Nuke units are undone and need fixing

[Reisk@]

As discussed and admitted before, nuke units are clearly undone. I have asked many times about their power ratios and never really got a definitive answer. It should be possible to make nukes with different power and destructive ratios in the game and that is precisely what is needed.

Now it seems that all have the same or far too low destructive power which is ludicrous and unrealistic to the point of absurdity. I am amazed that despite all the time these units have been in, they are left in their very undone state, adding more and more new have yet again had higher priority than fixing the content already in. Power ratios of nukes are currently way way off.

Tac nukes should naturally be the weakest nuke with shortest range and with just a single map square blast, a-bomb coming after it. I think it too should have a one map square blast range. Icbm should have more power and 9 square blast while mrbm and irbms could be made to deal damage according to their range.

Hydrogen bomb should be 9 squared blast and much more powerful than tac nuke or icbm. High end fusion bombs should flatten pretty much everything in a square with one blast, including cities. Tac fusi could do that for 1 map square and fusion nova to 9 squares. I wouldn't mind if they could eat the land too but most important is that they really should outclass all other nukes in destructive power and wipe squares clean of enemy filth.

With more power, should naturally come the higher maintenance and production costs. High end fusion bombs should have very big costs in both categories.

This overhaul is needed because of realism, common sense and mostly because there is no point whatsoever to keep ten different nuke units with wide technological range and with same power in game while only few having some range differences. Some also have higher maintenance and production costs with same or less power, so currently there is no sense whatsoever to build them.

 

[Sparth]

It should be possible to make nukes with different power and destructive ratios in the game and that is precisely what is needed.

Im not a codder and im know almost nothing about codding but after our last discussion in bug thread I know that nuke power is an enigma and changing this is almost impossible

 

[Reisk@]

Im not a codder and im know almost nothing about codding but after our last discussion in bug thread I know that nuke power is an enigma and changing this is almost impossible

If nuke power can't be changed, then at least the hydrogen bomb is totally useless unit and high end fusion bombs would definitely need some special trait like wiping away the ground and everything on it to justify their existence. Otherwise they are just much more expensive tac nuke and icbm and there is no reason at all to build them either.

Land eating ability should thus be definitely brought back into advanced nukes-option. Otherwise it is totally useless and this game sure needs good variation in doomsday units too.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Be a bit more specific about what you think each should do and clear in the terms used. Power for example is also used as a term to describe the strength of one nation verses another. As far as I can see the variables are

Cost

Range

Stationary/re-base/transport on a ship

Chance to intercept and by what eg A-Bomb can be intercepted by plains but missiles can't.

Effect on exploding​

May be useful to include other missiles such as the V1 and V2 as well as the biological and other missiles.

Changing land to sea and vice versa can cause regions to merge or split. When that happens the turn after every network needs to be recalculated which can take minutes.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Those damage factors can be changed but require a major time investment into coding to enable it. There's more on the plate before this can be addressed.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Some missiles only damage units others only buildings while others hurt population or a combination. Some buildings protect population and some improve the intercept chance. There should be plenty of variability but I think it is currently done in the dll and python rather than as XML variables that are easily adjusted.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Python mostly from what I've seen. I've not encountered much on the matter in the dll.

Of course, when I DO place my focus on nukes, it will mean xml/dll implementation.

 

[Reisk@]

Be a bit more specific about what you think each should do and clear in the terms used.

I think this pretty much covers it :

"Tac nukes should naturally be the weakest nuke with shortest range and with just a single map square blast, a-bomb coming after it. I think it too should have a one map square blast range. Icbm should have more power and 9 square blast while mrbm and irbms could be made to deal damage according to their range.

Hydrogen bomb should be 9 squared blast and much more powerful than tac nuke or icbm. High end fusion bombs should flatten pretty much everything in a square with one blast, including cities. Tac fusi could do that for 1 map square and fusion nova to 9 squares. I wouldn't mind if they could eat the land too but most important is that they really should outclass all other nukes in destructive power and wipe squares clean of enemy filth.

With more power, should naturally come the higher maintenance and production costs. High end fusion bombs should have very big costs in both categories."

Naturally a-bombs and V1s should be interceptable with planes, and more advanced nukes should be more powerful than the older, tac nukes naturally transportable and so on, common sense and realism are the best guidelines here and best nukes should really wipe the square pretty much clean.

There are V2s in the game ? More missile units are always welcome but i think these smaller missiles are quite ok now in the game. V2 and few more futuristic high end missile units would be welcome in the smaller missiles category.

 

[Harrier]

Icbm should have more power and 9 square blast while mrbm and irbms could be made to deal damage according to their range.
...
Hydrogen bomb should be 9 squared blast

I think the effective blast range depends on the map size. On a Gigantic map 9 squares is not to bad. On a standard or smaller map it is devestating. So I would suggest a 5 square range max.

e.g.
.............. blast
blast + bomb drop + blast
.............. blast

 

[Faustmouse]

Bomb strenght and range are not and should be not related to each other. What warhead you put on which rocket is (almost) completely exchangeable.
What would make more sense is if you had different effects on bombs. A small hypersonic tactical nuke that can evade basically everything and targets only a small area without destroying everything can be very usefull if you want to conquer a city. We could have EMP that is highly effective against mechanical stuff but more or less harmless to humans. Biological / Neutron Bombs that kill life but is more or less harmless to structures.
Completely annihilate a city and transform that plot to a flat desert would also be cool. Can you prohibit nukes to be used on ocean/coast tiles so this transformation wouldn't change continents?
We had the Peacemaker a while back that had the nice description "Select a hemisphere you want to get rid of...". It had an AoE of 20+ tiles, this would also be interesting.

 

[Reisk@]

I think the effective blast range depends on the map size. On a Gigantic map 9 squares is not to bad. On a standard or smaller map it is devestating. So I would suggest a 5 square range max.

e.g.
.............. blast
blast + bomb drop + blast
.............. blast

Not really my cup of coffee and i only play huge maps or bigger but clearly the best option would be to make both options available for player to choose if he/she wants weapon power scaled to map size or not. Feels a bit laborious task since all else should then be scaled too, like indirect fire ranges, all air unit ranges, movement ranges of all units and such.