a bit higher if they have seen a human enter that cloud last turn.
Or rather "anything that the current weapon counts as soft cover and is close enough to be a possible threat".
Also, if an opponent using cover invites an attack, so could an invisible attacker: a combatant not seeing the attacker of one's ally, but seeing the attack may try to area-attack the apparent origin: "a grenade flies out of the door, a grenade flies into the door, maybe it'll bounce right" sort of thing, same for soft cover (more with needlers than plasma, though). That's where splash damage and Sweep modes should be used.
3 - implementing a possibility to fire from cover. It still troubles me to see that my soldier cannot shoot past a thin lamp post directly in front of him. Even games made freaking 20 years ago (like Jagged Alliance) managed to do it! This way, shooting from a crouched position from behind low cover or from around corners would provide a significant protection
So true. In part, a side effect of grid movement, but still obviously needs improvement.
Also, with vertical cover having the weapon in one or other hand would make difference, and thus left/right handness would be worth adding.
For low cover - if certain weapons are normally (MG, sniper) or optionally (AR, rocket) used with bipod, it could be set on the cover if the height is more or less right, which would make value of different firing positions more situational.
This might make a game a bit easier as humans might be able to use it better than the AI
Depends on whether they expect an attack from a specific direction - but so does RF.