Insta-Exploding nukes

That's fine, but not in a way that block your view.

That's why I suggest you get the effect of the cartographic map when effects block what you should be able to see.

You get your effects, I can see what I am doing.

No if i can see trough the smoke then im not getting the effects, just some shallow replacement. I wouldent mind if the tone down the smoke and stuff alittle but i wouldent want it removed or cheapened by a see trough effect. You dont get nuked often (if you do get nuked often then you have allredy lost) so i fail to see why they would make their impact any less.

But were getting ahead of ourselves, we have no idea how the PA nuke will look.

The overall point is that nukes should be as flashy as they were in SC1.

Looking good is nice, but not if it steps beyond its purpose, its a base destroying weapon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q39MgHKE6o

*The music is very loud headphone users, be warned.

Are you kidding? I want the nuke to be a nuke. It's way more advanced in SupCom than it was in TA. The feeling of epicness is very important, and TA's nukes didn't cut that.

That's fine, but please understand my point.

Effects shouldn't get in the way of gameplay, otherwise it suffers.

igncom1 has a point.

Either the nuclear explosion is meant to hide los and radar, in which case los and radar representations should show that, or it's not and the flash and cloud shouldn't prevent the player to see what's happening. Particularly as if it's like in SC1, some stuff do tend to survive direct nuclear explosions.

It's not saying that nuclear explosions shouldn't look like actual nuclear explosions, or even stylized ones to be on par with the general aesthetics of the game. Honestly, I personally find the old TA nuke effect quite lame, even for the time (the explosion could simply have been at least a bit like a mushroom and stay a second longer).
But no fancy graphical effect should ever hide to players informations they are meant to see.

Effects that are meant to get in the way should get in the way.

What makes you belive that your meant to see trough a nuke explosion? Thats just silly.

Because its purpose is not to do that, a device that is designed to do so is fine, hell I even encourage it.

But nukes in this way are not supposed to do that, and shouldn't.

If nukes were supposed to do this, and had it in their description then it would be fine.

The description says NUKE dosent it? A nuke makes a cloud, its a side effect of their function yes, but its still a part of what a nuke is.

A real nuke yes, but from a gameplay standpoint no.

Sigh, i guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

But im gonna be realy mad at you if they read this thread and decide to gimp the awsome visuals of the nukes. :roll:

Why can't we have both?

What's wrong with wanting graphical effects and gameplay effects to be coherent? That's UI 101.
If you can't see through the gameplay effect, then it should be outside of the units LoS and radar.
If you have Los or radar on a zone, you should be able to see what is detected and act as such, despite any graphical stuff.

The simple solution is obviously to make the nuke impact block everyone's LoS and radar, then let the tall mushroom become half transparent as in SupCom, to let you actually see what happens even if it happens to be a nearby mushroom cloud between you and the unit.


Though, note that a way to see terrain despite graphical effects would have one big use, apart from the rare case of nukes : water.
One reason why there is so often little variety in underwater stuff is that you can't really see what happens under sea level. What good would be to give a whole array of weapons to submarines? You would barely see them anyway. At least torpedoes are easy to see, they're like tiny submarines. What good would it be to have sea-crawling units, you can't see underwater terrain anyway, and cliffs and such are too hard to notice.

One solution would be to have, as an option, all water effects turned off around any underwater units, projectiles and effects on the screen, maybe in addition to around the cursor. It would work well enough for mushrooms, too.
For those not wanting this option, they would be able to play with the icons anyway, but many people would appreciate the increased readability/more visible graphical stuff.

A temporary jamming effect from a nuke would be really neat. They are EMP weapons, creating a 5-10 second long period of jamming that eliminates radar coverage and line-of-sight would be interesting, and with teleporting, also potentially a fun way to make your entrance.

If that's the point of the weapon then that makes sense, otherwise it won't.

You know what I dislike about SupCom nukes?


Nothing.


It's a nuke. It does exactly what it is supposed to do.
Can't see through the smoke? You should be happy you're still alive!

Think from the attackers standpoint. The dust cloud provides some time to start an assault with ground units or whatnot. The defender should be left in the dark for a bit because he just let a nuke land in his base.

Action and consequence.


A weapon that wipes a base away instantly and leaves no trace is not a nuke, it's something else.

Damn you're argumentative igncom, do you have to reply to every single post in the thread? You just keep repeating yourself, we know your position, let other people have their say without getting lynched by you.

I agree with Thorneel. Add some more gameplay effects from a nuclear explosions.
I think some weapons would even be able to knock out communication so you can't order the unit until it recovered for example.

But he hasn't replied to my post. Oh... why? WHY?

I would agree, I don't think there is anything wrong with a nuclear warhead obscuring visibility for a period of time. They are expensive to build, and can be countered with anti nukes.

The punishment the player gets for getting hit with one is reduced operational capacity within range of the explosion. Which is also the reward the attacker gets for successfully hitting their enemy with a nuke. There are plenty of reasons why this makes sense, but they have been mentioned above by others. I think Nukes are fine the way they have been depicted in SupCom.

So that's the punishment for getting hit....other then the explosion?

Then why not include it in other weapons? Why should the nuke be special?
By function nukes destroy bases, and have an appropriate counter to them. Simples.
Why do they need to function like a completely new weapon? Because of realism?

The setting essentially means that that doesn't mean anything, so how is it a point to keep it? Essentially real world comparisons are not an arguing point, otherwise the whole setting can be unraveled.

As for an alternative weapon or device, these ideas are great but go beyond the function of the nuclear weapon.

And are, as stated a further kick when the weapon has already detonated, and without shields to magically adsorb some the blast like in SC the nuke will be more effective then ever.