Smoke

[P O P]

1. Which does it affect: bullets being shot into the smoke, bullets shot out of the smoke, or both? Is that downside even that bad?
2. What would the mech high shield do to a smoke shell? I know the shield stops mortars, but wouldn't it just stop the shell and lead to the smoke falling into or around the shielded area?

[XelNigma]

1. Smoke affects all, shooting in, shooting out, shooting through.
Smoke prevents turrets from shooting at all, same rules as above. So I typically only uses for that.
Because the player is always outnumbered its far more important for you to land your shots, so smoke as a defense is really only helpful for the NPCS seeing as they have the numbers to overcame the aim penitently. You never want to be in a situation where your pinking at each other.

2. donno, never done it. I suspect the shell is just deleted with no effect.

[ikegami178]

Smoke can be useful or can be a massive pain, depending on the circunstances
Smoke is good if you need to reposition the pawns(put the smoke on top of yourself), its good if you have melee fighters against mostly ranged enemies(place in on top of the enemy). Its good if you use grenades(place "anywhere")
Its bad if the enemy uses against you in those circunstances, genadiers casting smoke and lobbing grenades is super bad, and smoke on top of your pawns against pirates packing rocket launchers are one of the worst things that can happen

As for the shield, im quite sure it dont just stop, it outright gulps any projectile it stops. Regular mortars dont explode and smoke mortars dont make smoke fall, the exception is the emp mortar, that disables the shield

[Triple G]

But for the high shield: You only need to block the line of sight with the smoke, so one can fire in front of it. Usually one of the first weapons i craft is a smoke launcher though - for these clusters and the turrets. Anyone who isn´t good in combat can use these instead. The mortar shells have a bigger radius though. I usually also have a smoke belt on one of my ranged pawns - and i try to get the smoke psycast. But i only use it for the turrets.

For field combat a low shield is much better than smoke. Like it blocks all shots, and You can still fire on the enemy - for 30 seconds. I´d buy all which they offer.