Poll on ICBM/Tactical Nuke Idea

Anyone who's been around for a while will remember when nukes were applicable to more games. After the change that made nukes interplanetary, their cost was greatly increased to compensate for unlimited range. Why don't we just have two nuke types? ICBMs that have unlimited range and tactical nukes which simply have a long range? We can still have just one type of nuke launcher, but we'd have two build options. Alternatively, we can have two launcher types with the tactical nuke launcher/missiles being cheaper and so more easily popped up near an enemy base or target.

I'm sure this was brought up before, but I still think this is a valid option and I'm frankly a little confused as to why something that should be so simple hasn't happened, at least in a mod. What do you guys think?

This has been suggested multiple times by the community at large (myself included) and everyone seems to approve of it or other similar concepts such as smaller and cheaper nukes as well. Its just a matter of someone implementing it whether through modding or in vanilla.

I would love two missiles. I also think nuclear explosions should stick to the layer they hit. If they target the orbital layer, they should hit the orbital layer, if they target the ground layer, they should hit the ground/air/naval layer.

I'm pretty sure maver was talking about it ages back, but it got forgotten about.

@eratosthenes ICBM would technically be the smaller one, as it's an inter-continental ballistic missile, IPBM would be an inter-planetary ballistic missile.

Hah IPBM, I like that

Can we not just remove nukes and add actual asteroids? Would be a hell of a better mechanic than what is in the game currently.

Scale 50 moon, height range 100, require one halley.

Bada-bing-bada-boom, asteroid.

Im talking more along the lines of having a cluster of these things than smashing planet sized objects into other planets. I know you guys are all 'gungho' about that ability, but i think its kinda ****. Replacing the nuke with small asteroids that we attach an engine to is far more interesting than the current system of blowing planets apart with another planet. Im not after some 1 hit kill mechanism on an entire planet.

Its a similar situation to the wii, its great fun to do every now and again, but it certainly is not a mainstream console. Planetary smashing is on the same concept that its fun a few times, but that **** gets old fast.

But a very small moon only makes a "small" crater on a big planet and does not destroy everything at all. Total destruction only results from planets of equal size hitting each other. (And maybe from a big planet being thrown into small one, dunno)
I *think* it still is bigger than a nuke, but it's far away from being the whole planet. And imho an asteroid should be more destructive than a nuke for sure
Actually in the last exodus stream they had some game in the end where they played on a big planet that got hit regularly by some small moon, adding more and more craters to the big planet.

I agree we should see that more often, but I guess that's the same issue as with nukes: prices.
And in the case of planet smashing also all the orbital balance and ui issues.

Pretty sure you can make small moons look like asteroids a lot more with the new system editor possibilities as well.


I wonder if we could setup some form of balance mod that makes heavy small asteroid throwing a common element in 1vs1.
Just like nukes in the epic expansion balance. :/

Not-interplanetary nukes could be a bit speedier so they are better at hitting armies. Firing nukes at mobile units is fun.

As Cola said, AOE from a collision is determined by planet size, a size 50 asteroid would probably be around the size of a nuke actually.

Yeah, I was gonna say, it's been a long time since planet smash AOE was the entire planet... I'm pretty happy with the current mechanic personally... I just find it a little off that you can pretty much turn a moon into a nuke that is immune to anti-nukes for pretty much the same cost as a good-ol-fashoned nuke.

Actually half the cost.

Though to be fair you need to actually get their first, and establish a base there after.

Technically all you need is a transporter to shuttle units through, but yeah, I do appreciate the difficulty associated with actually getting to and hold the planet in question. I wouldn't argue for an increased Halley cost... just some form of decrease in nuke cost.

Edit: I'm retarded and referenced the thread I'm posting in. Haha! It's been a long day.