Make the tactical missile from the t3 submarines more usefull

@LightBearer I agree with you. I currently do the same (and most player do this as well). This is because the tml are not worth it, people only use t3 sub for nukes. I think that a "sniping" tml option as suggested by H-master would be great to give the subs more strategic purpose. Like one powerful tml that can launched on rare intervals.

Is it me, or it feels like Seraphim battleships don't pay for their nuke launchers? Like they are balanced with other battleships in this way (if we ignore nukes). Maybe tactical subs should also not pay for their nuke launchers and have more useful tacticals.

Also, why are naval nukes more expensive than land nukes if they are weaker? This discourages their use.

Nukesub tmls are stronger than you think because of the massive range they have. Its not uncommon to have 5k mass killed just from the tmls (if you havent disabled them to hide your subs) and for a secondary feature thats already quite powerfull.

@melanol said in Make the tactical missile from the t3 submarines more usefull:

Also, why are naval nukes more expensive than land nukes if they are weaker? This discourages their use.

They arent

@thewheelie Well on the more than thousands game I played (very frequently on naval map), I may have seen their tml be usefull maybe less than 5 times (and I believe I am pretty generous on those five times, clearly I have no memory of them doing relevant damages to a base).

Maybe I am a very particular case (even though I don't think so), but I am a bit surprized by your statement of their usefulness.

Maybe reduce the cost of the sub and increase the price of the nuke?
So getting a nuke on a sub would cost the same amount but the subs would be a lot cheaper.

@chenbro101 said in Make the tactical missile from the t3 submarines more usefull:

Maybe reduce the cost of the sub and increase the price of the nuke?
So getting a nuke on a sub would cost the same amount but the subs would be a lot cheaper.

Doesn't work like that, the first one would have been the same cost but every other nuke build would cost more. This would be nothing but a blatant nerf.

Ok. So reduce the cost of a nuke sub only if its too much of a nerf.

Personally I wouldn't change the "nuke behavior" of the subs. I think it is nice the way it is (even though I understand the logic behind this proposition).

I would only make the tml play a more active role in the gameplay. Today, they are almost exclusively used for nuke purposes, people always disable their tml ability to keep them stealth (making their tml obviously useless). I wouldn't see this change as making the sub more powerful as you would either use the sub for nuke launch (in this case you would reasonably not use the tml to keep the stealth behavior), or you would use it as a tml platform, never both for all practical purposes.

I believe this enhancement could really be beneficial: it would give you a choice in using your t3 subs: surprize nuke or sneaky tml. It could enrich the gameplay and lead to more interesting "behind the line" attacks. Their tml are today too weak to make anyone reasonably use the sneaky tml option.

Of course all this requires a wise decision about how to change the tml behavior. This would have to be discussed in further details.

I've used them as sneaky tml a couple times in the past week alone. Hell I'm pretty sure I won a game in the past week exclusively because I was able to snipe an smd with the nuke sub's tml in a late game Seton's match. They even had a tmd and shield on it, but I killed it with a couple cybran subs.

@thewheelie said in Make the tactical missile from the t3 submarines more usefull:

Nukesub tmls are stronger than you think because of the massive range they have. Its not uncommon to have 5k mass killed just from the tmls (if you havent disabled them to hide your subs) and for a secondary feature thats already quite powerfull.

@melanol said in Make the tactical missile from the t3 submarines more usefull:

Also, why are naval nukes more expensive than land nukes if they are weaker? This discourages their use.

They arent

Unless FAF changed anything, regular nuke costs 12k/1350k, sub nuke costs 16.8k/1764k:
https://supcom.fandom.com/wiki/T3_strategic_missile_launcher
https://supcom.fandom.com/wiki/T3_strategic_missile_submarine

Both cost 12k

@freemp said in Make the tactical missile from the t3 submarines more usefull:

Personally I wouldn't change the "nuke behavior" of the subs. I think it is nice the way it is (even though I understand the logic behind this proposition).

I would only make the tml play a more active role in the gameplay. Today, they are almost exclusively used for nuke purposes, people always disable their tml ability to keep them stealth (making their tml obviously useless). I wouldn't see this change as making the sub more powerful as you would either use the sub for nuke launch (in this case you would reasonably not use the tml to keep the stealth behavior), or you would use it as a tml platform, never both for all practical purposes.

I believe this enhancement could really be beneficial: it would give you a choice in using your t3 subs: surprize nuke or sneaky tml. It could enrich the gameplay and lead to more interesting "behind the line" attacks. Their tml are today too weak to make anyone reasonably use the sneaky tml option.

Of course all this requires a wise decision about how to change the tml behavior. This would have to be discussed in further details.

Burst mode sounds like an interesting option as well. Especially if it looks like it does on this old Gamespy screenshot:

supreme-commander-20050708040359472.jpg

Link to the article here.

Check out my maps here:

Madness 1 - 10

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/480/h-master-s-maps

Burst would be pretty epic and way more useful

I believe it is also a matter of what is easier to implement.

My personal preference would be tu use the t3 sub as a mobile tml launcher or nuke launcher in a way that it plays a similar role as the buildings. Hence the tml would take some time to be loaded and you can ask to shoot it when you want (with a power comparable to the missiles produced by the t2 building)

But I don't know if it is technically possible to have two manual launch options (nuke+tml) on a unit. I am too ignorant of what is doable or not. If such option is not possible, the burst could be a good alternative.

But more important than either of those two options (I believe both are good) would be to know if this proposition of changing the t3 sub behavior encouters a favorable opinion from the community at all. Then we could discuss how to implement it in further details.

I feel like there is a comparable amount of people for and against it currently on this topic. I think we need more feedback.

IMO to be enable to build nukes, one should have to build a specific building first — maybe a land-based nuke silo or a new specific building, a bit like the factory HQ (the idea being that this building processes nuclear materials while the launcher builds the missile).

Alternatively, nuke-subs (plus the Sera. battleship) could be given an upgrade option to enable nuke-launches, if there's desire to make them useful without nukes.

Burst fire would be most useful if it allows multiple targets (essentially rapid-fire TML).


As-is, nuke-subs are (a) a sneaky, slightly cheaper way to build nukes on maps like Roanoke and (b) a cheaper way to try overloading SMD. IMO the SMD missiles are still too expensive. But, getting it right might also require adding cheaper conventional-warhead "decoy" missiles to the SML.


Wait, did anyone notice that although the nuke-sub's nuke does less damage in the inner ring (22k vs 70k) it actually does more in the outer ring (3k vs 500) for the same radii (30 inner, 40 outer)? Also, the nuke silo has a big death-weapon where the nuke sub doesn't.

@freemp said in Make the tactical missile from the t3 submarines more usefull:

I believe it is also a matter of what is easier to implement.

My personal preference would be tu use the t3 sub as a mobile tml launcher or nuke launcher in a way that it plays a similar role as the buildings. Hence the tml would take some time to be loaded and you can ask to shoot it when you want (with a power comparable to the missiles produced by the t2 building)

But I don't know if it is technically possible to have two manual launch options (nuke+tml) on a unit. I am too ignorant of what is doable or not. If such option is not possible, the burst could be a good alternative.

But more important than either of those two options (I believe both are good) would be to know if this proposition of changing the t3 sub behavior encouters a favorable opinion from the community at all. Then we could discuss how to implement it in further details.

I feel like there is a comparable amount of people for and against it currently on this topic. I think we need more feedback.

Same here. I would prefer to use the subs as a mobile TML as well. Maybe even let it be able to fire a couple of TM's at the same time (burst mode).
Not sure if it would make the sub OP. It would become very useful though! (apart from the Nuke part, which is of course already useful now)

Check out my maps here:

Madness 1 - 10

https://forum.faforever.com/topic/480/h-master-s-maps

@h-master This is what aeon missile ships, sera cruisers and aircraft carriers, and uef cruisers are for. The only faction missing out is cybran, but cybran missiles are strong vs tmd that isn't aeon. A burst mode would require them to cost more and hurt their main point: making nukes.

Edit: Making them like land based tml would be a massive nerf and I am not sure why you would want that unless you're an apm god.

Edit: Making them like land based tml would be a massive nerf and I am not sure why you would want that unless you're an apm god.

Not exactly. Cruiser missiles do damage over time, allowing plenty of time to build TMD near important targets. TML-subs could potentially be used for sneak-attacks on HQs, pgens, even ACUs, given a burst-fire mode (say up to 4 missiles in 2 seconds). This only works if there isn't already TMD however.

Honestly though, sonar should be nerfed to make subs better since the only real point of underwater ships it so hide them.

@cyborg16 said in Make the tactical missile from the t3 submarines more usefull:

Not exactly. Cruiser missiles do damage over time, allowing plenty of time to build TMD near important targets. TML-subs could potentially be used for sneak-attacks on HQs, pgens, even ACUs, given a burst-fire mode (say up to 4 missiles in 2 seconds). This only works if there isn't already TMD however.

It will almost never work like that in practice without making them insanely op. I already easily kill all of those things, other than ACUs, with sub tac missiles, and that’s without having to be incredibly tedious with manually launching missiles, and punished hard for forgetting to manually launch them.

Honestly though, sonar should be nerfed to make subs better since the only real point of underwater ships it so hide them.

No? The real point is both to hide and to protect from surface fire. Sonar is fine how it is.