My suggestion: Nuke subs should be..
... a small-radius sniping unit designed to take out single high-value movable targets (battleships, experimental units/buildings, maybe SACUs).
Why:
- RIght now, nuke subs don't really participate in fights agains targets that can MOVE. In my oppinion, this is a shame. Lobbing missiles at static bases is boring and strictly late stage only tactic, and has all problems that Ftx explained
- We still try to keep their interactions with other units intuitive for players coming from Vanilla, ideally they use the FAF version once and immediately get how it changed
Step 1 (Damage application):
- MASSIVELY reduce their range to be a bit bigger than battleships, like 180, so that you actually have to move them to the front of your units when trying to snipe for example a battleship, allowing more counterplay opportunities. We want to see them used in actual T3 navy fights, not killing bases inland.
- MASSIVELY reduce their explosion radius so they do not kill too many units at once. Somewhere between strat bomb and billy radius
- Increase damage A LOT so they can at the very least seriously damage experimentals and kill battleships/spidermonkeys.
- Make missile speed fast enough so it has a chance to catch moving units, but slow enough so oppopnent can micro targeted unit away if missile is scouted early enough.
Step 2 (missile type and anti-missile):
- If a movable unit is targeted, the primary defense against nuke missiles should be MOVING away
- Make subnuke missiles neither real nukes nor tactical missiles, they should have their own missile category. If this is not possible, we could maybe work around by still using real nuke missile type, but change SMDs to react differently to normal nuke vs nuke sub.
- Missiles while flying should have a scoutable icon like nukes (but different icon)
- Give SMD an additional anti-nukesub-weapon that has smaller range than SMD missile and is free (takes no resources to build other thant the SMD building, but is balanced by rate of fire). Since the anti-missiles have no cost, we need to have lower range for them, otherwise, you could cover your entire navy while it is near your base against subnukes by building a single SMD near shore.
- If they are not a new missile type, we need to find a different solution, we don't want to shoot SMD missiles at nukesub missiles because SMD missiles should ONLY need to be balanced againsty actual nukes.
- If necessary we could even have a new building that is like "TMD but against nuke subs only" or add this capability to other units/buildings
Step 3 (air counterplay):
- Create counterplay opportunities for players that are aware of the existence of nukesubs before they fire by revealing the radar signature of a nukesub whenthey fire a nuke for like 10 seconds, even if it is outside radar. Maybe add a ping similar to nuke warning where they are located so their signature is not masked by other signatures when inside radar. This allows intelligent air player to build torps in preparation and target nukesub signatures when a nuke launches. Essentially make "nuke launch" an event that invites air players to fight together with navy player to attack/protect nuke sub after nuke launch, because more fighting is better.
Step 4 (balance)
- Adjust cost of unit until satisfactory usefullness is reached