(Stolen) Idea: Nuke Explosions Detonate Other Nukes

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but I don't see how this prevents commander nuke sniping, or even makes it much harder to do. All a person has to do is wait 5 seconds before sending the second nuke, and we have pretty much exactly the same thing. All it does is require slightly more micromanagement to pull off. I'm not really a fan of solutions to problems based on increasing the micromanagement ceiling, as it rewards small scale clickfest skills rather than large scale decision making. And forcing a player to wait 5 seconds before launching their second nuke isn't really a large scale decision.

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea. Only that it makes such a minor change to how people will play the game that I don't really see the point of it.

I don't see nuke spam as a massive problem simply because of anti-nukes, especially with the proposition that they start with one anti-nuke ready to go.

If a player puts up a couple of anti-nukes and keeps their commander in their range, the double snipe is eliminated. I just won a 3 player FFA by building 4 nukes and an orbital satellite and comm sniping both players at the same time, but this was only possible because I got ahead early game through Ant spam and my opponents didn't make any anti-nukes. Had they made a couple of anti-nukes or counter-raided my base this wouldn't have been possible.

Yes but I won a 4 player FFA simply because no one expanded except for me, and I was able to nuke all 3 players while blitzing them with bots. I totally forgot I had levellers

The direct counter to nukes really should be antinuke capability. This system can be expanded upon further to make nukes more interesting.

The mechanic of having multiple nukes aimed at a single target area only yielding one nuclear blast could work. However it would essentially mean you would fire exactly enough nukes to overwhelm antinuke, and anything above that is wasted. This mechanic could allow each nuke to be cheaper and also more individually powerful.

It makes sense that a nuke should obliterate anything and everything close to the center, with damage decreasing until it reaches zero at the edge of the shockwave's radius. The "double tap" exists because one nuke doesn't actually do the job against a commander, which is also fine.

Double tapping with nukes is still possible even with brian's suggestion, but you have to wait a few seconds before launching the second nuke. Under the current binary nuke system, where there are probably only two nukes and antinuke is big, this doesn't really change anything.

But if antinuke were small and continuous, the delayed launch is actually much less efficient than a simultaneous launch. If it takes five nukes to reach the target area through the enemy's antinuke, two launches of three nukes will be intercepted, while a single launch of six will succeed. Suppose you have more nukes. Two launches of four will also fail, but one launch of eight is overkill because it has the same result as just using six nukes; one blast. Launching six and two is also inefficient because the six gets one blast, but the two will be intercepted.

The idea for making it harder to use a double nuke snipe is great but still not entirely impossible. Also, if a nuke explodes and there was another behind it or within AOE would be a strong way to attempt to stop a double nuke snipe as to what this whole post is about is a good idea.

Now for my idea... What about they make it to where you can't use engineers or commanders to assist in building a nuke so it makes you wait longer before you can even use it and provides time for people to counter and destroy each other.

Nukes blowing up other nukes just would mean a little bit of micro to time it so it wont happen. AFAIK the commander is far to slow to make it out of the blast radius of an incomin nuke, so double nuke snipes still will be possible.

Maybe totally change the way anti-nukes are done? Make them a laser with a huge capacitor that needs to be recharging, something that will need to be queued up like antinukes right now.
When a nuke is incoming the Anti-Nuke will spring to live for say 10 seconds and shoot down any missile during this time - after that its empty. this would mean you could easier defend key areas against multiple nukes.

fatmando: Think about a game where you can scout a launched nuke, then build a antinuke laucher and the necessary missile on-the-spot. Supreme Commander kinda proved that the "infinite assist" gives you horrible extremes, and IMHO the assist is nice but should be leveled down so that the buildrate increases less for each additional assisting unit while sucking the full amount of ressources.
That way you could still push out urgent stuff in a hurry - at a way higher price, but it wouldnt be a good way of producing in the long run. With the same eco a guy using 2 factories/launchers should be able to do more than someone who is just heavily assisting a single building.

All you're really doing is adding a tiny bit of micro to the game.

Instead of mapping 3 different launchers to "1" and firing them all at the same time, I would just map them to 1, 2, 3 and fire them in that order with the necessary span of time between them (which is probably about 1.5 seconds).

I don't see where this really accomplishes anything.

I think if you really want to do something about nukes getting out of control:
* Make the launchers visible to all enemies all the time
* Fix the issue of parked T2 fighters being the ultimate anti-air turret

That would pretty well do it. I have no trouble bombing people's nuke launchers if I can find them and if they aren't using the parked fighter trick.

I think the people who really hate nukes are the people who don't build T2 bombers, don't scout and get hit out of the blue by something they should have been able to see. I'm not opposed to making it easier to see them.


Last night I had a game where an opponent basically cackled "let the nuke spam begin!" He only launched one nuke. My bombers killed his launcher and most of the fabricators that were around it before he could build a second one. I kept a closer eye after that and killed his next 2 launchers before they built a missile.

(Protip: T1 bombers are f'n useless. Go T2 or go home.)

You make a valid point slamz and I hate Nukes and they do make great strategic weapons for when you really need them. Also what you say when a nuke launcher is built it should be visible always so that way players know where to send their attack runs to attempt and prevent getting nuked. I do the exact same thing and get T2 air and some scouting to prevent my enemies from striking me down. Or at least until I get an advanced radar satellite up. In my opinion people should just be prepared and keep sending in waves of attacks or something to prevent such threats. Although its easier said then done and what it comes down to is whoever has the better strategy. Its not impossible to stop a nuke raid from maybe one or two people. But if everyone is attacking then your pretty much screwed.

So, isn't this tread just a repeat of another one? Why post another one?

Your idea does not address your concern in ANY way. Mass nuke launches are because no TA-style game had smartcasting. Multiple nukes got launched because multiple selected facilities were incapable of launching a single nuke.

Mass nuke spam on a single dot is a horrible waste by DEFAULT. Nuking a spot twice does not accomplish anything of any significance. Even if it did, the second nuke is only cleaning up whatever the first nuke missed, which is a severely diminished return by DEFAULT. Therefore, there is no reason to nerf it- the existing mechanics already address the problem by DEFAULT.

There isn't another thread on this.

The quote is from one of my YouTube videos, which isn't on the forums.

Nuking the same spot twice does accomplish something – kills a commander.

Your point being what... exactly? Everything else in the area is already vaporized. The second nuke is only performing mop up duty. It'll never deal as much sheer damage as the first nuke.

Commander issues are Commander issues. They should be solved directly by the Commander. You do not change the entire game around a Commander issue.

That... doesn't make sense.

Example: The commander can't move to another planet. So we should make the commander moveable without another unit since we shouldn't solve commander issues outside of the commander.

It's just a suggestion that was pulled from somewhere else.

I haven't even fully decided if I support the idea. Just thought it was a neat idea worth discussing amongst the community.

Good Example: The Commander can't move to another planet. Therefore he can eventually build a device to go to other worlds.

Bad Example: The Commander can survive two nukes. Therefore an area can not be nuked twice.

I get what you're saying.

However, the location can be nuked twice, as long as there's a delay.

The idea is not just about Commanders though. It's about increasing the strategy involved in selecting targets and using your nukes – which are already very powerful.

Besides, it makes sense. If America detonated two nukes, one shortly after the other, the second nuke wouldn't detonate because it would be destroyed by the first nuke. Nuclear missiles destroy friendly units and buildings, yet they magically ignore nuclear missiles? That doesn't make any sense.

The delay is irrelevant. Commanders are slow. He's getting hit with both nukes no matter what. This idea changes many other things as a result, and you did not attempt to list or understand what they are or how they could be used.

Does not work + does not understand consequences == a bad idea.

You can more directly solve the problem of "nuking Commanders" by:
- Boost the Comm's defenses, such that he can intercept the nuke with the ubergun.
- Boost the Comm's defenses, such that a defensive ability can absorb high burst damage.
- Boost the Comm's defenses, such that he can not be seen or typically targeted by the nuke.
- Boost the Comm's mobility, such that he is not on the planet by the time it gets nuked.
- Decoy Commander.

He isn't necessarily getting hit by both nukes no matter what. Large planets have long nuke travel times and it is possible for a Commander to outrun a single nuke. And travel times are even longer with interplanetary nukes and it is very easy for commanders to outrun nukes.
Evidence: http://pamatches.com/2013/3v3-with-over-24-interplanetary-nukes-fired/

Increasing the defenses of the Commander would skew the early game too much.

Decoy/Support Commanders have been discussed a lot and Uber has said no.

Which one of those defenses affect the early game, and how does it do it?

Because to me the answer is "not at all, or it can be easily tweaked so that early game is a non issue".

I love this idea of reducing nuke spam because killing a commander is easy with 2 nukes and this would stop that(kind of).