So after reading the rules over a bit I was wondering. Do weapons which ignore cover (Plasma and Flame, etc) ignore the cover bonuses for lowlight. I would assume that they do because of the "explosive" nature of the weapons (so less accuracy needed), but I was wondering what the official ruling or consensus was

That is an excellent question. It doesn't make sense that a grenade weapon ignores the fact that you can barely see your opponent. Or on the other side, that a lone hero is perfectly visible in pitch black conditions. No, I believe normal cover rules do not apply to this darkness cover.

I'm also a bit stumped by the fact that darkness cover is not directly related to the range. Diagonally you can see farther than you can straight ahead. I don't get it why they couldn't simply say "range 3 soft cover, range 4 hard cover, range 5 and beyond no shot", instead of creating this weird and out of place square for the darkness ranges.

Loophole Master said:

Now that the Hades PDF is up and I've had a chance to read the rules, I have to respectfully disagree.

The Hades rules state that targets are to be considered in Soft Cover or Hard Cover if they are hidden in the darkness. Since the rules for grenade weapons (Revised Core Rulebook, pg. 25) state "When using these weapons, always ignore the target unit’s cover value", then it seems pretty clear that grenade weapons (and flamethrowers, phasers, etc.) ignore the Soft or Hard Cover granted by darkness, as well.

Whether this is actually logical or not is a different question…

Loophole Master said:

Well, it's obviously because…um…er…okay, I don't have a good explanation for this one!

Kriegschatten said:

Actually, I don't think you're disagreeing with me. I know that by the rules if you ignore cover, you ignore cover. What I was questioning was whether or not it made sense for this "cover of darkness" to function exactly like normal cover.

Take a lone hero for example. Heroes don't use cover, so by the rules he wouldn't benefit from this "cover of darkness". But then what about a lone hero at range 5? Can you shoot at him? He doesn't benefit from the cover of darkness but suddenly he vanishes when he reaches range 5?

I have shortened the distances a bit and it has worked out great except for my crappy dice roles. As for the darkness rules affecting cover I have been using the weapons stats for cover. If it ignores cover then it ignores cover. Im assuming a flame weapon would not care if you were in darkness or not. Its going to burn you either way. A rifle/machin gun though needs actual sight to be affective. Just my 2 cents but the games have been fun.

in friendly games i tend to separate LOS cover {corners, darkness etc} with terrain cover {tank traps , ammo crates, buildings}.

LOS cover is never ignored by weapons special rules and works for units that normaly are not allowed to be beneficial of cover like Walkers , heroes etc.

but with recent changes to corner corner no los thing , iam sure its not where game is heading .