Nukes in TFA were game ending things with a binary counter system which could insta kill a com if it hit and would either way severely damage someone's eco; if the nuke failed then it would be the eco of the launcher that would get wasted, if it succeeded then the player on the receiving end would lose a whole ton of eco along with a whole ton of base. However, the days of T/FA are over and so should their nukes be. Halleys now take that place as the expensive items that can (or rather will soon) be easily countered and will wreck the eco of both the user and the receiver that one shot coms. This demands a change in nukes. For reference: Nuke stats: Nuclear Missile Launcher Nuke: Long range, large area damage, nuclear missile HP: 1500 Build cost: 5410 metal Recon: Vision radius: 100 Economy: Build rate: 45 Fabrication metal consumption: 45 / s Fabrication energy consumption: 2250 / s Energy consumption per metal: 50.0 Weapon: Range: 5000 Damage: 22000.0 DPS: 22000 damage every 1.00 seconds (1.0 shots per second) Splash: 11000 damage, radius 150 Muzzle velocity: 40.0 Metal cost: 32400 per shot Build time: 12:00 Built by: T2 Advanced Fabrication Bot (3:00) T2 Advanced Fab Aircraft (3:20) T2 Advanced Fabrication Vehicle (3:00) T2 Advanced Fabrication Ship (3:00) Standard nukes that are restricted to a single planet should have the function of being primarily defensive weapons used to take out armies but weak against bases. Their 11000 damage is simply too much for this and therefore should be reduced to a mere 1000 damage, enough to take out an army of levelers with ease or an area filled with T1 power gens. Armor values would also be used to make them effective against walls and T2 defenses (1 for walls, 2 for T2 defenses) along with one shotting vanguards (5000 damage dealt to a vanguard). The cost of a nuke would be reduced to 5000 to accommodate these changes. However, these would not invalidate armies due to another new unit: a T2 bot called the paladin. Costing 465 metal with a speed of 8 and with a firing rate of once every 6.5 seconds and only being capable of shooting at nukes, each shot one fires would reduce the damage upon impact by the nuke by 10% along with reducing the range by 10%. This would encourage setting up a network of teleporters and having a mobile force of paladins to dispatch at your base as needed along with bringing a few with your armies. This would encourage usage of many different forces in army composition: the attacker needs both T2 vehicles and this T2 bot, and the Defender needs both nucks and gunships/bombers to take out the paladins before striking with the nucks. Please note that this plan does have the anti nuke removed; if it was not removed it should cost roughly 4000 and fire missiles which reduce the effectiveness of a nuke by 33%. Interplanetary nukes should have the primary function of clearing a place for you to build a teleporter, a function shared with the unit cannon. As such, the interplanetary nukes should have a radius roughly equal to that of defense towers and do high blast damage yet they would not be usable from one area of a planet to the other and would be subjected to the same rules as nukes as far as paladins and anti nukes go. Their range would be 120, and their damage would be 4000, enough to take out a T2 defense tower. A metal cost of 26000 would be attached to them. It is my hope that with this nukes move away from the already occupied niche which they filled in T/FA into a new niche that encourages new play styles and increased unit composition variety. This will cut down on the prevalence of the fairly boring strategy of nuke spam immensely and allow for a far more varied amount of applications for them. Thoughts?
They're going to be pretty much completely re-doing nukes, so discussion on this should wait. We're going to have multiple nukes. Some will be single planet only. Some will be interplanetary – and they'll be able to reach all planets, not just ones that share a gravity well. There's also talk about multiple nuke launchers. Possibly even interplanetary nukes being fired from orbital nuke launchers. Btw. Calling them "nucks" is nails on a chalkboard to me. Don't know why it annoys me so much. Probably because the shorthand is pointless. "Nuke" is already shorthand for a "Nuclear Missile" and "nuck" isn't even shorter than "nuke." It's a pointless abbreviation.
This isn't a "Nukes are broken" thread, its a suggestion thread. The fact that they plan to make a second pass on nukes doesn't mean that we should hold fire on suggestions, if anything its the opposite. Now's the time to have creative discussions on how they should work. Who knows, perhaps one of these suggestions might help them.
Indeed. Nukes aren't broken, they're balanced perfectly fine. However, they're filling a niche which is already filled and have no place in the game in their current state.
Agreed. However, I'm not really a fan of the proposed suggestions here. Armour values are a reserve "break glass in case of emergency" feature, used only for edge cases. Nukes are not edge cases, they are a core mechanic. Extensive use of armour values is NOT what this kind of sub-genre is about. I'm also not too much of a fan of the "reduces damage by 10% per shot" feature. It makes no sense in terms of the actual mechanics of the interaction os a shot with a target, and it feels very arbitrary. I understand what you are trying to do in that the binary option of nuke explodes/does not explode would now have a spectrum of available damage. However this feels like an inelegant solution to the problem. Mobile anti-nuke is a good idea, but there is no need to add hidden damage multipliers as the lever to make it work. For my two cents, I would prefer a system based upon the proposed system in this thread, except expanded to include multiple types and effects of missiles. To summarise, Existing structures and units remain. a smaller lower-tech tactical nuke launcher is added. Mobile tactical nuke launching planes and submarines (still having to build the nuke). a gun based static defence which shoots down nukes, with limited success unless massed. a mobile variant of the previous defence Coupled with my own preferences of: A silly number of different missile types including but not limited to - EMP, napalm, radar jamming, fragmentation air-burst, scout vision, cluster missiles, mine droppers, nanite healing/building burst, crater punching/mesa removing, anti-satellite etc. Some sort of orbital defences, possibly including jamming/misdirection beams. A degree of smartness in how ABM silos and gun based defences engage missiles. However, this would be a LOT of work to implement, so I don't expect Uber would even contemplate thinking about starting to postulate about how one might hypothetically begin formulating a plan for potentially putting such thing in the game. Certainly not until release, and probably not even then. But I do have high hopes for modding.
My main issue with nuke launchers, is once you have them, the game just becomes a nuke flinging contest. *Cue yawns*. Its what everyone ends up doing in the games I've played, rather than trying to maneuver a large enough army into position to avoid main base defenses, people (and AIs) just spam nukes (because why try get some halleys down when you can nuke?). And its because they are relatively cheap way to inflict heaps of damage. Yes they are balanced. But one specific building that fires a missile with one specific building that can defend against them with a missile just isn't "fun" (read, challenging). Its almost a "click this button to win", because the only defense is to build more anti nukes, and counter with more of your own nukes, etc. I like the idea of dropping tactical nukes with (orbital?) bombers, subs, cruisers, some kind of reasonably tough unit that can be countered with quite a few normal units, that if you ignore would seriously ruin your day very quickly. A bit like an "experimental"
I have high hopes that uber can come up with a way to make nukes relevant to PA without keeping them as the end-game unit of choice. I almost never build an antinuke because it just isn't worth it to me. I can spam out two nukes in the time it takes him to spam out an antinuke and a nuke - and I can beat his ANuke with it. I'd like to see nuke defence become cheap enough that building it in your main base is cheap, but deliberate enough that you cannot spam it. In other words, nuking will become a strategic decision instead of one that is the equivalent of throwing an army at that one spot instantly. You will be more focused on having it just to hit that army or defensive line to clear the way for your army. THAT is something I would enjoy seeing.
Nucks.. sounds like some kinda cybran supper weapon, we should destory it. Also nukes are somewhat op but they are just that massive overpowered misslies ment to ask you "hey hows you anti-nuke doing? i would love to meet your eco!" anti nuke everywhere
nukes only end game??? what about the huge army of 4000 T2 attack bots led through a gate to the enemy. never had any problems with nukes, if u build anti nukes those already start with atleast 1 antinuke and i always build 2 besides each other. people tried to nuke me, but they failed and then thy saw my army. no problems with the nuked atm
Speaking of Cybran super-weapons... Due to the inefficiencies of anti-nukes, we might as well make them nuke-redirectors. Now, everyone will think twice before nuking the other guy without proper defences.
Eh, they are a straightforward option of their class. There are other options. Other structural yet diverse, artillery and catapults, which slowly eat away and require slow suffocation of an enemy. Actual units, mass t1 land armies or precise t2 army drops that tactically gut. Orbital weapons doing an unanticipated snipe. Halleys, which can be combined with nukes for a safe range, or can be used to clear a whole planet unavoidably. Air can still snipe with it's high one-target slugging power. Nukes are one of the most functional features in the game right now. I agree with a second pass on them, only because it can only get better. They work right now. Heck, I dislike teleporters right now, but I think teleporters are pretty power moves and like how they function so they also function and stand being left alone. If they add multiple nukes, increasing the cost of the "kill everything" one will be fair, because you could have one that swaves off an army but leaves buildings alive, possibly another one that has a really low AOE but the high nuke damage and pretty much used for sniping commanders.
Maybe the answer lies in anti-nukes, make them cheaper and faster to build (the missile not the launcher), so it becomes harder to spam nukes to kill your opponent. Once a antinuke is in place it should VERY hard to nuke it to oblivion. What a heck make the antinuke launcher more expensive to counter balance it. So now u have a extremely important tactical target. It stops the nuke palloza we have right now, and its becomes a really important structure to defend and take out. It will make nukes great against large armies and unprepared bases, but effectively countered by a single extremely effective structure, that has a huge bullseye in it.
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/assisting-nukes-anti-calmly.55158/ https://forums.uberent.com/threads/nukes-way-too-o-p.55142/ More discussion on the topic.
Just gonna bump this up as we haven't seen any change on nucks and discussion on them has stopped for whatever reason.
something that reminds me of nukes and missiles is rise of nations, and their solution to cheap rockets that were called V2 rockets (if i remember it right, correct me if im wrong) What they did was similar to nukes in PA, they fly across the map straight at the target, however V2 did a lot of damage to the target and a small amount of splash damage around it (which was almost inconsequential), the v2 rocket was meant to take out key targets like generals, supply units and other missile launchers and the sort. Now in Planetary Annihilation nukes are kind of like a total win/total lose scenario unit, where you are sending a nuke at the enemy base in hopes it will go off and not be taken out by an anti-nuke, your investment either pays off...big time because the AOE radius is just so freaking huge, or you loose out a lot. And from a tactical standpoint, its uninteresting. While rockets, (yes lets call em rockets in comparison to nukes) are more interesting. *what is he aiming for? why did he take out that target? what does he gain from taking it out?* because PA has a lot of strategic targets, such as holkins, catapults, T2 factories, orbital factories, Energy, portals, orbital lasers, astraeus, other missile launchers and did i mention, the commander? (oh sounds like catapults, but rockets hit much harder and have a much larger range, oh but thats not the point) TLDR It can fill that role for taking out long distance targets, and can be a less risky and more strategic option then a nuke, and can add options when building a nuke/ (or as i would like to name it) Missile Launcher and is more interesting from a strategic standpoint
What I find most interesting from this thread is the many different types of nukes thing. If anyone has played FTL, having nukes like bombs/missiles there would be pretty cool, and not too micro-intensive if we ever get the "orders as first class entities" thing. Something like: Repair Small area, high damage Wide area, low damage Stun (buildings/units only? movement only?) Lockdown (creates a circular? wall) Jamming/teleport disabling? Multi-shot / anti-nuke countermeasure? Anti-air/anti-orbital?
Something I saw in another game could fit nicely. Nukes have health values, and anti-nukes will repeatedly fire at nukes in range, dealing damage. Different nukes have different health values and also different evasion chances. For example: A cheap nuke meant for clearing units has 600 HP and 30% evasion. A regular anti-nuke turret deals 240 damage and has decent range. An expensive nuke meant for clearing bases or even entire continents has 1250 HP and 15% evasion. A heavy anti-nuke turret deals 525 damage and has low range. A plastic nuke meant for annihilating individual structures or very small groups of units has 120 HP and 65% evasion. A light anti-nuke turret deals 75 damage and has a high range. If that makes it too difficult to differentiate different nuke types and turret types, speed could also come into play. Perhaps the more damage a nuke deals, the slower it moves, and all planetary nukes have an incredibly slow speed when put into orbit. Maybe we could have a specialized orbital nuke that travels extremely quickly in space and moves slowly on a planet; it would travel from planet to planet quickly for fast strikes but wouldn't be able to be used on the planet it was launched from with any efficiency. If it came from the top-down, it would also have minimal distance to travel once it reached its destination planet.
Sorry the invasion bits are impossible because this game has simulated projectiles. Though if the weapon actually miss missed, it's projectile just didn't hit it, through weapon spread or shake or something. But factors that say "No it misses 10% of the time" can't be made and honestly... shouldn't. Though I actually do support your other ideas!
