OK, so... there are a couple of Gear items that reduce setbacks for Mist and Smoke.

There are no Smoke Grenades in the Gear lists that I have found.

There is the InstaMist generator.

Stormtroopers wear helmets.

Would it be fair to rule that a Smoke grenade exists (having never seen anything like it in the Films, besides R2 on Cloud City in ESB), and that Stormtroopers helmets provide the same 'smoke penetrating features' that some of the other goggles have?

(If so, what stats would you provide to the grenade? Clearly, it would be non lethal, and clearly Threat/Despair, could have wind effects negate it, or reduce the time it is effective etc)

Basically... it gives the Troopers some kind of masking effect while attacking, that they can mitigate to some degree, that potentially the players cannot, unless they have the right gear?

Or is that just GM Engineering to make life difficult?

I believe it's sort of mentioned in the fluff text of Stormtroopers somewhere, but I usually rule that they have vacuum seals and vision enhancements as well as built in comlinks.

No point in being the Empires elite shock troops if a bit of smoke gets in your way.

I came up a similar problem with smoke penetrating gear

My players faced an AT-ST in personal combat, which the obvious could not take down, but created a small window to escape by throwing some detonite at it, but that's a another story

Because they are in a town, that is crowed with imperial forces and i know my players will face them again... (i hope some day they will control their "explosive" behaviour...)

I studied the books and found these smoke / darkness penetrating gear. Therefore i've created a smoke grenade to allow my players to escape in case they will attack again a much stronger enemy.

I gave them some of these vision-penetrating attachments and some of these smoke-grenades. Here are my stats for this item:

Damage 0, Crit -, Range: Short, Skill: Range-Light, Effect: Smoke ( a thick smoke is lingering on the ground (short radius) for 3 rounds, giving any vision-based action / attack from inside or into the smoke area 3 setbacks in the first round, 2 setbacks in the second and 1 setback in the third round) - Windy areas will of course affect this effect.

For the Stormtrooper question: I don't think every common stormtrooper will have these vision enhancement. They are much to expensive (and will ruin my smoke grenade plan ) Some special troops on the other hand are of course equipped with these. The vacuum sealed attribute will prevent the smoke to penetrate their lungs but not to enhance their vision in the smoke.

Some time ago i asked this forum about the attachments of a specific sniper rifle, because in the text it was written that it has a telescopic multi-optic sight. So i was asking if its a telescope or a mulit-optic sight or both. The answer to this question was: None. These "attachments" are represented by the range and other values of the weapon. What i will try to tell you is, even if there is some stuff written in the books, if its not specified in the equipment section they will not have it But of course you can handle it the other way.

Hope it helps

- D

Smoke grenades no doubt exist, it's just that implementation of them will be a smidge weird since there isn't the map heavy element you see in other systems. Otherwise they would just similar to the instamist generator.

Dutzen probably is right about the rest. Things like ye olde MultiFrequency Targeting and Acquisition System don't have the sway they used to, so likely they are catagorized like all the other fluffy scopes and sights you see on every weapon. They allow the equipment to do what the existing stat block shows. If you want better you gotta mount better.

Rogue One gives us an out here in that you see Stormtroopers with weapon mounted illuminators or laser point sights that aren't present in other films. So attachments are canon as not standard issue.

That said there's nothing wrong with slapping an integrated helmet package on every suit of Stormtrooper armor if you like. Just let the players know that's a tweak you made when the campaign starts and adjust encounter difficulty accordingly.

The smoke grenade is nice, use it.

as for the equipment for Storm Troopers - they should always be equiped as theire mission requires it (per default all my STs have an helm comlink).

So while troopers that just guard a gouverment building or are patroulling the city at day only have the standard armor, a carabine, Stun baton and stun grenades. The Nightshift will mostlikely also have Nightvision. (Those guys won't have an heavy repeatingblaster or a thermal detonator with them)

There fore a Squad of Troopers that land on a vulcanic planet system will have some Smoke penetrating vision and a cooling system within the armor and they wear nothing lightflameable exposed to the outside. (call them Lavatroopers ^^)

In poison athmossphere the armor is sealed with an oxygentank.

In an canyon area, they will have inbuild ascention gear or Jetpacks, and won't use high explosives (they don't want to be catched with in a self created landslide...)

in the bilbringi-shipyards, they'll have magnetic boots, vacuum-sealed armor, some kind of space cableable jetpack, radiation shields.

on Swampplanets, they'll have an amphibious Upgrade and fog penetrating visions

and so on

The same goes for the rest of the quipment:

Mission is to capture a specific person? -Glob grenades, bolas, stunbaton, stun grenades and nets will be to find on the Squads troopers,

Destroy a whole village of people that were just unlucky to witness the gouverner to spill his tea? rocket-launchers, thermals detonators, tripot-mounted heavy repetiers...

deployed by the inquisitor from his personal space vessel just to catch the SC after the first encounter 8so he knows what they are cabeable of? - Everything that counters the known abillitys of the sc (not the abilitys they gaind since that last time except there was a spy to tell....) that could include: Glob grenades, jet packs, Cortosis-weave, Slugthrower, explosives, Snipers sitting (or flying) in extreme range, vehicles...

On ‎08‎.‎08‎.‎2017 at 11:23 PM, tehRJ said:

I believe it's sort of mentioned in the fluff text of Stormtroopers somewhere, but I usually rule that they have vacuum seals and vision enhancements as well as built in comlinks.

No point in being the Empires elite shock troops if a bit of smoke gets in your way.

I suppose that's what the 3 HP in laminate armour are for: built-in respirator (not actually vacuum sealed), enhanced optics and...

heating for snowtroopers,

thermal shielding for sandtroopers,

etc.

Canonically, " the helmet provided [...] filtered air, and contained enhanced vision, communication systems and a effective HUD (heads up display) that could help locate threats, aid in navigation, and to help alert the wearer. "

On 8/10/2017 at 5:23 AM, Grimmerling said:

I suppose that's what the 3 HP in laminate armour are for: built-in respirator (not actually vacuum sealed), enhanced optics and...

heating for snowtroopers,

thermal shielding for sandtroopers,

etc.

Canonically, " the helmet provided [...] filtered air, and contained enhanced vision, communication systems and a effective HUD (heads up display) that could help locate threats, aid in navigation, and to help alert the wearer. "

It's mostly what I use my HP in my armour for lol.
technically you could also give the Stormtroopers a bit more of an edge in initiative since modified optics give you a vigilance boost I believe. Just another way to make them scary later on in games I guess.