[1.1.2565 + Royalty] Smoke interactions with Turrets unclear/unintuitive

Started by Boboid, March 06, 2020, 02:44:50 AM

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Boboid

Smoke only stops turrets locking on if there are 2 tiles of smoke between the tile the target is standing on and the turret. This isn't made clear by any descriptions of any smoke effects.

In practice this makes smoke very hard to use as the edges of it are not safe to stand in nor is it often clear at a glance where it is/isn't safe to stand

If a player deploys smoke on themselves they can easily think they're safe only to be immediately shot even though all their units are within smoke, but simply too close to the edge.
If a player deploys smoke on a turret (Which is pretty difficult to do given the range disparity regarding mech turrets) this works up until melee is attempted at which point there are no longer 2 tiles of smoke between the turret and the target.

Also smoke launchers in particular aren't very accurate and don't provide a lot of smoke and so a missed shot can result in insufficient smoke being deployed on the relevant side of the encounter which again can result in being shot when visually there is still smoke between the turret and target.

It all adds up to smoke constantly feeling ineffective/bugged, even though it's entirely mechanically consistent.

Though to be clear the descriptions of smoke in-game aren't sufficient.
A prison yard is certainly a slightly more elegant solution to Cabin Fever than mine...

I just chop their legs off... legless prisoners don't suffer cabin fever