Nuclear defense

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Sieppo
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Location: Helsinki, Finland

Nuclear defense

Post by Sieppo »

Game needs nuclear defense.

EDIT: to be more clear, defense against nuclear attacks. Just some means, does not need to be perfect. ICBM:s apparently can be a game ender in P2P and that always suck.
> What is the hardest thing in the universe?
> A diamond?
> No. 500 machine gun men on a mountain.
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varangy
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by varangy »

I think a viable option would be anti ballistic missiles buildable in cities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ballistic_missile
zgrssd
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by zgrssd »

Supreme Commander back in the day had a "No Gameenders" rule modifier.
It disabeled Nukes. However it did not cover their experimental units, like the DLC Factions Special Nuke Launcher. Or artillery that could fire across the entire map.

I think someone a while ago suggested a Lore explanation for it/limit to Airforces:
There is a set of orbital satelites with lasers, shooting down anything that flies to fast or over a certain height. It could thus block the IC part of the ICBM, greatly reducing their unfairness. It oculd also prevent high fliers or supersonic flight, depending on what you want during setup.

Of course that should come with a expanded tactical use of nuclear weapons, like nuclear armed bombers.
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mroyer
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by mroyer »

Something like this from Traveller, the old 1970's era role-playing game:
https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Nuclear_Damper

-Mark R.
Zanotirn
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by Zanotirn »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUb5vhiFfpU

Interceptor missiles are somewhat more realistic though as something buildable (they probably wouldn't be positioned *in* the city though - but interceptor missiles still need early warning radars between the source of threat and the protected target and/or a network of satellites.

A game start option sounds interesting - and definitely something that could have been deployed during dissolution war.
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Sieppo
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by Sieppo »

It could also be for example a laser shooting down warheads (ICBM's usually have multiple warheads) and thus a roll would be made how many are shot down.
> What is the hardest thing in the universe?
> A diamond?
> No. 500 machine gun men on a mountain.
DeltaV112
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by DeltaV112 »

ICBM's being game-ending isn't I think in and of itself an issue, it basically acts to ensure that games do actually have a timely ending- eventually one side will tech to nukes and put an end to things. The issue probably more centers around when in the game's progression this occurs and preventing the case where both sides trade nuclear salvos leaving them without the means to effectively finish their opponents. Probably the changes need to be to push ICBM's later in the tech tree, add pressures to create the resources to make them even before they get teched(i.e more uses for radioactives) and making the late-game ICBM tech more immediately lethal.
Zanotirn
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by Zanotirn »

One option is instead of pushing them to later technologically, split off weapon-grade radioactives into their own resource, produced in low amounts at nuclear reactors and in larger amounts at (expensive) dedicated assets.
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BlueTemplar
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by BlueTemplar »

Radioactives are already not particularly easy to come by... I suppose that they would also be used a lot more if solar wasn't so OP (so nuclear was relatively more viable) ? Vehicle Fusion Engine is also available quite a bit earlier than ICBMs.

There are already tiers of ICBMs, (and getting to the first one has a lot of pre-requisites), though since the tech tree doesn't list tech costs (and I don't think that tech costs are independent of techs or even tech groups ?) it's hard to say how late they are exactly ?

I'll hopefully be able to try ICMBs myself soon, it's my understanding that the first 10MT one isn't *particularly* destructive ?
(And technically speaking, several kinds of also nuclear attacks are available earlier : TacNukes, Micro Nuke RPGs, (Non-ICBM) Atomic Launchers...)

Alpha Centauri might be a good comparison, it has 3 tiers of ICBMs, with the first one available by "mid-game"¤, and already instantly wipes out EVERYTHING on a tile, including a "city" and some elevation (See the 4th tier of ICBM here.)
(¤Note that in SMAC(X) "mid-game" is effectively "end-game", because choppers are OP.)

The only defenses against that were "attack" satellites (basically a building-"unit" that you can have as many as you want in a rangeless "orbital space" dimension, which can be deployed once per turn to kill a nuke (or another sat, including "economic" ones), and sacrifice itself to kill a 2nd nuke/sat), or not being in range... and/or cheesing it by blocking the path of the missile with units.

Then with the Alien Crossfire expansion a 4th tier of reactor was added, but also a "Flechette defense" building which has (IIRC) 25% chances of shooting down any nuke attacking within some overlapping range (IIRC 3 tiles ?).
Pratapon51
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by Pratapon51 »

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

Radioactives are already not particularly easy to come by... I suppose that they would also be used a lot more if solar wasn't so OP (so nuclear was relatively more viable) ? Vehicle Fusion Engine is also available quite a bit earlier than ICBMs.

There are already tiers of ICBMs, (and getting to the first one has a lot of pre-requisites), though since the tech tree doesn't list tech costs (and I don't think that tech costs are independent of techs or even tech groups ?) it's hard to say how late they are exactly ?

I'll hopefully be able to try ICMBs myself soon, it's my understanding that the first 10MT one isn't *particularly* destructive ?
(And technically speaking, several kinds of also nuclear attacks are available earlier : TacNukes, Micro Nuke RPGs, (Non-ICBM) Atomic Launchers...)

Alpha Centauri might be a good comparison, it has 3 tiers of ICBMs, with the first one available by "mid-game"¤, and already instantly wipes out EVERYTHING on a tile, including a "city" and some elevation (See the 4th tier of ICBM here.)
(¤Note that in SMAC(X) "mid-game" is effectively "end-game", because choppers are OP.)

The only defenses against that were "attack" satellites (basically a building-"unit" that you can have as many as you want in a rangeless "orbital space" dimension, which can be deployed once per turn to kill a nuke (or another sat, including "economic" ones), and sacrifice itself to kill a 2nd nuke/sat), or not being in range... and/or cheesing it by blocking the path of the missile with units.

Then with the Alien Crossfire expansion a 4th tier of reactor was added, but also a "Flechette defense" building which has (IIRC) 25% chances of shooting down any nuke attacking within some overlapping range (IIRC 3 tiles ?).

No, the base SMAC already had 4 tiers of reactors and 4 tiers of Planet Buster. As an aside, the little flavor bits state this:
#PLANET BUSTER
Designation: Mk. 714 Plasma bomb
Active kill radius: 2000 km
Explosve force: 296 gt TNT
Target acquistion: Charged particle

They're a little bit more powerful than what we can field in SE, typos aside. [:D]
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BlueTemplar
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RE: Nuclear defense

Post by BlueTemplar »

Oh, really ? (I haven't played the base game in ages...)

Also, I misremembered the exact stats of the Flechette Defense System...
(Unless it's the "The Will To Power" mod changing these values ?)

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