Idea: Subterranean drill carrying nuke to planet core

Would be awesome to be able to build a giant drill that digs its way to the center of a planet and detonates a nuclear blast that totally destroys the planet.

Obviously this is an end game type of super weapon, and would probably take a lot of time and resources to complete.

Once completed, and the drilling has started making its way to the planet core, there would be no way of stopping it. But all players on the map are notified that a nuclear subterranean drill has been launched. It would take quite some for the drill to reach its destination. Giving players a little time to flee the planet, but the results are total planet destruction.

There are many tactics that I can see coming out of this super weapon. And it could definitely change the playing field use used well.

I can see players using this as a last resort, if they know they have lost a planet. Or maybe they start a small base on other side of another players planet, and try to build the drill in secret.

This idea has been talked about like 5 times already :lol:

But with different outcomes: tunnels, transport through the planet, bombs...

+1 to you

I like you name :mrgreen:

Yes there is. Crashing an asteroid into that planet before the drill reaches it's destination

Would be really cool! Indeed.. but I'm pretty sure Uber will come with more ways to destroy planets, not just hiting it with an asteroid.
Lets wait to see..

Srsly dude?

Where do they find these people?

I like the drill Idea but I don't like the fact you can't stop it. It should be a big drill that drills into the planet and takes a long time like 15min. The set up should be expensive but you get resources as you mine. Once you get to the core drop the nuke and get off the planet. The drill timer to the core should be viewable by all and no fog of war over the drill (If they have fog of war). If you blow up the drill the hole should collapse and you need to start over. Like?

Have a stealthy team land on an enemy production planet, drill to core, and all the mines and geological buildings on the planet blow up and damage stuff around them.

Here's where you lost me:

I would rather see the idea tweaked to behave the like the Novax in SC.

i.e. If you destroy the 'control centre' it grinds to a halt, maybe even detonates early, causing nuclear blow-back and cratering the area surrounding where it was built but not cracking the whole planet.

there should be a thread specifically for new planet destroying ideas :lol:

Such as:
Giant badass laser cannon on an artificial moon (totally my originial idea :lol: )
Crashing your own ships at high speed into a planet (transports?)
Orion drive (or maybe a planetary moving orion drive for funsies?)
Meganuke (essentially, a small asteroid sized nuke. That removes a planet from existance)
crazy fast replicating planet eaters (say you shoot a canister at a planet and it releases a dozen units that then start 'eating' the planet and replicating... and replicating... and replicating...)
little doctor (ender's game, anyone?)

(on an unrelated note, asteroid processing facilities would be kinda cool- you'd build it on an asteroid and it would grow and cover the whole asteroid- and then quickly consume it and build dozens to hundreds of units extremely rapidly- at the downside of destroying the asteroid. Or having a small asteroid processor that you drag little asteroids or move to them and then 'eat them' with the big processor that turns them into unit x)

While Planetary Annihilation was never intended to be a shining example of realism, I feel very strongly that planetary "tunnels" and "core-drills" really don't belong in the base game.

If you want to mod it in, or if someone else does... by all means. But, a big part of the appeal of Total Annihilation, and presumably Planetary Annihilation is realistic physics: projectile trajectories, gravity wells, etc.; Maybe the setting is a bit contrived, or maybe giant killing robots would never evolve in such a way, or whatever -- but the physics of the gameworld was always "plausible".

Planetary drills and core tunnels are based on physics from a different universe, and I really don't think that they belong in the base game.

lol

Maybe the ability to nudge the planet toward the sun (then let the sun's gravity do the rest) would be possible for stopping it too?

But yeah, destroying the world to prevent it from being destroyed another way is just plain a genius suggestions


As for whether or not I agree with this tunneling nuke...... I don't know. Too hard to say without anything to compare it too. It doesn't sound all that bad, and it's not unbalanced sounding, but...... I only see this being built if you are far behind, and in that case you probably can't afford the expense, and if you can, you can't get the units to defend the thing (if you CAN defend it, you obviously aren't all that far behind).

I get the feeling this would be an Uber weapon that nobody would bother building.

I'd rather see the core detonation cause a fracturing of the planetary surface and change the terrain around.

I suggested similar thing, but instead of nuke carrying device to destabilize inner molten core, thus causing massive rifs in magnetosphere, baking everything in the exposed area to crispy form. However, i cant imagine how big charge would be needed to tear planet from inside, i thnik it would requie insane force. Also add sphere shape, and you would need charge in the size of the core itself to crack the surface and force pieces of planet to escape from own gravity well.