Mobile Anti-Nuke Unit

I couldn't find this in older threads. Any thoughts on mobile anti-nuke unit?

Late games in SupCom / FA pretty much eliminated ground warfare - since there was nothing you could do to stop someone dropping "the bomb" on your massive attack force.

There were stealth units, but with Omni radar that was also a useless defense against a large nuke arsenal.

...it might have been my tactics - i.e. i should have split my force into multiple groups?
Dunno

They would have to balance them out with the stationary anti nuke.

TA had mobile anti nukes, and to quote directly from the unit guide on TAU:

ANTI NUKE SILO (Protector / Fortitude) - These are your bog-standard defence versus nukes. The ARM version is generally effective – though vulnerable to bombing raids. The CORE version is bugged, and will often not fire any more than one missile. Since both ARM & CORE can build mobile anti nuke launchers – (which can avoid bombing raids much easier, and also patrol a larger area) then the static structures really shouldn’t be needed. *


So there would have to be some advantage to building a stationary unit, so that everyone didn't just use mobiles all the time. As a general idea though, I like mobile anti nukes.

Mobile anti-nuke wasn't in vanilla TA as far as I am aware.

hmm i liked how Zero-k has ships that could launch anti-nukes, i imagine TA can do the same with 1 or 2 of its naval units, as for land i would imagine it would be a slow behemoth that would seriously restrict the speed your army can go, and be fairly snipeable, without being weak (in a sense that it is a sitting duck with a neon bullseye with no weapons but has a ton of armor) so you can defend it, and it can take a hit, but if you don't your screwed. stationary anti-nuke should have the benefit of greater range and possibly come armed but i would suggest they check the balance of nukes in the beta and determine if anti-nukes will need more carrot or stick.

perhaps their could be a airborne or orbital anti-nuke, most likely weak to good AA though (more so than normal aircraft its size).

If you have your army sitting around, and continue to let them do so after you get the Nuke Audio cue what do you expect?

We've talked about Mobile SMD unit for BlackOps before, and it just never happened because it was such a tiny tiny niche. Regular SMD could do all the same things for what prolly would have been less cost overall.

Mike

TA had mobile anti-nukes in the form of the Hedgehog [for ARM] and the Scarab [for CORE] and I believe they came in the 3.1 patch [if thats what it was].

Because of OP T4s and no mobile ground counter to high Tier Air units.

There was no point in producing land units on large maps. Clumsy, slow and weak against Air raids.

Nukes had nothing to do with it.

For anyone familiar with SupCom2, could totally put in a mobile Boomerang.

Trolololol

Yip, true for that particular game. But can we assume that PA will be slightly more balanced when it comes to air / ground in late games? -- then does there need to be some kind of mobile defense for nukes?

Pure speculation at this point as we don't have information on the units. But i'm hoping that ground warfare is prominent in late game. Not just a Artil / Nuke slug match.

Ground units were also pitifully slow, such that they had to immediately respond to a nuke or get blown up.

Faster ground units fix this problem, since running away from ground zero effectively dodges the nuke. If ground zero is a bit more obvious, all the better.

Ground units(in Supcom) weren't anywhere near that slow and Nuke travel time was entirely Dependant on distance, if you couldn't outrun a lunched Nuke, it's because you were in visual range of the launcher.

Mike

Mobile anti-nuke unit could only destroy nukes, no way to shoot at incoming asteroid. Stationary anti-nuke could destroy both and have greater range.

@Mike, its more about possibility of using such unit, not about frequency of using it. More possibilities, more strategies, tactics.

Just because it's an option doesn't mean it should be included, if it's only useful in a tiny number of circumstances is it worth the clutter and Dev time?

Mike

In FA yes, in vanilla SupCom gunships were exceptionally weak vs Cybran Hoplites... one more for the imbalance.

Nukes are bested by anti nukes, asteroids pummel down anti nukes, and nukes blow asteroids to bits. The cycle is complete.

Nukes are a lot of fun. They kill bases, Commanders, silly armies, and maybe even small worlds. You can never go wrong with more nukes.

Anti nukes are a bit... lame. Their purpose is to stop the fun of nukes, but they don't add anything beyond that. Perhaps that can be fixed?

An anti-nuke is basically a weapon. That weapon is built to have amazing seeking ability and has enough punch to not just 1-shot a nuke, but to absorb or prevent the blast. Doesn't that sound pretty lethal?

Perhaps such a weapon is not entirely conventional. It might use some [technobabble] to cause its target to simply vanish, or at least not explode. It could be useful in base captures, by taking down high explosive targets that might otherwise destroy valuable wreckage. I dunno. Anyway, it's just an idea.

I do not like the idea of mobile anti nuke facilities, mostly because it trumps the purpose of a stationary one. I think such a device should be single-shot at best, leaving the unit useless or destroyed afterward.

If you want a "fun" version of the anti-nuke, try a scrambling system that redirects the nuke as it's coming in. Redirect it anywhere you like. Of course, if you aim for another place with a scrambling system, it'll just come back. No resource cost, so it could bounce between two spots indefinately, at least until someone points it at a new destination. Or you suddenly see someone blow up your scrambler.

Vanish machine (aka anti-nuke) sounds like awesome idea. It have rather small radius, can be enabled for how long you have energy, and cost of use is massive. That wont work for asteroid (there wont be land under vanished base anymore). Useful for saving important parts of base, and awesome.

Just make all nukes travel on same orbit height and make them collide with each other. So you would be able to shoot nuke with nuke, by your superior calculation and lightning reflexes. THAT would awesome! If it will ever happen, that is

yea...no

A nuke can be safely intercepted because it takes an incredibly precise, well-timed explosion to set off. hitting a nuclear missile with a missile would do nothing but create a small explosion from the actual impact and the explosives in the nuke.


Also, anti-nukes do not have the expensive part(the nukes) , but do require a far more advanced type of missile and guidance.

This obviously raises the question why one would not go for the cheap option and use a laser....

The truth is: once the tech is there, it's fairly easy to stop a nuke.