Missile Launcher Payloads

Many people share the opinion that nuke play is currently a dull and binary engagement. This is an important issue as nukes have such a heavy role in the game. This discussion is about the proposition to add various payloads each with a unique function leading to a tactically deeper game.

Nuke
Standard explosion

• High damage
• Medium radius
• High cost

Big boom. Big damage

EMP
Disables all structures and units within the shock wave

• No damage
• Medium radius
• Medium cost

The shock without the awe

Cluster Concussion Missile
Breaks apart above the targeted area before it can be hit by an anti nuke and splits into several smaller concision bombs that deal low damage and draw anti-nuke fire

• Low damage
• Large radius
• Medium cost

Strength in numbers

Plasma Missile
Deals medium initial damage then constant damage in an medium radius acting as a way to restrict an area for the duration of the effect

• Medium damage
• Medium radius
• High cost

Leaves a lingering burning sensation

Foreseeable problems
Anti-nukes may need to be revised due to the cost being based on the cost of the nuclear launcher and missile.

Feel free to provide constructive criticism and contribute missile concepts.

Why would you use EMP when you can destroy everything with a standard nuke? ( I suggest a low cost - maybe a fifth of what a standard nuke costs) I do like the idea of the plasma missile though. You can lock-down an area or chokepoint when invading, so your units can land safely, as the enemy is being burnt hehe.

I like the cluster idea implemented like this:

• Not counterable by an anti-nuke
• Does 1000 damage at the epicentre of each bomb, the desired effect being that some percentage of tier 1 structures within the area are destroyed
• Costs half as much as a nuke
• The nuke launcher is reasonably expensive (not the 5k from the old patch, more like the 20k from the pte), to make cluster snipes not viable
• Terrestrial only, or at most only within the same gravity well

So bugger all damage at high cost, but guaranteed. Nice to soften something up like defenses, when used in tandem with units.

It's a bomb/missile and a weapon of mass destruction. What do people expect it to do? Dance and write poems? You make a nuke to **** **** up. You make several to really leave a mark. I can't see the reason behind having multiple missiles. If I wanted anything else I would rather have it in a form of a specialized advanced (T2) unit and leave the nukes alone.

I could see a problem with them not being counterable by an anti nuke, anything that does that much damage should not be guaranteed.

very good ideas! i agree

I don't know, what I'm thinking of doesn't do that much damage. If pgens covered the entire area, most would survive and the rest would have varying degrees of damage, maybe none at all. By metal cost versus metal destroyed it would be very ineffective, but to create a window of opportunity it could be valuable. It could also be used to soften up an opponents ground force, possibly good as a defensive nuke or to make confrontations favourable.

To add to that list:

MIRV Nuke
Multiple nukes

• Breaks into 5 nuclear warheads and spreads around the area
  
• Devastating radius
  
• Tremendous cost (like, seriously half a million metal or something insane like that)

have to aggree this suggestion seems to be pure for varieties sake then actualy solving the actual issue people have with it ..

i don´t see cluster missiles or mirv be of any real help but to just overwhelm nukedefenses which you could do by simply sending more nukes anyway ... people say they DON`T want a misslecommand into PA but but adding more to nukes just makes it that ... ...
poeple should not have the incentive (other then be realy hardpressed to blow up stuff when there is no other way) to use spam nukes from the beginning but less ...
but adding more nukeversions does exacttly that making nukes more available makes exactly that ... at least imho
i rather say (if it is the case, didn´t play for a long time) nerv the dmg somewhat and keep the cost high and (even though i personaly don´t like it but understand why) take the possibility to support the nukelauncher with fabbers away (or keep it but have something ...) for it to take some significant minimum builttime like say 4 to 7 minutes per nuke or something allong those lines ...
nukes are powerfull but nukes also are oneoff weapons, once one launches it either hits or misses and that miss needs to be felt ... a nuke must have a significant ammount of cost in resources and time FELT to it ...
one thing i imagine though is that nukes might be less common in matches with less ressources
having 5 planets but still only like say 80 metalspots for 3 or 4 players may lead to less nukeplay and more use of actual units ..
so that´s minimum 2 options how to deal with nukes ... either make the nuke more time and resourceconsuming for it´s high damage or limit the resources available ...

Recon Nuke:

• Does no damage
• Gives vision along it's flight path
• Low cost

To help recon a seriously turtled enemy where radar sats and recon flights are useless.

The problem isn't so much that nuke play has a lack of weapon options. The problem is more focused on the lack of defensive options. There are two options to counter a missile: Have an anti missile, or kill the launcher. Failing either of these two conditions results in getting nuked for full damage. That is why it is binary.

This is called a firefly.

A lot of those nuke options can be integrated as parts of other weapon systems.

The most unique part of a nuke is its ability to destroy terrain. That is the part you want to keep.

The only difference being fireflys aren't countered by an expensive anti-nuke (Haha, I suppose it'd double as a decoy nuke)

Why is that important? Anti nukes shouldn't be shooting down cameras to begin with.

I never said it should be in the game, only defending his point, because what he described was not an air scout.

This would imply insta-kill nukes, since you can't have floating units/structures - anything in the destroyed terrain area would need to be killed outright, regardless of HP.

Uber has said we're gonna get a bunch of different nukes.

Whether that means different payload types, or simply different damage/range/cost, we don't know yet. That would be my guess.

I agree that nukes are pretty binary. But the reason they're binary isn't because of the explosion type, but because with nukes you either have an anti-nuke, or you don't. With say... air units. You can have fighters, missile defense towers, narhwals, stingers, and (eventually) advanced ground aa units. Multiple counter options. With nukes... you have it or you don't.

That being said, multiple payload options would be pretty awesome.

Thank you for contributing towards the discussion. Since there has been some interest shown in towards this suggestion I will explain my initial thoughts on the balancing and the intended uses of each missile.

Nuke
The generic missile good at everything and extremely powerful but with a price to match.

EMP
This missile is more specialised and will require some thought to use effectively. Being cheaper that the nuke if you notice your opponent building a nuke you can produce this missile quicker thus allowing you to move in and destroy the opponent's nuke virtually unopposed. Disabling someones economy and production for the duration can be almost as effective as destroying the infrastructure outright.

Cluster Concussion Missile
This missiles role differs from the others substantially as it serves a role in utility rather than a purely offensive threat. The main two uses would be destroying all of the opponents weaker structures and units ( AA units, fabbers etc.) within a large area. The second use would be depleting the opponents anti-nuke reserves in a cost effective manner as a single cluster missile separates into many smaller explosives each targeted by anti-nukes.

Plasma Missile
The role of the plasma missile is primarily area denial both in an offensively and defensively.
Launching this missile at an opponent's base not only will it destroy the structures but will restrict the area from being built on for the duration of the effect. This is balanced by the lower initial damage not immediately destroying the opponent's energy allowing them to start producing more power or try to extend the life of the structures using air fabricators. The defensive use of locking down chokepoints is exactly what I intended.

we could have a nuke jammer structure that stops a nuke from detonating within its small aoe but it wont stop an emp missile from detonating

Yeah, that would be pretty dangerous. It's not as though that's very different from the current nuke implementation, and the crater doesn't have to be that big. The dangerous part of a nuke is their limited interactions/counters, and that has nothing to do with the payload.

Not really. Nukes have to be given manual orders by default, which means the more focus you place into them, the less focus you have on the parts of the game that matter (gratuitous robot battles). If something else can take a feature, it is FAR better to diversify the rest of the game rather than throw everything into a single weapon type. (Never mind the fact that nukes are a weapon type devoted entirely to idle base growth.)

Nukes should come in and do the things that only nukes can do. They are shiny and nice but are not a core feature demanding a lot of game focus.

QFT ...