Insta-Exploding nukes

10 seconds is not a long time?

An entire game can be decided in that time!

In StarCraft maybe, but I don't think it is the design goal of PA to have the battles be short and quick. 10 seconds in a PA game is not a long time.

I hope so, because even in SupCom 10 seconds is a rather long time.

I am merely basing my statement on Jon Mavor's statement about games being able to last up to 40 hours. Out of 40 hours, 10 seconds is not really a long time.

How long will it take on average for a bomber to fly from your base to mine?

If its under a few minutes then 10 seconds will be long a long time.

If your base got nuked and the enemy has air supremacy and has bombers that can hurt you seriously, you probably did something wrong and deserve to suffer from your mistakes. A nuke isn't a over-sized artillery grenade which impact allows you to carry on as if nothing happened, it's a nuke. And it should behave like a nuke.

My argument was that relative to situation you described there is very little that you can do in that immediate area within to seconds of the blast that would change anything strategically.

(btw, strat map still worked fine)

Considering the radius and damage it doesn't, but not to the point of fancy special effects, and a annoying lingering effect.

The point of the travel time was to show how long 10 seconds really is, and if you can't see what you need to rebuild then you are simply slowed because of an effect.

Something that shouldn't affect gameplay.

And In the end, it is just a big grenade.

I really hope they embellish the scale and effect of the nuke detonation. I'd love to see the expanding wall of shockwave rippling through the base throwing debris around. And the atmospheric effects of an actual explosion were usually stellar.

This might be a cool area to make cosmetic mods for

Better point is if you just got nuked, there's next to nothing you can do within 10 seconds to save anything else. 10 seconds in supcom is really not a long time, especially that late in a game. Sure bombers could cross the map in around 30 seconds and drop their bombs and be the game could be over. But 10 seconds normally won't save you from that after a nuke lands. Yes a lot of things COULD happen in 10 seconds. But after a nuke none of those things would matter all that much. Plus its not like the enemy can see through that nuke cloud either.

Have you seen explosions in RL? Particularly huge ones? Debris and smoke and junk goes everywhere. You don't just see it and then its gone. It lingers and causes problems if anything needs to get done in that area.

Take a look at these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4WuFU6XV_o

Why should it not affect gameplay? I mean the designers obviously built it to have shock and awe and gameplay affecting effects. That wasn't some accident or glitch in the code that created a huge mushroom cloud and low visibility.

Your a robot, why should smoke obscure you view?

How should you? EMP, radiation and heat would make all electro-optical devices useless for a while. But I think this is going somewhat to far to realism.
I want nukes to be awesome and a nuke without the mushroom-cloud isn't a awesome nuke (at least in atmosphere).

Well regular optics would be obscured for the same reasons we can't through smoke with our eyes. Infrared wouldn't be useless until the explosions heat dissipated, Laser Range Finders would have issue with the huge amount of dust, Seismic sensors, if not damaged by the blast might work, but there could be a lot of falling debris that could mask anything, X-rays don't work that way.....

Hey igncom1, maybe your should come up with some supporting points of your own instead of just trying to cockblock everyone else and drag things out for no reason.

Mike

I have, try reading the tread.

There is no need for the cloud at all, and any reason to bother including it is just for looks.

If you think I am 'Cockblocking' then you must feel that I am correct, TA didn't have it, and didn't need it.

So tell me why its even important?

I'm in the exact opposite opinion of OP.

Dust should stay for minutes if not hours in the atmosphere. It should decrease Line of Sight, radar range and mess with targeting.
As the battle ravages the planets get covered in dust making close quarter combat inevitable where powerful shortranged units become prevalent.

More strategy I say.
To much computation you say?
Don't you want it gritty and dirty?
We can do it!

The reason for the cloud would be that a NUKE makes a cloud. Its that simple.

In supcom: If you want less effects so you can concentrate on the game, just turn the cartographic option on in the map option > main view.

Let me show you.
Heres your annoyance: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/577 ... CC214619B/

Heres your salvation: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/57784 ... 9B675EC4D/

Heres the result: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/57784 ... 762192E3B/


As long as they add a simular option in PA you have no reason to complain. The pics are even early in the nuke animation, you do get a flash and some bright light in the cartographic view, but you can see what your doing and no smoke.

Its the year 40somethingsomething...EMPs and nukes no longer effect robotic devices indirectly, due to optronic circuitry, complex molecular motors with chemical power supplies and quantum synchronistic communication. But a nuke will still melt anything nearby into a puddle of titanium/carbon, and vaporise whatever it lands on (possible effects for unit destruction). It's still going to block visibility on the useable part of the spectrum, so while you might know where your units are, the enemy could sneak in under the cloud.

Now, I dislike screen blocking stuff so I do not like blocking the GUI with a nuke cloud. And yes, when I play SupCom, I play exclusively in cartographic, even in the early non-laggy part of the game.

By all means, show me the flash. I want to know a nuke landed. But it should not obscure information (cartographic supcom nukes still obscure the land contours). I would settle for a single bright flare that lasts for ~1s, with a tiny bright spot to denote the ground zero.

You can have a fancy graphic mode that shows you the giant mushroom cloud if you want, I just want a mode that doesn't interrupt the flow.

That said, I won't complain if there are in-game effects. By all means, if you want nukes to reduce unit LOS in the area for some time? Sure!
It is an interesting mechanic, to have smoke clouds and perhaps smoke canister artillery?

But show it in the LOS view. Those bright areas that are your LOS areas? Take them away, make it dark like the fog of war. Don't block the screen. It tells the player where his LOS has been restricted, clearly and unambigiously. That, I don't mind.

Radar block? Same! Draw the radar boundary around the nuke zone to show where your radar stops!

I know, but wouldn't this be better if it were automatic for any unit of yours that is obscured by things like the mushroom cloud?

Most of us want graphics and effects, that includes the mushroom cloud.