Nukes should explode in the air

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.

@snagglefox
I really like this idea. Anything that adds a new dynamic to a strategy game is a win.

@desertwolf216 Then any time you have two nukes you are able to kill any smd by launching both at the same time, letting the smd shoot down one, then right before the smd missile hits the second nuke you blow it up. That'll be entirely too easy to abuse.

I think there would be plenty of micro abuses, would make for fun games though.

Shoot down an incoming Nike with your own by targeting the nuke launcher then when your nuke is close ctr k.

If we can seamlessly implement an airburst launch I think it will make great fun and help with t3 air losses

Anyone up to mod this idea?

“fun games” more like designated nuke player in any game over 4v4

Yeah just build a ton of nuke Launchers, you don't need smds lol

Lost t3 air, just nuke the area when asf are shooting it out and air Burst l, your player can probably keep the other asf in the area long enough.

I think it would be a fun mod no make the middle selectable and Ctrl k able

@exselsior build a second SMD? Or make them un-selectable once they pass over their damage range ring or in the last few seconds of flight.