Poll: Should we remove the anti-nuke launcher from the game?

I personally like the idea. It sounds reasonable and something worth trying.

Nukes at the present time in PA taste like a cheat. It happens regularly to players in FFA to get nuked few minutes after the start of the match, and been told that they forgot to build anti-nukes. What?! Listen kid, I was building armies, factories, navy, scouting around, planning defenses and invasion, balancing my screwed eco, etc... Having fun, doing all the thing I'm here to do 'cos it's damn fun, 'till you built one missile, click a button, and made game over.

And that sucks, unless we're playing Missile Command.



Now, you please tell me where exactly it is entertaining having to stop doing all what is fun in a RTS because you need to build a set of anti-nukes.

Yes, I hear some saying that we shouldn't judge now 'cos the game *isn't* balanced yet. Well, ok, I understand that. So let's balancing it, starting with the Nuke that has a *HUGE* impact on the gameplay.

It is that important.

Perhaps nukes shouldn't even be in the game at this stage, judging by how many people are asking if it will be possible to uncheck that weapons, and how the quality of a match improves if played with this simple rule - no nukes.

The nuke in itself isn't wrong and it would look poor if disempowered.

Beside, in real life a laser is already way more efficient in shooting down incoming missiles (or drones) than anything else (just google it). So I don't see why an Umbrella couldn't shot down a huge intercontinental combersome rocket that's visible even from Venus.

Nukes could use the FA treatment of being non-assistable.

Nuclear attacks would then have a significant time investment as well as metal/energy.

Bear in mind that Anti-Nuke micro is partly because of the UI, it can and should and hopefully will be improved to be more automated.

There is no need to rage just because Scathis didn't post his reasoning, like, for real. You are coming across a little strong there.

I... hmm.... Dunno.

I agree with your post, but disagree with it at the same time...

My initial concern is making one building do too many things making it too powerful.

I'll have to think on this...

No, because because having separate methods to defend against separate threats IS a part of strategic diversity.

No, because because removing a unit and migrating it's function isn't a proper method of fixing the unit's flaw.

No, because the problem lies primarily in nukes themselves.

Primary method of nuke defence should be nuke offence (in games anyway). By which I mean standard attack on the nuke launcher, not an attack with a nuke of your own. Counter-nukes regardless of their nature, are only there as a back-up plan, in case the initial attack fails, or in case where you do not have the time to deal with the launcher YET.

Ideally, the economy of nukes vs counter-nukes should slowly choke the countering party, BUT start it off with a clear advantage. So the building of counter-nukes themselves should be extremely cheap and fast while the building of a launcher is extremely slow and costly, but the "ammo" of counter-nukes (yes, ammo is a necessary evil here) should be a bit more costly and should be build a bit more slowly than the nukes themselves (which doesn't mean that the nukes themselves should be fast or cheap, on the contrary, that should take notable time and "money").

Nukes are a long-standing method to present an overly defensive player with an ultimatum that takes him out of his shell in one way or another. Either he has to maintain some offensive capabilities and use these to fight the nukers, OR he has to divert enough resources to countermeasures, which, in turn, creates an economic dent in his "armour of impenetrable immobility", and allows his enemies to break his shell "form the outside".

That, in turn, creates a problem when an overly defensive player creates a nuke of his own. This, however, is a mathematically solvable issue. To put it simply - the cost of the nuke has to be so high, that wiping out anything but the defence-heavy bases with a nuke, simply costs the nuker more than it cost the one who is being nuked.

Bonus points for games where defences require a functional base nearby to work, because in that case, one breach is enough to deal with the whole perimeter quickly and painlessly once "the insides" of that perimeter have been dealt with. Which, I should add, is a mechanism of ensuring that the "shelled" player can't restore his shell quickly and cheaply.

Unfortunately, a lot of games seem to forget this beautiful multi-step combination and see nukes (and other "doomsday devices") as nothing more than end-game ultimate tools of war and "culmination fireworks", which is a poor and primitive alternative.

Also, NO! NO! and NO!, because I've come here to say "no", I'm not giving up on my dream .

I think nukes are way too powerfull at the moment (they are nukes after all: designed to be powerful) and I agree with the fact that it should be non assistable or just with a major energy cost per nuke. I think also that the micro-ing mechanics should be mantained both for nukes and anti-nukes.

How do you think about a dedicated nuke fabber that can only construct nukes or anti nukes? That will add the necessity to effectively create those (hig cost?) fabbers and protect them.
or just increasing the nukes cost or push farer the in game time when it's achiveable.

About the "use only umbrella" idea. I've the same @brianpurkiss 's concern about making a building too powerful, but it could help requiring a long time between an anti-nuke usage and an orbital one or the reverse.

gahh, I should really have read your post before pressing "no"...

range of anti nuke needs to get increased even more, so that you can cover more space with them. At the moment in the late you can spam nukes so fast, that its ridiculous how small the anti nuke range is. On the other hand, people who complain that nukes are so cheap and fast... well they arent. If you would put the same build power on anti nuke like your enemy on nukes, he would not nuke you. And nuke launchers are so easy to snipe with t2 bomber. Maybe nuke launchers should have even less health. make snipes even easier.

We could always have more than one structure capable of nuke defense. I think that the current anti-nuke does a pretty good job of protecting a fairly wide area from nukes flying through, and has guaranteed stopping power up to the number of interceptor missiles it has loaded. But for a true SDI system, I think we need some sort of layered approach, and I think that the scale of the game would support multiple anti-missile structures that serve various roles. I think a three layer nuke defense system could be manageable, as long as the nukes are forced to go into the orbital shell:

1. The first line of defense, and the most expensive, would be an SDI orbital missile defense platform. It would use lasers or interceptor missiles to shoot down any nukes travelling in the orbital shell of the planet within it's effective range. Optimal usage would require that they be positioned between enemy silos and possible targets, so you'd need some intel on the enemy base still. Just stationing these over what you want to protect wouldn't be effective, because the missiles would be dropping out of orbit before the reaching the satellite's range. Make them able to transfer between planets and you have a useful, mobile missile defense to help build a beachhead on a hostile world.
2. Layer 2 would be the current anti-nuke structure. It provides guaranteed nuke defense with it's interceptor missiles for a large area, and would be cheaper to deploy than the satellites. You put these in your base to kill missiles that make it past your SDI satellites. They'd also be able to kill any missiles passing overhead, just as they currently do.
3. Finally, layer 3 would be short range missile defense, something like the tactical missile defense in SupCom (similar to the CIWS Phalanx systems on US carriers, for a real world example). It would provide missile defense for a small area, think AA missile tower small, and would be most effective against catapults and missile ships (and any other mobile missile launch systems, should Uber add some in). It would also protect that small area from nuclear missiles targeted at the particular location (wouldn't fire on nukes passing by overhead), so they could provide a safety net for the anti-nuke launchers should someone start trying to overwhelm it with rapid fire nukes. With their small protection radius though, an attacker could easily direct a nuke outside their range and destroy them with ease, so they still need the other layers of missile defense to provide anything more than token defense against a nuclear missile strike.

If the various missile types were given different health levels, I think this setup could be tuned quite well. Nuclear missiles would have more health and therefore be harder for the short range gatling gun style missile defense systems to destroy, while a catapult missile would be downed relatively easily. Layer 1 and 3 defenses could be overwhelmed by simultaneous missile fire, but the layer 2 defense would be guaranteed to stop up to 3 missiles in it's area. I think this could open up the door for more varied nuclear missile types as well, such as dedicated inter-planetary nukes (more expensive, harder to kill, better range) and MIRVs (multiple smaller warheads spread across a large area, harder to stop with defenses but less powerful. I think all these changes would go along way towards fixing the "binary" relationship between nukes and anti-nukes that currently exists, without diminishing the power and threat of the nukes themselves.

This could also allow for a distinction between strategic and tactical nuclear missiles. Strategic missiles would be powerful, expensive missiles with full planet range (or greater) that must enter the orbital layer. Tactical missiles (nuclear or otherwise) would stay in atmosphere and have a limited range, but would be cheaper, less destructive, and easier to stop. I could see the nuclear missile sub as a good candidate for tactical nuclear missiles. Of course I think we also need some sort of missiles defense ship as well, or anti-missile systems on some of the existing big ships.

I object. In my opinion the nuke in itself is quite ok. And it can be used in many way, also defensive against invading armies (that's pretty cool).

The real issue is that it is too easy to get plenty of Intel about where to strike your opponent and inflict maximum damage, without walking one step outside your base.

Beside that, what Iron420 probably wants to suggest is to make simpler to counter a premature nuclear strike, making trivial to defend against it. So that using a nuke becomes viable only later in game when the attacker had to damage eco or defenses of the opponent. In that case a nuclear strike may be appropriate.

It should always be trivial to defend against an immature nuclear strike, where for immature I mean blind, with no preparation other than click *launch!*.

In the end what's the difference to have to build an anti-nuke or an umbrella? It merely doubles up the space in your base and on the UI console with two icons instead of one. You need both anyway. I would like to have hands free to focus on more interesting aspect of a match than to build defenses against what I don't even see.

I think it would be interesting to make the Umbrella able to shoot down nukes, and Anti-nuke able to shoot down orbital stuff. Different ways of dealing with different problems.

The other RTS game I can think of that had nukes and an antinuke structure was....

A) Earth 2150
B) Rise of Nations
C) Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
D) Anno 2070
E) Another strategy game that StormingKiwi has not yet mentioned on this forum?


And in that game, you built an antinuke structure, which only existed to shoot down nukes.

It didn't have ammunition, it shot down one nuke at a time, (Actually the entire defence network shot down one nuke at a time, making redundancy very expensive)

It worked, it was nice, it would work against a trickle of nukes and not work against a clump.

That is the issue. The first step in any balancing that is done has to be

*Is it the unit that is the problem? Or is it the commander?

I thought we were?

If I correctly remember in StarCraft one can launch a nuke only if he manages to have a Ghost unit in the proximity of the target. A sort of cloaked advanced spotter. If the defender finds and suppresses the Ghost in time, the nukes (even if already airborne) doesn't strike.

This simple thing forces player to step outside their turtle base, and go create the opportunity for the Ghost to actually reach the target to illuminate with their targeting laser for the nuke. You have first to make sure the Ghost has a chance of surviving for the time it takes to the nuke to travel to its destination.

go watch nuke wars on faf you'll see how ludicrous and wildly fun it can get. the nuke anti nuck system worked there sufficiently to make a game in and of itself.

The problem is that its too easy to BE that defensive player and the ultimatum giver at the same time. It shouldn't be viable to sit in a tiny base building only nukes and win the game. Therefore, to prevent that I think it should never be viable to send nukes clumped together, regardless if the anti-nuke launcher stays or not. Maybe if you send them all different directions that could work, but 10 nukes fired from 10 launchers in a grid beside each other only happens in turtle bases and should not be accommodated.

I think nukes are not the problem. They should be powerful and useful, but they are a support tool and should not be a replacement for an army at any point in the game.

I really like the idea of a mobile anti-nuke option! (just don't make that it's only purpose)

Iron420 .... I'm just catching up to this realization now but..... you're under the impression the anti nuck is OP?

Same topic, different thread, https://forums.uberent.com/threads/concerns-about-new-orbital-mechanics.55522/page-3#post-853983

We are looking at the nuke vs anti-nuke relationship right now and many of us already believe there should be more effective, more diverse, and less micromanaged counters than the current anti-nuke structure. I suspect once we can change the orbits of moons we will see a huge surge in interplanetary nukes from our mobile launch stations, to the point that ground invasions become near meaningless unless we have a more comprehensive anti-nuke system than the current structure provides.

I like the idea that nukes should be a poor choice for "first strike" and that it should be relatively easy for a competent player to defend against them without a large investment of anti-nukes. There are ways to achieve this simply by rebalancing the current structures... make nukes and anti-nukes both non-assistable and give the anti-nuke a considerably faster rearm rate and a higher max capacity (3 vs 1 is good), and I still advocate both of these, but I also think we would benefit from more interesting solutions that could be done in addition to this.

no, the opposite. Its under powered, but I also just don't like how it works either

So how about a mobile anti-nuke then? Like a tank or a satellite?

I think an orbital anti-nuke is essential to enabling invasions.

In earlier posts I've said I think the umbrella should have a secondary anti-nuke role and I think a ship is a great platform for an umbrella and would work well for protecting our ships from nukes.