For anyone that has previously played TBS games, the full and half cover icons for cover give a false impression that they will provide 50% and 100% respectively cover to any solider hiding behind that cover.
This is not the case in PP, to which it might be better to remove those icons from cover entirely, and let the player determine for themselves how effective cover might be.
Yes and no.
The cover in PP works different, but High Cover and Low Cover do exist and need specific indications:
Can anyone remember if the difference is explained in the tutorial or anywhere?
The side step is in the tutorial, and works only with aiming, but it became wrong, there isnāt only side step. If the cover is higher then side step if the cover allows it and for some weapons, no side step.
Cover are also about soldier position, high means stand up, low means crouch.
There are a lot of things that āappear|ā would cover but arenāt. So we do need the shield iconā¦ My issue is that it is missing after one moves to cover. I miss not having an indicator after moving into position, since itās hard to tell what is and isnāt cover. Next turn, I donāt know if they have cover or not in most cases.
I have suggested before to replace cover signs and replace them with crouching/standing icon - to indicate soldiers behaviour, rather then tie it to a well established system of FiraXCOMs which doesnāt apply here.
For me shield is more easy to distinguish than different human silhuettes. Players from FiraXCOM need to adapt. 
But well there could be one shield and two shield for low and high cover. Or buckler and kite shields. 
The problem with shield and half shield is that it implies that shield cover is going to be superior - which is not true.
Yes but itās not an instant knowledge either, and itās even not that simple. On start thereās plenty differences with a shooter using a cover system.
But ok perhaps a wall icon vertical for high cover, horizontal for low cover, would fit better and should be very visible.
I donāt think so. If icon would be a bunker then yes, it could imply that it gives superior protection.
silhouette
I have always used āaiming anglesā second wave option in FiraXcom/longWar. So I donāt see a problem with this representation.
True that a tree is not āsquareā like in Xcom, but you quickly understand that getting out of LoS is the real cover.
They reused the icons from FiraXcom, but as @Lorifel wrote it is more about the stance that the soldier will take to lower his visibility.
If you go into a restaurant and you see a dish named āhalf a chickenā and the next dish is called āa full chickenā you know which of those two dishes is going to give you more meat.
The issue Iāve had with cover is that half cover more often than not was more effective than full cover. Full cover the soldier still stands on the middle of his square, making no practical use of the cover. This had often resulted in those with any angle being able to still get clean shots.
At least when they were crouching their entire silhouette was smaller, making it more effective against all but directly perpendicular angles.
What Iād really like to see is a mechanic where the soldier makes better use of whatever their cover is; lean against the wall, stand side on to the tree, or whatever it may be. Personally Iām not military, but Iām sure there are real guidelines out there that could be adapted for use of cover which would make the game better.
Second to that point - if a square has multiple points of cover, when moving click and drag to select which piece of cover is going to be utilized, or some other mechanism like a button to swap between them (as a free action). Currently it defaults to the full cover, which isnāt always what youāre after.
This should do the trick and make a very clear small icon of each would be easy.
+1
Select the viewing side as left or right.