What the cover system does
Defilade’s cover is not a grid of sandbags. The developer’s description is that almost every single object — vehicles, trees standing or blown off, walls, corners, trenches — gets used as cover. Soldiers:
- lean around corners;
- go prone, crawl and roll;
- kneel and crouch-walk;
- vault over low cover;
- garrison buildings;
- use trees and wrecks as cover.
The important design point: you do not click cover. The soldier evaluates the ground and takes it. Your job is to put him in a position where good cover exists.
Cover quality
The public material does not give a cover-value table, but the behavior tells you the hierarchy:
| Cover | Why it works |
|---|---|
| Trench | Purpose-built; the developer lists trench warfare as a core feature |
| Building / garrison | Walls block fire; soldiers fight from windows and corners |
| Vehicle wreck | Solid, and the developer explicitly lists vehicles as cover |
| Tree | Works, but a tree is narrow and can be shot through by explosives |
| Low wall | Good while prone; vaultable, so it is also a route |
| Open ground | No cover; soldiers go prone but still die |
How to attack cover
- Flank. A squad behind a wall is protected from one direction, not all of them. Use waypoints to move a fire team around the side.
- Use explosives. Grenades, artillery and tank shells are the answer to a garrisoned building.
- Force movement. If you can make the squad leave cover, it has to cross open ground.
- Use vehicles as moving cover. A tank advancing with infantry gives the squad a wall that shoots back.
- Do not frontal-charge. The cover AI is the game’s headline feature; walking into it is playing to its strength.
Garrisoning buildings
Buildings are both cover and objectives. A garrisoned building:
- protects the squad inside;
- controls the streets around it;
- becomes a trap if the enemy brings explosives.
Clear buildings before you move past them. A squad you leave behind can re-take the street behind your army.
Cover and destruction
Buildings are destructible. That means cover is temporary:
- a building can be collapsed by fire;
- a wreck can be pushed or destroyed;
- a trench can be overrun.
The developer’s persistent-destruction system keeps craters and debris on the map, so the battlefield changes as the match goes on. Do not plan a defense around a building that is already half destroyed.
What we still need
- exact cover values;
- whether cover direction matters (front/side);
- whether suppression exists as a mechanic;
- how garrisoning works (how many soldiers, can they be flushed out);
- whether destructible cover can be repaired.
We will test these in the December 1 demo.