Everyone knows the smoke grenade, aside from not working right, has barely any use to it, especially now that we can't even aim down HS/NV scopes while flying. It needs something more to make it more interesting than the underbarrel smoke grenade launcher or else there's literally no reason to bring them with you. So, if they were to theoretically get fixed and buffed, what would you like them to do more than just being smoke? It could be a simple as lasting longer, or having a wider radius than the underbarrels, but that's quite boring. What if, through the power of nanites, enemy movement was slowed by 50% while inside the smoke? not only blinding the enemies but making them easier to pick off for yourself and allies with HS/NV. Or, people have thrown around the idea that LAs should have built-in HS/NV. What if we did the opposite, LA smoke grenades automatically highlight enemies in the smoke for yourself and anyone in your squad / platoon, in the same shimmer infiltrators get when you shine a flashlight on them. Either of these would make them more useful than underbarrels without making underbarrels completely obsolete ( LA smokes would be more offensive while underbarrels more of a defensive tool ) and make LAs much more valuable to a team.
Rationale being the personal shield is deflecting the smoke away from the wearer, to maintain airflow and combat effectiveness. Yes, I like this idea.
I say that sarcastically but it fits. Instead of just plain smoke, the cloud is in fact a cloud of nanites that are programmed to adhere to enemies and emit a glow when they make contact.
Smoke could slowly damage over time. Then the use would be forcing enemies to retreat / scatter / clear out the choke point, instead sitting in a smoke cloud sipping tea.
Really, either of the two effects I mentioned would also have the effect of making the enemy not want to be in the smoke cloud. I guess it depends on how much damage is dealt. Too little, and it won't really be worth using as enemies could sprint through it with minimal consequence. Might even comparable to a slow-acting EMP grenade. I think if we're going to go the damage route, it needs to be strong enough to kill someone who hesitates for a moment and stays inside it. That way you could use it both as a weapon but also a deterrent to prevent enemy forces from crossing an area. It could effectively cut down a MAX crash by preventing the support classes from crossing through the smoke. For balance, though, it should probably damage allies too, at least for half damage.
Last thing PS2 needs is a damaging smoke. At that point you might as well put in the plasma thumper. Id be content with smoke nades disabling sprint, and having a slow buildup screen effect to simulate a visual irritation like tear gas, so staying in it is a disadvantage but not to the point it's going to be annoyingly over used. Id leave those effects off of the ubgl smokes and rename the smoke hand nades to something like CS gas. ubgl smoke is more suited for charges and the like, having those effects on it would be bad. Could add the no-sprint to the vehicle smoke too for giggles, might make it actually useful other than to troll rocket spammers.
IT can be annoying and overused now. The primary issue is that smoke GRENADES suck balls. Underslung smoke launcher does have it's uses. The issue is not even so much as the smoke is graphic dependant, as much as the grenades are broken and half the time they are duds if you throw them to far off and lower than your origin height. They also take time to deploy the full volume of smoke, never mind that they detonate only when they stop, unlike flash grenades which detonate after a flat 4s timer. Half the environment you walk on forces you out of ADS cos god knows every pixel makes you jump to the point where ADSing is "not realistic derp". Imagine what it does to smoke grenades - they just roll in their own hemorrhage. Smoke grenades are inventory based. They cost 200 certs and is an LA class specific grenade. Underslung is available to everyone, deploys on contact, costs 100 certs, has a more convenient trajectory (grenade wind-up animation is full ****** mode). Quite frankly Smoke Grenades are an insult to a long long line of injuries LA have to endure. You know what the LA update could have been? Streamlining the class. Fixing bullcrap like Smoke Grenades. Really, just to show they bloody care.
I'm thinking very small damage over time element to enemies, like 1 damage every half second. stops shield regen, but primary function is to make enemies shields do the flash they do when they are "hit", so you can make them out somewhat through the smoke without being IRNV dependent. does not damage friendlies. goes off 3 seconds after being thrown. smoke grenades are sticky (I think the reason the grenades had to stop before is that it takes a lot to make the smoke move with them, that's why UBSL poured smoke from impact regardless of where the grenade went afterward, this will help with that) duration reduced by 1 second UBSL remains unchanged (to make up for longer duration, instant activation, ammo pack synergy, lack of resource cost, and I think better coverage...) would be sick! I am putting in my changes thread, this is just the kind of inspiration for smoke grenade changes I wanted to see!!! (right now I just have that something needs to happen, but not what)
I thouroughly believe regular smoke grenades are useless. use the under barrel smoke grenade launcher and bring flash grenades. Laugh as your enemies are double blinded. I normally would offer up some sort of suggestion as to how to fix said grenade, but I honestly can't think of one that doesn't involve nerfing the smoke underbarrel attachment, which I find fantastic in its own right.
Make smoke grenade smoke opaque to vehicle Thermal, but not infantry HS/NV. This gives the smoke grenade the ability to be used to break a vehicle spawn camp and when thrown on top of a two story, for example, lets the Light Assault jump up on the roof without getting picked off by a hovering Liberator.
How should I know? I don't care if it goes extinct, along with all the vehicles. Currently it's used for infantry farming. Should not be so.
Yeah, see, infantry-only would be hella boring. And honestly, the TR are the biggest users of Thermal that I've seen on the HE Prowlers.
Here is a start, make smoke grenades deploy faster. The time it takes for the smoke to appear is quite slow. Also I wouldn't mind if the grenades lasted longer and had a bigger radius.
