Nukes

[carldong]

So apparently 99% of the times in AIWC, you shouldn't even try to build a Nuke. I really doubt that if there are actually use out of this "last ditch" weapon. Cost is one thing(50AIP!!), but the problem is that it doesn't really do its job well: basically everything you REALLY want to destroy NOW are immune to nuclear explosion, like Dire Guardians, H/K, and other stuff you see regularly in Fallen Spire waves. Don't even ask why stuff are immune to that nuclear blast which destroys the entire galaxy.

I understand that core guard posts may be immune to nukes, for game balance reason(and lore wise: the "magical" warp network that can resist even the impact of a Nomad Planet). However, I would really like to see it actually does its job... of blowing up some insane AI response, for that one last time, even if it causes +500AIP.

Lore(and probably mechanic) wise it makes more sense to make nukes cost much more AIP, and actually destroys everything. Maybe it was different in the old AIWC 1.0 days(I started with 8.0) where the AI mostly throws fleet ships at you, but now there are so many nasty stuff that are immune to nukes that makes this human superweapon really useless, destroying every resources, killing only insignificant ships, and increases a big amount of AIP.

Or maybe Nukes in this game is intended to be joke weapons. Then I can't argue about anything.


Hmm, thinking about nukes destroying entire planets, if it also causes gravity disruption which slows ships globally to speed 2, it would be very interesting. Right? Because that is what happens when ships get away to the edge of gravity well.

[Toranth]

Nukes do seem pretty niche these days, but there still are uses.
If you haven't taken a look at Kahuna's just finished 10/10 playthrough, he does use a Nuke there - to clean out a few hundred thousand ships from a Hacking Response.  Similarly, they can be used to deal with very dangerous CPAs.
Nukes also remove supply, which shuts down AI Fortresses and MK I-IV force fields.  Sometimes, this is important - on an AI Homeworld attack, especially, it can be huge.

I will agree that I wish Nukes did something more - maybe deal damage to insta-kill immune stuff - so that they weren't quite so niche...

[Lord Of Nothing]

Nukes do seem pretty niche these days, but there still are uses.
If you haven't taken a look at Kahuna's just finished 10/10 playthrough, he does use a Nuke there - to clean out a few hundred thousand ships from a Hacking Response.  Similarly, they can be used to deal with very dangerous CPAs.
Nukes also remove supply, which shuts down AI Fortresses and MK I-IV force fields.  Sometimes, this is important - on an AI Homeworld attack, especially, it can be huge.

I will agree that I wish Nukes did something more - maybe deal damage to insta-kill immune stuff - so that they weren't quite so niche...

Supply loss from nukes is definitely their big feature, but since that's going to work differently in 2, IIRC, I wonder:  If they didn't affect supply, would that remove parts of their role, or might they actually have a larger role?

[carldong]

Nukes do seem pretty niche these days, but there still are uses.
If you haven't taken a look at Kahuna's just finished 10/10 playthrough, he does use a Nuke there - to clean out a few hundred thousand ships from a Hacking Response.  Similarly, they can be used to deal with very dangerous CPAs.
Nukes also remove supply, which shuts down AI Fortresses and MK I-IV force fields.  Sometimes, this is important - on an AI Homeworld attack, especially, it can be huge.

I will agree that I wish Nukes did something more - maybe deal damage to insta-kill immune stuff - so that they weren't quite so niche...

Supply loss from nukes is definitely their big feature, but since that's going to work differently in 2, IIRC, I wonder:  If they didn't affect supply, would that remove parts of their role, or might they actually have a larger role?

All a sudden I feel that making Nukes cause permanent gravity effect is a great idea. Planetary speed down to 2(or even 32) would be !!fun!!

[Tridus]

Nukes do seem pretty niche these days, but there still are uses.
If you haven't taken a look at Kahuna's just finished 10/10 playthrough, he does use a Nuke there - to clean out a few hundred thousand ships from a Hacking Response.  Similarly, they can be used to deal with very dangerous CPAs.
Nukes also remove supply, which shuts down AI Fortresses and MK I-IV force fields.  Sometimes, this is important - on an AI Homeworld attack, especially, it can be huge.

I will agree that I wish Nukes did something more - maybe deal damage to insta-kill immune stuff - so that they weren't quite so niche...

Supply loss from nukes is definitely their big feature, but since that's going to work differently in 2, IIRC, I wonder:  If they didn't affect supply, would that remove parts of their role, or might they actually have a larger role?

All a sudden I feel that making Nukes cause permanent gravity effect is a great idea. Planetary speed down to 2(or even 32) would be !!fun!!

Except that people hated gravity drills because they were annoying. This would be the same thing. It's not fun, or !fun!. It's an annoyance that just slows the game down.

[WolfWhiteFire]

Except that people hated gravity drills because they were annoying. This would be the same thing. It's not fun, or !fun!. It's an annoyance that just slows the game down.

I would like to add that in addition the gravity effect may be abused. For example, remember whippping boys or chokepoint planets? If there was a gravity effect, I can imagine people nuking one of those planets to make AI ships go the pace of a snail, then building the normal defenses as the neighboring planets can still provide supply.

[Lord Of Nothing]

I actually loved my one game with pre-nerf gravity drills because of the insane combo with spire attrition. But with 2 having fewer long range weapons, then planetwide gravity is likely to mainly just be annoying. I suppose it could be more interesting in a distributed defense game if your fleet has to go through there to respond, but there's no positive side for the player that I can see, since doing the same to the special forces, while fun, is very niche in my view.

[WolfWhiteFire]

When did they say that it will have fewer long range weapons? I never heard of that.

[Lord Of Nothing]

When did they say that it will have fewer long range weapons? I never heard of that.

Hmm, actually can't find it now, so possibly i'm misremembering.

[carldong]

Except that people hated gravity drills because they were annoying. This would be the same thing. It's not fun, or !fun!. It's an annoyance that just slows the game down.

I would like to add that in addition the gravity effect may be abused. For example, remember whippping boys or chokepoint planets? If there was a gravity effect, I can imagine people nuking one of those planets to make AI ships go the pace of a snail, then building the normal defenses as the neighboring planets can still provide supply.

Since in AIWC nukes cut supply, it is toatlly reasonable to make them prohibit anything to be built in AIW2. Of course, I know this idea is really crude. Yes, people may hate planetary gravity effect, but maybe that is just one nasty effect for both sides when you really have to use a nuke.

They aren't supposed to be used after all. I am just proposing it to be actually useful in an "detonate this or definitely lose" situation.

Update:

Although thinking twice, if you are doing a Fallen Spire campaign and nuke a planet in path of Exo... Hmm, that would slow things enough for you to warhead anything in that planet. I don't know, maybe make nukes +300AIP or so, and/or maybe let the AI charge up a brutal Exo wave after using it(which may motivate you to use another one),  would give it an absolutely "one time use" price tag, even on FS campaigns(although I regularly run on 700+ AIP on these games).

Frankly I think Nomad Beacon is more useful on killing what you really don't want to show up on defense. It is one time: there is only one beacon. It costs a lot: a beacon hack, 30AIP for capturing Nomad 1, enormous metal and 500k energy for reparing the beacon, defending Exo waves sent out each minute when Beacon is activated, but... that thing destroys even the AI Homeworld, along with anything that are immune to nukes and warheads, and removes the entire planet from the map.

That is what I imagine a "nuke" should do.

And looking at current nukes... It cost less resource, of course, but a lot more AIP, while doing much less. If the AI goes crazy after the humans detonate a nuke, why does it cost no more than structural AIP when a Nomad crashes on its homeworld? Then while a MkII nuke costs +500AIP for destroying all adjacent planets, what about a Nomad cutting off an entire section of a galaxy? If a MkIII nuke consumes the entire galaxy for +5000AIP, what about that Nomad trying to cut off the Human Home planet and AI Home planet?(I didn't try this, but according to the description, it should accomplish something similar.)

[Atepa]

They aren't supposed to be used after all. I am just proposing it to be actually useful in an "detonate this or definitely lose" situation.

My biggest problem with this train of thought is that if something is being put into the game that isn't supposed to be used, then it is a wasted feature, which means money and time down the drain needlessly. Nothing in the game should have the mentality of "don't use this" in my opinion. There are definitely things that should be situational, and I believe nukes would fall into that, but not so rare that you could play countless games and never run into that one unique scenario.

As Toranth mentioned, if you go through Kahuna's recent 10/10 AAR, he makes a very good use of a nuke to to respond to a hacking attack. Sure he ended up going back and no using it to get a slightly better AIP drop, but I think if he had wanted he could have make the nuke route more beneficial, but with more micro to do it. That is a perfect use and scenario for nukes, as he didn't have to do the ST hack, and he obviously could do it without a nuke, but the nuke makes it more beneficial when done. (And now I kinda want to grab that save and see... *mutters*)

Additionally, I know Keith has mentioned several times that he wants to avoid the immunities in AIW2 if he can (time will tell if he is successful on it) but realistically it isn't hard to imagine some stuff being immune to nukes. 1) There is no air or such in space, so outside of the initial kinetic force of the nuke the blastwave and such that it would normally generate if you explode on in a system with atmosphere doesn't play out the same in space.  There is of course a planet worth of shrapnel to deal with too but that isn't the nuke itself. 2) We already have materials we harden against radiation, I don't think it is that far of a stretch to assume we'll eventually have materials that are immune to it.

[Draco18s]

They aren't supposed to be used after all. I am just proposing it to be actually useful in an "detonate this or definitely lose" situation.

My biggest problem with this train of thought is that if something is being put into the game that isn't supposed to be used, then it is a wasted feature, which means money and time down the drain needlessly.

Not entirely.  Mk1 nukes are actually used. Mk2 and Mk3 required very little additional work (like, seriously, 5 minutes for both of them) and the Mk3 is the only one that I'd say will never be used (you won't have enough power left).

[Tridus]

They aren't supposed to be used after all. I am just proposing it to be actually useful in an "detonate this or definitely lose" situation.

My biggest problem with this train of thought is that if something is being put into the game that isn't supposed to be used, then it is a wasted feature, which means money and time down the drain needlessly.

Not entirely.  Mk1 nukes are actually used. Mk2 and Mk3 required very little additional work (like, seriously, 5 minutes for both of them) and the Mk3 is the only one that I'd say will never be used (you won't have enough power left).

Except to get the achievement for winning after nuking the entire galaxy.

[WolfWhiteFire]

Since in AIWC nukes cut supply, it is toatlly reasonable to make them prohibit anything to be built in AIW2. Of course, I know this idea is really crude. Yes, people may hate planetary gravity effect, but maybe that is just one nasty effect for both sides when you really have to use a nuke.

To my knowledge, they only cut the supply provided by the planet, but planets provide supply to neighboring planets so it would still have supply if you have a neighboring planet under your control.

[Toranth]

Since in AIWC nukes cut supply, it is toatlly reasonable to make them prohibit anything to be built in AIW2. Of course, I know this idea is really crude. Yes, people may hate planetary gravity effect, but maybe that is just one nasty effect for both sides when you really have to use a nuke.

To my knowledge, they only cut the supply provided by the planet, but planets provide supply to neighboring planets so it would still have supply if you have a neighboring planet under your control.

Nope, a Nuked planet blocks supply on that world.  Like having a CoProcessor in the system, except you can't get rid of it.