Mobile Anti-Nuke Unit

Pffffft. Gameplay > realism. There's nothing stopping a nuke from detonating prematurely, or using a payload more difficult to catch (like cluster bombs or antimatter). The point is that anti-nukes are a singular purpose weapon, one that is 100% useless if nukes don't hit the field. They can be given more power and functionality for their buck.

The obvious answer is that nukes use anti-interceptium, a special and expensive piece of equipment that is very useful for getting giant explosions to their target, but not much else.

I don't like the idea of having a weapon which is basically unstoppable, I mean other than a giant asteroid on a collision course, and even then the kickstarter vid suggested you'd have even a limited ability to mitigate the effect by targeting it with weapons.

If nukes have no appreciable countermeasure then how do you deal with players in those suggested 40 player 12-24 hour matches where you basically annihilate everyone on your planet before going off to take care of the victors on the other 5 planets?

You'd spend most of your time killing your local opponents then it would be a space race to get a handful of nukes in range of enemy planets. Unstoppable nukes sounds like some boring imbalanced end game. If all it takes is to get nukes then it becomes an awfully spammy and boring strategic picture once you get past the tech tier limitations.

End game strategy has to be if anything more exciting than early game or else what reward is there for lasting 12 hours? I don't care how good explosions look, we always get tired of them. The deeper knowledge that you out witted someone in a complex end game strategy is a far more delicious reward AND it'll probably include just as many explosions.

pfunk, no one is saying there shouldn't be Anti-Nucks, rather that MOBILE Anti-Nucks are redundant with a Structure based Anti-Nuck.

Mike

Indeed, missile technology in SupCom was specifically for anti-base duty.

While you can and did take out mobile forces with these missiles, they are not designed to target these, and can be eaisly avoided.

I thought that was basically what bobucles was saying, I guess I misinterpreted the extreme to which he was arguing.

With regards to mobile ones versus static ones, I think that the simplest idea is that static are just more potent whereas mobile has a lower quality of deterrent quality. The existing balance between real world anti-air weapons seems an apt example, mainly that a MANPAD is a potent weapon if someone walks in range of it, but when you want to properly defend an area a fixed mounted system with a much higher range is preferable.

Also, mobile anti-nuke might be the only practical means to hold off an immediate nuclear attack if you're for instance trying to land on an enemy held planet in a much later stage of the game.

There are aspects of TA and SupCom which never really had to face things like movement into and out of an entire theatre (see planet). Its one thing to say that if you can't move your forces before a nuke hits then you deserve it, its quite another thing to face a similar problem but when trying to a hold a beach head or... what do you call a planetary invasion point?.. a planet head?

Question I guess with regards to that is, are we really going to be invading other planets by late late game or are we just going to be purely annihilating, or do we want it to be a question of trying to invade versus flat destroy as a comparison between deciding if you want to just try and end a certain player's game versus trying to take resources from him for another stage of battle against another as yet undefeated player? Could taking the harder road of capturing a planet be for instance a decisive element in ending that 12 hour battle by having taken deliberately more resources whereas your opponent merely annihilated and as such perhaps has a more fragile economy?

I think maybe the scope of the game could change how we look at more traditional unit doctrines and usefulness.

Even then units are still mobile and planets are/can be pretty big, so the idea that without Anti-Nuck you'd be screwed doesn't quite pan out as far as we know. Now if you're trying to set up a base, well Anti-Nuck should be pretty high on the priority list for that new base no?

The thing about using Asteroids as KEWs is they aren't aren't cheap. you have an Asteroid with some resources on it, then you spend what we can safely assume is a fairly large chunk of resources to equip said Asteroid with Engines, then you drive the Asteroid, with it's resources and Expensive Engines, into a Planet, potentially removing the planet's resources from the game as well.

KEWs certainly are useful, but they are also wasteful, and I'm hoping smart choices regarding when to use KEWs will be prevalent in the gameplay.

Mike

Well thats my point though right? If you're attacking someone with pretty hefty nuclear capability and you want to build a proper base from which to invade rather than just land troops to do a raid or something having immediate anti-nuke capability, however degraded via unit quality ie. mobile versus static, then it could be pretty frustrating to have to play cat and mouse on the base building part. An invasion is inherently fragile if you have no local infrastructure. Its of course highly subjective to the nature of how everything is balanced.

This conversation I guess is gonna have to stay on hold til an actual gameplay model is in demonstrable effect. Its impossible to discuss the balance without even knowing how expensive or how long it would take to build a basic anti-nuke site.

I agree with that. Of course we have to balance that expectation with the other one of how this game was basically sold as an awesome explosion game so how much do people really expect to be able to blow up planets?

It would be really nice if trying to turn an asteroid into a doomsday weapon as a crippling economic project that was like "if this fails, then I'm gonna come up short on my ability to fight against this guy for a while".

I trust in Uber to put Gameplay first.

Mike

You'll find no argument from me on that one.

Totally agree. How could you invade another planet if as soon as you touch down you get nuked. There has to be some kind of defense to allow an invasion force a landing opportunity.

I guess it doesnt HAVE to be a unit, could you quickly build / drop a static anti-nuke building at the LZ?

The re-direct unit is an interesting idea, might add too much randomness to play?

My opinion would be the duel use of jamming technology to hide your presence until you have build up a stanch of factory's to begin the planetary war, and possibly the use of satellite emp weapons to bombard enemy bases until they deploy anti-satellite weapons.

lynxnz, no one is saying there shouldn't be Anti-Nuck at all, the discussion is whether there should be a Mobile version(with the assumption there is already a Stationary Structure version) nad as far as landing on planets, as said if you've just landed with units you shouldn't have any problems dodging Nucks, and if you're trying to establish a base, well the Anti-Nuck Structure would be a high priority and there are (or should be) other tools like jamming and Stealth to aid in the process.

Mike

Well that's the thing. A mobile anti nuke would be extremely helpful with protecting a new beachhead. For this purpose a 1-shot device is all you need. A handful of antinukes is enough to get permanent anti facilities up and working.

Another option is to snipe the nuke facilities. This depends on having good tools for sniping structures (but not necessarily units). If there's no nuke facility, there's no problem.

hmm, didn't think i implied that anywhere

dodging nukes? sorry, but i don't agree with you on that one. Needs to be some kind of counter (even it if is stealth)

The one shot units might be o.k. - would need to be more expensive / less efficient than static buildings of course.

Easy solution, mobile version is one-use unit. Takes time to build like 1,2 of build time of rocket in stationary version (you can speed up with engies), range is smaller and have to stay in one place to fire anti-nuke rocket. Mobile version is worse, but still handy in planetary invasion, problem solved

Anti-nuke lasers! Look up thel.

I figure, whatever it ends up looking like, on a conceptual and design level it'll serve a purpose. The purpose is itself a core concept whereas the implementation is separate but exists to fulfill the purpose. Like someone needing a tool, trying out a tool, deciding that tool sucks, and finding another one, if we think a mobile anti-nuke unit of a certain type sucks, doesn't mean we have to say that the conceptual need isn't still present.

IMO a mobile anti-nuke is essential to protect armies and expansions from nuke swarms. When an enemy has 3 nukes theres no way you can protect anything but your main base (if that)

A T2 cruiser that could carry and launch a single anti-nuke would be sweet. In general I want to see the majority of naval structures replaced by boats.

I'm more interested in a naval anti-nuke than a mobile one