Pavonis Interactive Forums

Is not about aesthetical preferences, is because, in my opinion, it is very similar to flashbang button. In fact I have throw smoke to aliens more than once on rendezvous missions where some rebels have smoke and other flash on their pockets randomly...

I don't have the slightest bit of difficulty in differentiating between the frag, smoke, and flashbang icons at a glance.

I have made the same mistake as well, especially during rendezvous and mini-retal missions where the rebel just have random stuff. Frag is easy to distinguish from the other two but I often have to take a second look at flash/smoke just to make sure I got the right one. Heck, even Xavier made the flash/smoke mistake in one of his vids.

On Rendezvous it's easy, the rebels with smoke grenades have SMG line weapons. Assault Rifles and Shotgun have flashbangs. It doesn't make a lot of sense as SMG gives mobility and would be better for flashbang but it seems like it's always the same setup.

I make tons of mistakes.

I have never in over 200 hours of LW2 made this mistake.

Even if the icons are somewhat similar, pressing it does not throw the grenade. You have to pick a spot before it gets thrown. During that time the bottom of the screen says in big letters "Launch Smoke Grenade" or "Launch Flashbang Grenade".

I don't support changing the icon, I think people are used to what it looks like and this is remedied by paying attention to your actions. Tactical battles are often won or lost based on mistakes like this, take your time, pay attention to what your doing, there is no turn time limit.

I have made the same mistake several times. Especially when I was starting, I would confuse the 2 all the time. Probably happened the most on faceless missions, where you have rebels with one or the other. Though I think I got used to checking because I don't make the mistake very often anymore. Overall making them look a tad more different couldn't hurt.

I've seen Xwynns throw Smoke at the enemy without so much noticing. Was hilarious. But i don't think this has to be redesigned in any way.

chrisb wrote:Even if the icons are somewhat similar, pressing it does not throw the grenade. You have to pick a spot before it gets thrown. During that time the bottom of the screen says in big letters "Launch Smoke Grenade" or "Launch Flashbang Grenade".

I don't support changing the icon, I think people are used to what it looks like and this is remedied by paying attention to your actions. Tactical battles are often won or lost based on mistakes like this, take your time, pay attention to what your doing, there is no turn time limit.

I totally agree with your opinion. Throw smoke to aliens is only my fault. But I also felt that couldn't be the only one. In my case is because I tend to not use smoke at all (if it isn't free). So after several missions spaming flashbangs, I do it almost automatically without reading. That added to the point that the icons are not very different, that they are on the same slot and the number that cover half icon... When a rebel brought a smoke without my permission I just go in my "auto-flashbang mode".

In addition I must say that more than once I also spent 3 minutes planning a groupal tactic and forgot that OW alien I saw at first and thought "keep in mind that OW".

LordYanaek wrote:On Rendezvous it's easy, the rebels with smoke grenades have SMG line weapons. Assault Rifles and Shotgun have flashbangs. It doesn't make a lot of sense as SMG gives mobility and would be better for flashbang but it seems like it's always the same setup.

Thanks for the info I didn't realized that- I totally agree with you too about the matching weapon-grenade. I see more logic your thought than the current setting.

I won a free smoke via AWC and put frag, flash and smoke:
Frag has the ring and the grip but the other two... Do you really see them so different?

Fwiw, I would support making the icons more distinctive. I have trouble telling at a glance too. I've never thrown smoke onto the aliens, but I have moved a character into position for a flashbang throw thinking that it was a bang, only to find out in the preview that it was a smoke.

In my case the issue isn't with telling them apart when both are in the same character's inventory. It's in telling them apart when the character only has one or the other (e.g. a rebel who spawned with a frag and a bang, versus a rebel who spawned with a frag and a smoke). Mostly this is only an issue in missions with uncontrollable character kits (Rendevous), since if I kitted out the character myself I expect them to have such-and-such item already.

To the OP...YES they look glaringly similar...would be nice to have smoke grenade icon...of smoke...

Raven496 wrote:To the OP...YES they look glaringly similar...would be nice to have smoke grenade icon...of smoke...

I believe this is what the icon looked like in LW1, so that could be used.

This was the LW1 (probably stock XCom EW) smoke grenade icon
It's actually used for dense smoke in LW2
So it would require something else.
LW1 dense smoke looked like this :

Quick and Dirty attempt at merging the existing icon and the old (now Dense Smoke) icon

LordYanaek wrote:Quick and Dirty attempt at merging the existing icon and the old (now Dense Smoke) icon SmokeGrenadeMix.png

I really like that merge. If the notion isn't picked up and used officially, perhaps someone can make a modmod that tweaks that.

That would certainly be possible but i really have no experience in modding XCom2 apart from simple ini edits.
I could have a look at the icons if someone can tell me how to get the original files rather than some jpg out of UFOpedia and see if i can get better results by spending more than 3 minutes on it but i don't know how to repack those.

Maybe there are some "Modding XCom2 for dummies" tutorials somewhere

I actually did this for the first time yesterday, though tbf it was my own fault for rushing and not double checking what my rebels were carrying. I like this:

LordYanaek wrote:This was the LW1 (probably stock XCom EW) smoke grenade icon
It's actually used for dense smoke in LW2
So it would require something else.
LW1 dense smoke looked like this :

Quick and Dirty attempt at merging the existing icon and the old (now Dense Smoke) icon

SmokeGrenadeMix.png

But maybe it's not possible, maybe the smoke grenade or flash bang icon could have a different colour, similar to hacking objectives when they are yellow.

Changing color isn't a good idea because they have a specific meaning in LW2

• Green is free
• White cost one action, doesn't end turn
• Blueish cost one action, ends turn
• Yellow cost two actions
• Gold is main objective action

There are occasional errors in the color-coding (SPARK bombard being green) but once those are fixed it's a very useful feature.

josna238 wrote: flashbang smoke.jpg

Frag has the ring and the grip but the other two... Do you really see them so different?

I can understand why you find them similar, but I personally don't have a problem telling those two apart. Flashbang has a little ring on top, Smoke has no ring and a grip on one side.

The backgrounds are different. The flashbang has a big flash and the smoke has a cloud of smoke....

It's not the most contrasty treatment in the world, but I have never had an issue telling them apart.

I think how easy it is to distinguish depends a fair bit on how big your monitor is. I use a 17" laptop to play, so not the biggest screen.