A question/suggestion for nuke silos and the way they react to damage.

The thought came to mind recently as I was playing and building a nuke in-game. I haven't seen anyone discussing this yet.

Simply, why do nuclear missile silos not explode with the same force of the missiles ordinance?

Admittedly, I am no nuclear engineer/physicist, but I've read about the designs of current/recent known nuclear bombs. Their reactions are catalyzed by internal compression caused by detonation materials, upon the bombs core which result in a fusion reaction. With this logic, assuming that in PA there is not a fail safe mechanism for their nukes to separate the isotopes of the core until the bomb is ready, shouldn't they explode with the force of a nuclear reaction if they are destroyed while in their missile silos if the design I explained is used? (Because the detonation material would be triggered)

Then if they should react this way, wouldn't it be agreeable that nukes are fragile, and should be in actual silos which are within the ground and which also have overhead blast doors? (Something like the model used for catapults.)

It would make sense anyway.

Interesting....... I think that would be a great addition. Would make nuke placement a very well thought out decision. I like it lets do it. Then the nuke turtles will pay dearly when I bomb their nukes.

Setting off a nuclear explosion is not that easy. Nukes don't go off just because you blow them up.

We know this as he said. Just a cool game element to add. After all there aren't just giant bipedal robots just walking around either.......

Which was addressed. Edit: (Let me rephrase that better; I did try to address that.)

Yes I like the idea of having to strategically place it. I think it's a fair trade-off for its use.

Not really. Getting the implosion to squeeze the material together requires a very carefully balanced set of explosions. Blowing it up in an attack would unbalance things and just end up spreading the nuclear fuel around.

But, honestly, the realism part is not that important for the game. Ignoring the realism stuff, to me seems like a cool idea for the game. Would it only blow up if there is a finished nuke in the silo?

That definitely makes sense. The detonation mechanism was described as delicate and precise. I just wanted to have a creditable basis behind my suggestion that's all.

Yeah realism aside, I was wondering whether they would explode only after they're completed or not too.. I imagine the fabs placing the nuclear materials into the finished missile so maybe only after it's done. Though, maybe the reason it takes them so long to produce could be that their fabrication liquid is actually the same material as the core; it's got that stereotypical green radioactive glow to it. Maybe they compress and condense it tightly into the missile to create a nuclear core, so it could explode at any time while it's being made! Heh. Idk, if it ever became a thing I would just leave it to an opinion poll.

I don't think that the silo exploding with the current radius of the nuke is a good idea, it would completely gut your base. I would like it if it did damage the things around it if it was destroyed though, so at least you have to think about where to put it if you're turtling.

Yea I could see a smaller radius to prevent overkill or making people not want to build nukes at all. Then again an intelligent player would create a small nuke only area......

but you'd have to limit it to a single nuke, because destroying one would destroy the rest. Chain reaction!

I think it gutting your base was the point.

I think he means more so that the damage done wouldn't properly represent the effort required to do it. IT takes far fewer bombers to kill 1 structure that explodes like a Nuck than it would take to kill the same number of structures with just bombers.

I'd also worry about the Meta game that might evolve from such a change. If Nuck silos explode and gut your base, you'd start building them outside your base, which only has the effect of making them MORE vulnerable.

Mike

I would be okay with nukes performing an explosion of half magnitude considering the internal compression fusion wouldn't be activated.

I mean, building a nuke is a big deal. I would like it if there was just a little more risk to it then simply, build enough defenses around it and you have a base/army/moon sniping mechanism.

I personally think the nuke does a little to much damage at the edge of its impact and needs a more gradual damage output radiating outward from the epicenter.

Yea less damage at the edges falls into a more realistic category.

" we are not shooting for realism ...."
".... we are shooting for gameplay first and foremost"

Volatility to buildings? ... i dont know that may brake basebuilding
in some way ... i personaly dont realy like it .... at worst it allows for chainreactionsnipes ...
also very newb unfriendly .... if you want to do big damage use YOUR weapons
Its penalizing enough to lose an big closebuilded weakly protected energyfarm by carpedbombing .. loosing it because you had a nukesilo closeby that caused a chainreaction is just ridiciulous ... and imo just asks for shields and more turtling ...

Volatility of buildings can be quite significant, especially for encouraging certain facilities to be spread to avoid chain explosions.

The issue is whether it improves nuke play to encourage players to spread launchers to avoid building death explosions. That would likely depend on a lot of factors, like how easy it is to snipe a silo. My first impression is that silo volatility wouldn't really contribute anything.

But by incorporating things like antinuke networks, missile limits per silo, stealthy silos, volatile energy generators, and otherwise making nuke silos less desirable to have in a base it would make nukes more of a liability and encourage remote placement. More numerous, cheaper, more remote silos and more variable nuke defense that depends on the nuke's trajectory would add up to a quite interesting dimension of nuke gameplay.

If you strap some C4 to a nuke and detonate the C4, the nuke won't detonate like a nuke.

I don't like this idea.

I never said gameplay wasn't first did I?????

It is not about what you didnt say
it is about what you say
and to me personaly "realism" is just not a good argument for this game
authenticity maybe but this also is quite blury here ..