I think you could give an Auxbot to an Auxilia that is equipped with a light smoke launcher and it would not be overpowered compared to what the most recent sectorial releases have been doing. NCA would get the benefit, and Vanilla would get the benefit. Neither of those modes of PanO are the most competitive options. Furthermore an Auxbot isn't a great delivery platform so it wouldn't be the most reliable thing, and it can't be linked. Change my mind, I guess?
At this point I don't care anymore. It's very obvious there will never be a cost effective smoke chucker in Panoceania and my time is better spent working around the limitation than daydreaming about what could be.
The best you can hope for is to one day get it on a merc who will be in one of our sectorials. Until then – whatever. "get good" "l2p" *insert useless advice here* etc. etc.
yes, it's on the GdA. I think OP wants regular smoke though to be able to shoot through it. I would seriously trade my MSV2 in ASA (Teucer only) for smoke grenades somewhere.
At this point, the major smoke deficiency I see is for MO. That's a Sectorial that's up there with JSA and CHA in terms of wanting smoke very desperately. I like the idea of an MO-only Eclipse Smoke LGL auxbot as an Order Sergeant profile. Seems thematic that someone assigns an Order Sgt to lay smoke for the Big Boys working their way up the field. This isn't necessarily for Close Combat reasons, but to let the abundance of Spitfires, Shotguns, etc. get close. It at least allows for the possibility of sidestepping the PanO requirement for an HMG. Other than that, I'm not going to complain about where PanO is at these days. We're looking damn good.l
Eclipse could have been on teutons .... but someone decided to make the bed which we now have to lay on. They also shat on said bed
Oh for sure, pano as a conglomerate has made leaps and bounds to keep up with what other newer sectorials are doing. And Varuna is top tier. But nca and vanilla are laggards, and smoke + msv in vanilla looks silly next to fatality 2 core links or other new mixed link nonsense. And smoke in NCA means you are either using the 70pt Aquilla or a slow ass multi rifle friar to utilize it which isnt anything too oppressive.
To be fair, an Auxbot smoker would likely be most often used as a way to get a last turn objective cap. Which is something pano basically can't do outside of a Guarda. You don't really want to rely on rubbish Auxbot bs to stickt the smoke then spend orders to move your solo attack piece to the correct position to shoot one target in a faction that can struggle to field high order lists.
It would be fine. But what’s the point in spending an order on smoke when then order could be spent on a Swiss Guard murdering anything and everything?
Because MO doesn't get Swiss Guard? Because it might be nice to not let Tariq shoot your Swiss Guard (with a 34% chance of at least one crit, even when shooting at -9)?
I think NCA is garbage at objective running on purpose, and it really doesn't need smoke shooting to deal with opponents due to the likes of Bulleteers and Swiss Guards. Smoke wouldn't really fit the playstyle, even on the defensive. That said, putting a Smoke HGL on the Squalo would be hilarious. MO is a different story. MO want to get close, and the board doesn't always support it. I'd give the OS Auxbot Smoke/Eclipse Dispensers, just a short skill or ARO to place smoke on itself. It would let the Knights get close enough to at least bring their Spitfires to bear, though it would likely cost the Auxbot, and defend against dangerous sustained attacks. It would also partly justify that idiotic SWC hike on Spec. Sergeants in Vanilla.
Teutons with Eclipse Grenades and more CQB-focused loadouts would make perfect sense, as would Auxbot_2 on Sergeants. I'd love to see more Auxbot types too, scattered across PanO, with Auxilia getting the full range. But that's another topic altogether.
