Do you use Smoke Grenades?

[Mytheos]

Just asking for people's opinions of Smoke Grenades, curious what players think about them.

Do you bring any? If so how many per soldier?

[alienman]

I use them. They have saved the lifes of my Xenonauts agents many times

My assault and rifleman has smoke grenades. 1 grenade, and 1 smoke for the regular rifleman. Assault has a shotgun, smoke, grenade, flashbang and c4.

[captainkrunch96]

Just asking for people's opinions of Smoke Grenades, curious what players think about them.

Do you bring any? If so how many per soldier?

trust me, your going to need them. For grenades, I recommend 2 flash bangs, 2 smokes, and 2 regulars. when you get stun grenades you could either replace one flash bang with a stun or both flash bangs with stuns(therefore you would have no flash bangs which is why I use the first option of 1 flash bang one stun).Also, remember stuns aren't nearly as effective as smoke! don't make that mistake.

Edited July 8, 2013 by captainkrunch96

[Ol' Stinky]

I think that smoke grenades are pretty much the only way to lower alien snipers' accuracy other than suppressing them so that they have to snap shot. Harridans don't care if you're behind cover or not.

If you're playing steam stable, I don't think that snipers have hypervelocity (so cover's still good against them). If you're in v19, you will want smoke later on.

[RawCode]

stun grenades best option at this moment, 2-3 will KO any allien.

[Mytheos]

trust me, your going to need them. For grenades, I recommend 2 flash bangs, 2 smokes, and 2 regulars. when you get stun grenades you could either replace one flash bang with a stun or both flash bangs with stuns(therefore you would have no flash bangs which is why I use the first option of 1 flash bang one stun).Also, remember stuns aren't nearly as effective as smoke! don't make that mistake.

I currently bring 4-5 on every soldiers. I love them and know how to use them very effectively.

[PerfectDeath]

Smoke grenades are great when you want to avoid reaction fire but cannot suppress the alien, everyone brings 1 smoke grenade, even if they can't carry any other grenades. For fire and move tactics smoke grenades are great insurance; however, in the current version there are few aliens who bank enough TUs at the end of their turn to do reaction shots, thus I focus on just suppressing them with burst fire (30TUs vs 42).

Same reason I don't use flash bangs, they don't seem to suppress well enough for their TU cost compared to just taking shots.

[Mytheos]

I think that smoke grenades are pretty much the only way to lower alien snipers' accuracy other than suppressing them so that they have to snap shot. Harridans don't care if you're behind cover or not.

If you're playing steam stable' date=' I don't think that snipers have hypervelocity (so cover's still good against them). If you're in v19, you will want smoke later on.[/quote']

I know you have dug under the hood Stinky, do you know EXACTLY how Smoke Grenades work?

(Dont interpret that in any other way that I am seeking knowledge and honestly asking you if you know/have the numbers)

Is it like in XCOM94, or roughly similar?

So far from my experience it "seems" the same.

The Smoke Grenade is used by putting a Smoke Cloud "between" you and the Alien, it reduces their "Sight" so they simply cant see you and therefore dont fire at you.

Essentially you want them to look "through" as many smoke tiles as possible, not a situation of "Standing On" a smoke tile makes you harder to hit. (Standing in the middle = wrong, they look through less smoke tiles, Standing Behind = Correct, and they look through more smoke tiles)

And so far it either seems to works that way or it reduces their accuracy so much that they dont even bother shooting at you?

I'd really love to know the mechanics behind it used in this game.

But either way using them how I do = I never get shot at by an Alien whose LOS goes through a smoke cloud, as long as they are at least X tiles away.

I have seen Current distance = get shot at. Current Distance + Smoke Cloud in the Middle = Dont get shot at.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Mytheos

[thothkins]

Up until the last couple of builds smoke grenades were the grenades of choice for me. At present, it's stun grenades as they are a little on the overpowered side. Smoke still comes in very, very handy for crossing the various Fields of Doom, terror maps and other varying locations where their could be enemy sniper activity.

[Mytheos]

Up until the last couple of builds smoke grenades were the grenades of choice for me. At present, it's stun grenades as they are a little on the overpowered side. Smoke still comes in very, very handy for crossing the various Fields of Doom, terror maps and other varying locations where their could be enemy sniper activity.

Yeah but I havent seen the need to choose, I just carry 4-5 smoke and 4-5 stun, but on rookies might knock it down to 2/2.

I tend to pack with the understanding I may have to run two missions in a row before my Dropship goes back to base.

It seems really the inventory/weight is a bit OP right now.

I mean a Plasma Riffle, 5 clips, 5 smoke, 4 stun, 4 grenades, and a medkit? Wow.

[200down]

Yep, stun grenades are well overpowered atm.

After modding the hell out the game to my liking it seems as though the problem lies in how stun gas works. Regardless of what type of stun projectile you use, they will always do the same "gas damage" because the damage itself is related to the "stun gas" tag and not the actual projectile used and not the amount of gas released at explosion. So currently there is no way to change gas damage amounts for each weapon type. If you haven't already noticed, both the grenade version and the much larger rocket version still take the same amount of rockets/grenades to knock the same alien unconscious. Which is unbalanced atm. The grenade should do much less stun gas damage vs the rocket for obvious reasons.

On top of this, the gas "type" explosives release nearly the same amount of smoke with almost the same vision restraints as smoke grenades. Although, we can change this to our liking in the gas_gc.xml. Which I highly suggest doing. In this way, we can at least tone down some of the OP vision restraints from the stun explosives.

I would also suggest changing the radius's on both stun grenades and rockets. Nades to just 2 and rockets to 3-4. Which will give at least SOME reason for taking a few stun rockets along for the chance of dropping multiple aliens.

Hope this helps.

Getting off topic a bit here but also wanted to add that changing the rockets to a weight of 4 or 5 helps quite a bit in balancing the currently OP launcher. You won't be able to carry loads of rockets unless you wanna bring extras with other troops and drop them in the field. You'll need to make those shots count. It should have been this way from the get go. Not sure why it hasn't been changed yet. Anyways I'm out.

Edited July 11, 2013 by 200down

[Ol' Stinky]

I know you have dug under the hood Stinky, do you know EXACTLY how Smoke Grenades work?

(Dont interpret that in any other way that I am seeking knowledge and honestly asking you if you know/have the numbers)

Is it like in XCOM94, or roughly similar?

So far from my experience it "seems" the same.

The Smoke Grenade is used by putting a Smoke Cloud "between" you and the Alien, it reduces their "Sight" so they simply cant see you and therefore dont fire at you.

Essentially you want them to look "through" as many smoke tiles as possible, not a situation of "Standing On" a smoke tile makes you harder to hit. (Standing in the middle = wrong, they look through less smoke tiles, Standing Behind = Correct, and they look through more smoke tiles)

And so far it either seems to works that way or it reduces their accuracy so much that they dont even bother shooting at you?

I'd really love to know the mechanics behind it used in this game.

But either way using them how I do = I never get shot at by an Alien whose LOS goes through a smoke cloud, as long as they are at least X tiles away.

I have seen Current distance = get shot at. Current Distance + Smoke Cloud in the Middle = Dont get shot at.

The short version is that you're using them correctly by putting as many smoke tiles between you and the enemy.

The LoS part of smoke doesn't seem to be in. Either that, or it's not working. Your latter theory seems to be correct, in my experience: they have such a small chance to hit you that they don't bother making the shot.

As for the hit chance reduction, it depends on how accurate the, er, accuracy gauge is in-game. If it's right, then it stacks for each tile of smoke.

So, on a shot that has a 100% chance to hit:

1 tile of smoke means it now has a 80% chance to hit.

2 tiles, 64% chance to hit.

3 tiles, ~51% chance to hit.

4 tiles, ~40% chance to hit.

5 tiles, ~32% chance to hit.

That's a single smoke grenade, without any cover, and if you happen to be really unlucky with the throw/smoke! The aliens basically curl up into the fetal position and cry if you go all-out with smoke.

[svidangel]

Yeah, the accuracy thing bothers me... would prefer it if it just blocked sight like in the original/TFTD. I've almost stopped using them altogether.

[shabowie]

It seems really the inventory/weight is a bit OP right now.

I mean a Plasma Riffle, 5 clips, 5 smoke, 4 stun, 4 grenades, and a medkit? Wow.

If anything that is probably a little low on the ammo for the rifle side of things. An indivual first aid kit and a dozen grenades for a grenadier isn't too shocking. Plus personal armor, communications equipment, night vision equipment, etc., etc.

[Mytheos]

If anything that is probably a little low on the ammo for the rifle side of things. An indivual first aid kit and a dozen grenades for a grenadier isn't too shocking. Plus personal armor, communications equipment, night vision equipment, etc., etc.

Yeah they can hold more than that, and I have been slowly upping my ammo and using burst more often.

I even had a Light MG on my snipers, but I wasnt incredibly impressed but in reality sniper riffles are a bit OP as well.

I know you're talking from a reality perspective tho.

I'm talking more from game balance, but I much prefer this over the god awe full inventory system of XCOM2012.

But weights could probably be adjusted some.

[Mytheos]

I should mention that is without loss of TUs, so that encumbers you as much as being naked...which begins to seep into the reality aspect some.