Better atomic bombs

[noobgandalf]

1. Remove the hand-held atomic bomb.
2. Add atomic artillery.
3. Add silo for nuclear robots.
4. Fix the visual effect of a nuclear explosion.

The nukes needs to be terrifying. You don't want to just shoot them around like it's nothing. Once you push the trigger to shoot them, all hell will break loose. Massive amounts of pollution, massive amounts of light just beaming your screen to shit if you watch the explosion - and a massive mushroom cloud that takes a long time to dissipate. The nuclear bombs needs to be amazingly terrifying, otherwise there's just no point in having them.

To get an idea of what it should look like, watch this YouTube video of the tsar bomba!

[Tekky]

2. Add atomic artillery.

Corresponding suggestion thread:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=55088 Nuclear Artillery Shells

[noobgandalf]

The main point I'm trying to make is not that we need more range on the nukes, but that we need the nukes to be real nukes. To balance out the power of mass destruction - just make the aliens very angry when you do it.

[E-37]

It sounds like a neat concept, but I thin nukes are good the way they are. Since you didn't say, I'm assuming that the new nukes would be 2-5x the radius of the current ones.
1) They fit naturally into the slot after explosive rockets. Explosive rockets are good, but for larger nests, nukes are the right size, if they are too much bigger, they will hit mostly empty space after the nest (or parts of nearby nests)
2) Lag. Have you ever nuked a very dense nest? The game slows down for a second. It is pretty noticeable if you aren't busy looking at the explosion. Having this happen semi-regularly could be pretty annoying and would be worse with bigger explosions. Then the waves come. Or do they? With multiple giant explosions going off probably fairly close by at similar times, there wouldn't be much of a counter-attack since they would all be dead and having little to no punishment for massive destruction isn't balanced either.
3) Aim. What happens if there is a nest near an outpost? Shooting the nest could result in parts of the outpost being obliterated.


Anyway... the explosion size is good how it is. Not all nukes are the same size anyway... a bomb built with a small amount of uranium would make a smaller explosion than one with more. Factorio's nukes just have a very small yield. It would be cool to shoot the current nukes from artillery though.

[mp0011]

Currently, nukes have kill radius just barely exceeding firing range, so it's easy to kill Yourself. Also, it's possible to use it accidentally inside Your base (i did it once, wrong mouse button pressed while shooting to chests. Chests were destroyed at least...).

It definitely should not be a "personal" weapon.

[E-37]

Currently, nukes have kill radius just barely exceeding firing range, so it's easy to kill Yourself. Also, it's possible to use it accidentally inside Your base (i did it once, wrong mouse button pressed while shooting to chests. Chests were destroyed at least...).

It definitely should not be a "personal" weapon.

I feel like it falls under the same category as trains. If you die to them, it's your own stupid fault for getting in the way. Having nukes selected as your active weapon is like driving a car on the rails - everything will probably be fine but there is a chance for disaster.
A bigger launch range isn't really necessary. By the time you are toting nukes around you can almost outrun the explosion with exoskeletons. Or you could simply fire and walk away since the rocket has travel time.

[Aunte]

Currently, nukes have kill radius just barely exceeding firing range, so it's easy to kill Yourself. Also, it's possible to use it accidentally inside Your base (i did it once, wrong mouse button pressed while shooting to chests. Chests were destroyed at least...).

It definitely should not be a "personal" weapon.

I'm loading a standard-rocket into my rocket launcher after killing the biters, better safe than sorry

[noobgandalf]

I don't like the nukes at all. Sure they do fill a certain purpose in the game, but they are also lame. Compare it to the nukes in StarCraft - "Nuclear launch detected ... ... ... ... ... BOOM)



That's a much better nuke than the factorio nuke. The SC nuke is too small though, because it has to be due to gameplay reasons. I think the factorio nuke can be massive, but it doesn't have to obliterate exactly everything within it's range. It's better if it causes massive damage to it's immediate vicinity and then produces a shock-wave that makes damage to anything it touches. Trees regenerate, right? So it won't be totally devastating to nature, but it will be pretty bad. The shockwave should also cause damage to the base, even if it's very far away. 3-4 times the area of the current "hand-held nuke" is too small. Maby 3-4 times the radius for the immediate impact, but the shock-wave should affect atleast a couple of chunks, so the player would have to really concider other options before using the nuke. On top of that, the nuke should produce a rediculus amount of polution, resulting in massive invasions from the aliens.

The nuke would not be a very practical weapon, it would only be very fun and it could be used for massive destruction and clearing areas. It would also be very fun for multiplayer. I don't think a hand held nuke is good for anything, the nuke should be fired with artillery or maby even the rocket silo.

Here's a nuke, this is a good example of what the nuke should atleast try to look like!


Now compare that to the factorio nuke:



*Edit - I know it's tricky to make it good in a graphics setting like factorio compared to a game like SC, but the nuke in SCI was still a lot better than Factorio. Also, one can achieve pretty cool effects when playing around with the lighting effects instead of just stacking sprites..

[E-37]

The nuke would not be a very practical weapon, it would only be very fun and it could be used for massive destruction and clearing areas. It would also be very fun for multiplayer. I don't think a hand held nuke is good for anything, the nuke should be fired with artillery or maby even the rocket silo.

I'm curious why you think the current nuke isn't good for anything. I think that it is very useful and quite fun. It is the best way of clearing biters short of a concert of artillery.

You seem to be suggesting that it should be a massive destructive force but what are you shooting it at? Only once you are deep postgame do you find nests that can't be destroyed in 2 nukes unless you are very, very careless with your pollution. I've put over 150 hours into one of my games, but even after 500 rocket launches, I have never found a biter nest that 4 nukes couldn't clear.

How much work did I put in to clear that nest almost the size of the screen? I walked to my nuke storage, grabbed some, took a train to the outpost, rode my car up to the nest and pushed the 'C' key a couple times and walked around a bit. It is hard to make a more convent solution without removing all the effort involved. A larger nuke that can be fired from artillery, would be less effort. It would reduce defense to research artillery range a bunch of times, plant a turret in the middle of your factory and hook it up to a machine that make giant nukes. What would be left to attack your factory? a bunch of biters that are half-dead from the shockwave. At that point you might as well disable biters for all the trouble they are going to give you.

I can see why they would be cool, but a larger explosive just isn't needed for the vast majority of games. As for the graphics, an update wouldn't hurt them. However, assuming that everything is to scale with the player even a nuke that would destroy a megabase probably wouldn't make a mushroom cloud but we can carry trains in our pockets so realism probably isn't a primary concern.

Really though, when you would ever need an explosion that big?

[noobgandalf]

"Sure they do fill a certain purpose in the game, but they are also lame."

As I said, they are lame which is the problem with them. I don't want the nukes to be automated killing things. Please read what I've said before assuming that I want the same functionality but with bigger range - that is not at all what I am suggesting.

At the moment, hand-held nukes do not fill any purpose because I can set up automated artillery trains that patrols my borders so nothing can ever attack me. All you get from the nuke is a waste of time running around manually killing of aliens that are growing and annoying your base. That is not a very fitting mechanic in a game about automation.

A bigger nuke could be used to aggro the aliens. Shooting it at anything you fancy to push back a big alien base, while causing basically all the aliens on the map to charge the base - easy wipe of enemies. It would also look amazing and it opens up possibilities for the future of the alien game mechanics.

[E-37]

Please read what I've said before assuming that I want the same functionality but with bigger range - that is not at all what I am suggesting.

Oops, sorry I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. Let me try to condense your argument into a few points that way I won't get off topic.

The current nuke:

At the moment, hand-held nukes do not fill any purpose because I can set up automated artillery trains that patrols my borders so nothing can ever attack me. All you get from the nuke is a waste of time running around manually killing of aliens that are growing and annoying your base. That is not a very fitting mechanic in a game about automation.

Thats true. Artillery has almost completely eclipsed nukes. They are mostly useful for taking bases head on (If you don't have artillery) or for dealing with the resulting wave from the shelling. (or just to mess around with)

Bigger explosion:
I'm not saying that a bigger explosion is just bad, but I have never come across a scenario where I thought that what I needed was a bigger explosion. Artillery seems to fill the role of automated giant nest destruction just fine. To be viable, a bigger blast would need to have some serious optimizations. I'm sure you have seen what happens when you nuke a lot of biters - the game lags. https://youtu.be/bI8Ma8VoUUc is a pretty extreme example. A larger explosion would make that problem worse. It it definitely possible but it might need some work.

Loading nukes into artillery:
As for loading nukes into artillery, I think that would be pretty cool but I don't know how balanced that would be. It shouldn't be as simple as sticking the current nuke into the gun though. If artillery can shoot nukes it should have a large aggro range, but that is a topic for a different discussion viewtopic.php?f=6&t=55088. I am going to drop that point in this discussion since there is a dedicated thread for it.

I suppose I'm not staying that handheld nukes aren't broken, but saying that changing the explosion size won't fix anything. Graphics? Well... the picture on the nuke tech icon shows a mushroom cloud... and I don't get one when I use it.

[BicycleEater]

Sorry to be a bit late, and dig up an old topic, and for the self promotion (wow thats a big list). Anyway, I have a mod - https://mods.factorio.com/mod/True-Nukes, built for exactly this purpose.
It makes nukes a LOT more dramatic - particularly the really big ones.