Nukes should explode in the air

@zeldafanboy Not by a lot.

The balance discussion is irrelevant at this point though, a simple fix would be to extent the smd defense slightly. The biggest issue is with the fx

An option to detonate it early on command would be even better.

@stlng Sure. Fly over an army (possible with an ACU somewhere there), detonate when you feel like it.

@melanol said in Nukes should explode in the air:

@zeldafanboy Not by a lot.

No, this would be massive as it would mean single SMD is no longer capable of stopping 3/4(don't remember the number) stacked nukes. As the last one was intercepted just before connecting.

What jip said should be a relatively easy fix to that. The biggest issue however is that the nuke aoe radius (as far as i know) is a sphere and not a cillinder. This means that when the explosion occurs higher up in the air tall units can die while others survive

Yeah, you are right. It totally slipped my mind that we can just play with SMD too to balance it out. I guess working for 11 hours a day ain't that good for me.

Anyway regarding the other part, I don't think that would be too hard to balance out if we were to tweak the explosion radiuses even at a cost of the middle one being slightly smaller on the ground level if we buffed the damage on the outer sphere. Or even added additional damage radiuses to the explosion if it's possible to have more than just 2.

This thread makes me think of the brnk cast when his yolo hit his own asf and exploded over his base destroying it.

@veteranashe Even better, it wasn't an ASF. It was the wreck of a Broadsword. This was right after the patch that removed nukes colliding with air units.

https://youtu.be/zQggjLw00C8?list=PL8njGw0L9GCOZLv8y0u3GaUaZjEQKksw1&t=3222 vid with timestamp

Haha thanks for that link, loved that moment.

"That was the most effective yolo I've ever seen"

If they detonate earlier... wouldn't that mean that you have less time to intercept a missile?
I've had a few instances where my SMD was just loaded in time. Firing and destroying the nuke, like... 1 second before the nuke exploded.

That's a game balance change.
Unless you slow the missile down near the end when it curves down to hit... slowing it down just enough to where it would explode in the air at the same time it would have exploded when it hits the ground before the change.

Stretching or tranlsating the damage sphere a bit to a different position would probably allow for the nuke to still damage everything as intended, fixing the issue Wheelie mentioned.

~ Stryker

@comradestryker said in Nukes should explode in the air:

If they detonate earlier... wouldn't that mean that you have less time to intercept a missile?

Yes, especially if it doesn't slow down at all before exploding. And it would mean less time to move ASF out of the way. And it would catch more airborne ASF assuming the damage radius is a sphere rather than a cylinder.

I think it is a sphere (or a cylinder with a hemi-sphere as the top-part, shaped kind of like a grain silo) because of the way ACU death explosions won't catch ASF if you are deep underwater. (Yes, I know ACU death explosion is not the same weapon exactly as a strategic nuclear missile explosion but they're both "nukes" with pretty similar animations so I think it's likely they would be done the same way)

And it would make it harder to "dodge" with navy units, T4, land armies, etc. so I think it would make nukes a lot more fun to use.

@casternumerouno said in Nukes should explode in the air:

Yeah, you are right. It totally slipped my mind that we can just play with SMD too to balance it out. I guess working for 11 hours a day ain't that good for me.

Anyway regarding the other part, I don't think that would be too hard to balance out if we were to tweak the explosion radiuses even at a cost of the middle one being slightly smaller on the ground level if we buffed the damage on the outer sphere. Or even added additional damage radiuses to the explosion if it's possible to have more than just 2.

Or we could just keep the original explosion impact center and radius around it, and just have the visual bits change.

@melanol said in Nukes should explode in the air:

Ground-level explosions are for bunkers, regular detonations are conducted high in the air for maximum damage. We should fix this so that our players are more educated in nuclear warfare.

Most things in FAF are like bunkers. Even t1 power generators are much stronger than t1 tanks. T2 buildings can be compared to t2 tanks etc. As we know from history that one tank has survived nuclear blast only 400 metres from epicenter... And two nukes that were actually used in war, were meant to destroy mainly wooden buildings... Making nukes explode in air to reduce effect in the middle of area, and add little effect/radius on sides, can be questionable for FAF. Would it be a good idea to have nuke that only kills t1 engis and radars? Or that kills only engis and some t1 stuff? Today one uses nukes in FAF mostly to kill expensive and heavy stuff.

I want to say, that making nukes explode in air is maybe not a major necessity for the game.

Seems like a lot of effort for something that I expect would seem counter-intuitive to a number of people (myself included). Even if in real life nuclear missiles would explode in the air, I'm used in games to seeing any kind of missile explode on impact, and to impact the ground/units (not just in FAF but RTS games in general).

Therefore I worry a significant amount of time could be spent on something that ends up making the experience worse for more people than it improves it for (assuming that from a balance perspective it's done in such a way that there's no change in terms of the gameplay effect).

@giebmasse said in Nukes should explode in the air:

Or we could just keep the original explosion impact center and radius around it, and just have the visual bits change.

Yeah, that. It visually explodes in the air, but it takes the same amount of time to detonate as if it were to hit the ground directly.

~ Stryker

If the nuke damage is spherical the player would sacrifice some nuke damage area by detonating the nuke early, i.e., in the air, perhaps to catch a unit that moved.

@stlng said in Nukes should explode in the air:

If the nuke damage is spherical the player would sacrifice some nuke damage area by detonating the nuke early, i.e., in the air, perhaps to catch a unit that moved.

Can just give it a larger AOE

Make the nuke a selectable unit with a Detonate ability, allow it to be detonated at any point in its path.

@snagglefox said in Nukes should explode in the air:

Make the nuke a selectable unit with a Detonate ability, allow it to be detonated at any point in its path.

This might be open to some abuse - spot a SMD that will shoot you down? blow up early over some other structures / army to get at least some damage in.

Instead you could have a toggle on the launcher so the nuke missile explodes on proximity, to either land as it descends to get the maximum airburst size, or to experimentals and this would be a way to try and take down satellites. You would need to make the sat itself the expensive part instead of the novax centre itself to make this a good trade mass-wise.