quote: Original quote by Lizard:
The railgun idea seems like a good one but it''s not really a stalemate breaker, as it sounds as though it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to use against a good opponent of equal strength . It''s more the sort of weapon you''d use to finnish a game off in spectacular fashion against an opponent who''s already dead.
An idea for a stalemate breaker would be a type of EMP cannon, which while not destroying buildings could bring the enemy defences offline temporarily. If executed correctly this type of weapon would give you a small window in which your enemy would be vulnerable but not totally helpless , so it''d still take a certain amount of skill to pull off a successful assault.

When I talk about stalemates, I am not talking about perfectly balanced forces, because victory will be decided by tactics in this case. What I do mean, is when one player adopts a tactic which denies his opponent victory, but also denies himself victory. Example: A game of AoE I once played on an island map where one player walled in his entire island with ballista towers and build a huge fleet of juggernauts. Without any ground units, he couldn''t destroy his opponents, but no one could attack him either. The fact that such strategies are possible could be construed as a design flaw in the game itself, and perhaps using WoMD as a stalemate breaker is just trying to avoid the real problem, but as a designer, it is difficult to predict what strategies will emerge from your design.

One problem with ''counter weapons'' (ie, anti-missile missiles or weapons which can shoot things in orbit or whatever) is that they make WoMD redundant as stalemate breakers. As long as a player has the appropriate counter weapon dug in with the rest of his army, the WoMD is useless.

I''ve been toying with the idea of an EMP weapons as well, it is a pretty cool technology. This sort of weapon could give an infantry force a serious edge over mechanized units, for example. However, like the WoMD, this sort of thing has a potentially huge effect on the overall game balance, so I am still not 100% sure I want to use this sort of thing.

quote:
Original post by AdmiralBinary
I think RA2 handled it quite well, actually. The super-weapons (IMHO) were well-balanced (does not mean "realistic", BTW). Also, they added the option to turn them off, so you can''t really complain, can you?

quote: Original post by Wavinator
You could do what Total Annihilation did with the Can units: Basically, so many friggin'' hitpoints that it takes a couple of nukes. IOW, you give the player the ability to scale conventional forces so that artillery is ineffective and nuclear artillery becomes a necessity. If the build time scales are roughly the same, then it becomes a matter of tactics and style. (I remember the TA expansion had a unit like this, a massive walking robot called "Korgoth" (?), but wasn''t quite balanced time-wise)

You are right, RA probably did the nukes like that for balance reasons, and I agree with the principle that realism shouldn''t get in the way of gameplay. But you also have to maintain suspension of disbelief, and the fact that nukes could damage (not destroy) buildings made out of concrete, but couldn''t harm a soldier at all completely destroyed all suspension of disbelief. Even though the SC nukes are also woefully underpowered (from a realism point of view, not game balance) they were a lot more convincing than the nukes in RA. For the same reasons, I don''t really like the idea of just escalating armour - these WoMD are supposed to be decisive weapons, not just an excuse for making half your forces redundant.

My thinking is that if you can''t balance them without giving them a reasonably convincing level of power, then you are better off leaving them out altogether. Half assed nukes that don''t hurt soldiers == utter crap.

I agree with the idea that any ultra-advanced warfare will be radically different to WW2.

Underground warfare when the opponent is a space-based is paramount to suicide. Kinetic weapons are virtually useless in ship-to-ship battles, but utterly devistating against land targets. A space ships effective range is infinite. Gravity works against ANY planet-based defences, thus ships can sit 1/2 an AU(about 4 light minutes) out from the planet, and launch Kinetic weapons without any the threat of retribution.

Firing off thousands of 1 Ton iron(or whatever) balls would be enought to destroy 1000 of CUBIC km of land. I can NOT think up a viable defence to this, beyond for a fantastically powerful kinetic energy shield. As for sensitive targets, moderate the size & starting speed of the projectile. This type of weapon, is immune to EMP, but assumes NO FTL sensors & drive systems.

Space-to-sea combat, is much harder, one way is to launch something large and heavy into the ocean, the result would be a real live version of "Deep Impact"(crappy movie, asteriod kills all live on planet style), rince and repeat to desired level of destruction is reached. As to kill them off without trashing the planet, drop powerful sonar probes. It doesnt matter much if they are detected as a replacement can rapidly be dropped in. Do this rapidly to prevent them from escaping, covering the edge of the contients first, then working into deep sea. Unless sensitive targets are in the same area, flush them out with saturation bombing with solid iron(or whatever) balls, with the theory being the shock waves destroying them by smashing them against the (relatively) shallow sea bed. When they are in deep sea, continue with bombardment in patterns were the subs are suspected to be. These action have to be done in a VERY narrow time frame, unless you wish to replace the sendor bouys every time a target is attacked.

Kinetic attacks are also CLEAN, no radioactive fallout, and if they hit a city, MUCH more effective at killing than nukes. (doesnt matter were they are, a bomb shelter wouldnt help at all)

EMP attacks should NOT work on space ships. Solar flares can generate a HUGE EMP, and space ships would need to be designed to cope. To harden targets from solar flare level EMP, biuld a cage of super conducters electromagnet around the target, apply a current. This will protected every thing inside the cage, with a sensible design that INCLUDES the generator INSIDE to protective cage, an EMP pulse is nolonger a significate threat.

Thus once a faction looses the fight to control space, it degenerates into a vietnam style war. Tunnels are NOT effective in a (modern) city setting. Concrete/solid rock is HARD stuff.


This doesnt cover every thing, but is a fair start on my opinion on why if you are to include space based warfare , it should be the larger focus of the game.

AP: Getting lots of suitable projectiles wouldn''t be difficult either - just harvest a load of iron rich asteroids, break them up into suitably sized chunks and give them a gentle shove in the direction of a planet.

However, I don''t think these sorts of weapon are actually that useful. They aren''t exactly accurate, and they are indiscriminate killers. Assuming the aggressors are after conquest and not complete annihilation of the planetary population, they are simply non-viable. Hence the use of accurately targetted weapons. (e.g Railguns )

But I agree, there isn''t really much you can do to defend against orbital attack. SOM''s (Surface to Orbit Missiles) might be one possibility, but would have to be very quite powerful if they are going to be used on a huge starship effectively, and even then they could probably be shot down fairly easily by the starship''s defences.

Another idea for a stalemate breaking unit would be a kamikaze style unit with low armour and packed with high explosive, it wouldn''t be able to penetrate far into the enemy base before being destroyed providing the base is well defended, and when it goes up it takes out pretty much everything in the near vicinity. This would be a good unit for punching a hole in the enemy defenses, and the player would have to be limited to having only one of these at a time, and there are several ways in which a kamikaze attack could be countered, such as destroying the unit before it reaches it''s destination, infact if the unit was destroyed before leaving the players base it would have the reverse of it''s intended effect.

This may not be a weapon of mass destruction as such but could prove to be a definate stalemate breaker.

---- People are strange.

Hmmm, I''m not convinced by AP and Sandman regarding the usefulness of iron balls/asteroids hauled down at planets. First, the devastating effect of meteorites comes from both their mass and their velocity I believe. It would take an enormous amount of energy to accelerate something that heavy. That''s assuming the raw material starts out in a relatively static position. Picking an asteroid out of it''s natural orbit to redirect it at a planet takes even more energy. You''d have to settle with relatively small objects, but not too small since most of it will burn up in the atmosphere. Second, a passive object will be difficult to predict where it will hit the ground/sea. It''s affected by the planet''s atmosphere (more the higher the velocity is).

I think one has to consider the cost of WoMD and huge passive projectiles. No party will have infinite resources. Both will probably have anti-missile defences. That''s why I think a game including WoMD on a large scale would still turn into a tactical battle. Nukes works in SC because they don''t take out the whole battle field in one blow, you don''t have infinitely many nukes and there''s a risk/chance of nukes being detected and wasted.

Wierd, Kloytan hasn''t posted on this thread yet?...

First of all are you planing on using this in an RTS like SC/C&C or war simulation?

War simulation is pretty much every friggin thing goes. Since you don''t usually include production costs, delays, and bascially skipping the whole process of producing units and weapons of mass destruction in them, you don''t have to worry too much about the balance issue because it''s easily done on a cost per unit basis.

As for the SC/C&C RTS, that requires a heck lot more work. 1) Nukes are RARELY if ever used. In SC tournaments, the only time you will ever see these weapon of mass destruction ever used is between terran vs terran fight. 2) I don''t think blizzard put nukes in the game just for the sake of having these powerful weapons. They''re there for a purpose, they have the longest attack range, and they''re the MOST effective solution if the opponent holes up in very tight unpentratable defense spot. 3) If there is a way to protect against them, I can think of a dozen ideas (eg. a special unit designed just for nuke protection by putting up a shield with a radius centered around the unit.) You need to make sure there has to be a effective way to counter/eliminate that unit. You have to make sure when all the possible units have been explored, offense must > defense. Otherwise, the game would turn into a boring stalemate.

Ack, back to the questions:
1) Not a whole lot.
2) I won''t worry about too dominating, I would be worry about making them effective first.
3) I think the above paragraph covers it.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Hmmm, I''m not convinced by AP and Sandman regarding the usefulness of iron balls/asteroids hauled down at planets. First, the devastating effect of meteorites comes from both their mass and their velocity I believe. It would take an enormous amount of energy to accelerate something that heavy. That''s assuming the raw material starts out in a relatively static position. Picking an asteroid out of it''s natural orbit to redirect it at a planet takes even more energy. You''d have to settle with relatively small objects, but not too small since most of it will burn up in the atmosphere. Second, a passive object will be difficult to predict where it will hit the ground/sea. It''s affected by the planet''s atmosphere (more the higher the velocity is).

A typical iron rich meteorite > 40m in diameter will survive entry in an earthlike atmosphere. Make it say, 80m in diameter and you have something you could probably use as an extremely effective weapon.

Yes this thing is big, and mining it out of an asteroid field and moving it into an earth orbit would require large amounts of energy, but it is reasonably doable, certainly in a high tech world with FTL drives and the like. You don''t need to impart it with a large velocity, just stick some boosters at it and propel it from orbit directly towards the planet, and let gravity do the rest.

But I do agree that it would be far too inaccurate to use for anything more than random indiscriminate bombardment. You can''t really aim these things very well, and although you can calculate a trajectory and work out a rough target point, you could easily be out by a long way (many miles) after random events like atmospheric effects/projectile breakup etc.

In any case, I am not really interested in weapons which wipe out everything on the entire battlefield - a weapon like this in an RTS game would incredibly bad, and would completely ruin the gameplay. However, I am interested in the pro''s and cons of weapons which have the potential to destroy everything in a substantial area (about the size of the screen for example).

quote: Original post by Mooglez
First of all are you planing on using this in an RTS like SC/C&C or war simulation?

Difficult to define. I am trying to capture the best parts of SC and tabletop style gameplay, if that is any help.

quote:
War simulation is pretty much every friggin thing goes. Since you don''t usually include production costs, delays, and bascially skipping the whole process of producing units and weapons of mass destruction in them, you don''t have to worry too much about the balance issue because it''s easily done on a cost per unit basis.

There are no production costs or anything like that. The only delays involved are things like waiting for reinforcements to arrive etc. Note that this does not make balance easier - in someways it makes it harder as there is a lot more potential for redundant/dominating units.

quote:
As for the SC/C&C RTS, that requires a heck lot more work. 1) Nukes are RARELY if ever used. In SC tournaments, the only time you will ever see these weapon of mass destruction ever used is between terran vs terran fight.

I think the reason for this is that walling in type stalemate behaviour is pretty hard to do in SC, and Terran are simply the best at it (siege tanks are pretty much unmatched in ground defence) I''d guess most tournament players wouldn''t use this style of play anyhow.

quote:
2) I don''t think blizzard put nukes in the game just for the sake of having these powerful weapons. They''re there for a purpose, they have the longest attack range, and they''re the MOST effective solution if the opponent holes up in very tight unpentratable defense spot.

I would agree. This is also the main reason I can think of for including them, the other reason being shortening the end game. (although the two are related - the end game only really drags on if the losing player decides to be an arse and holes up to try and prevent his opponent from winning)

quote:
3) If there is a way to protect against them, I can think of a dozen ideas (eg. a special unit designed just for nuke protection by putting up a shield with a radius centered around the unit.) You need to make sure there has to be a effective way to counter/eliminate that unit. You have to make sure when all the possible units have been explored, offense must > defense. Otherwise, the game would turn into a boring stalemate.

I don''t like the special ''anti nuke'' unit idea - it is too much of a defensive solution. The beauty of the SC implementation is that a player being threatened with a nuke MUST go on the offensive in order to be able to stop it.

Incidentally, I don''t know if any other SC players can confirm/deny this, but I think I noticed a bug in SC which made nuclear launches almost impossible to stop. Instead of selecting a single ghost and using the nuke button, select a group of ghosts and use it. If you do this, it seems that the little red dot DOESN''T APPEAR, making it almost impossible for your opponent to see what part of his base you are nuking. I haven''t had a chance to double check this yet...

Ok, I''m not real fimiliar with RTS style games (I''ve played a few), so my perspective will be different (which may be good).

Let''s say that if these things are out in space and are powerful enough imitate a Hiroshima kind of destruction, then yes, they should be very, very hard to obtain. Secondly, the amount of activity needed to get them up into space should be obvious to all opposing parties, so maybe once you''ve obtained the technology , it is leaked and there is now a race to get your weapons of mass destruciton up first before your enemies develope replications of the technology and do the same.
Also with this, if you get your "Eye of God" up and running and are now capable of burying enitire legions, I think your downfall should be inevitable. At this point you become the villian or destoryer and politics would only used on a regional level, you yourself are near evil. Maybe the games overall story or presentation could change to reflect this. You now have the ultimate weaopn, so now other kingdoms join up and plot to take you down in fear of being annhilated individually. On a lower level, the civilian population think your kingdom is mad with power and is trying to destroy everything, so they start to oppose of your power hunger.
This stuff may have been mentioned but this next part is where somehting new is introduced. You have the weapon and you can blow the world to hell, there has to be a balance to everything so besides all of the kindoms now uniting to take you down, some god-like super hero person has appeared and is fighting on their side. You know one of those roach to kill, plan thwarting teenagers who can somehow or another be the only person to survive a horiffic war. Maybe now at this point there would be a time limit imposed on your victory or destroction. But see this just adds up to the choices you make as the player. Now a days if you had a doomsday weapon how do you think others countries would react?
I just used these as examples but I guess my bottom line is have some sort of creative balance for the weapons.

peace

-Sage13

quote: Original post by Sandman

I think the reason for this is that walling in type stalemate behaviour is pretty hard to do in SC, and Terran are simply the best at it (siege tanks are pretty much unmatched in ground defence) I''d guess most tournament players wouldn''t use this style of play anyhow.

No... not walling stalemate. Siege tanks are also used to play offensive artillery push. They''re not just unmatched in ground defence, they''re offensive force are unstopable vs ground units if you performed the push right.

quote: I don''t like the special ''anti nuke'' unit idea - it is too much of a defensive solution. The beauty of the SC implementation is that a player being threatened with a nuke MUST go on the offensive in order to be able to stop it.

So I''m guessing this game is something like SG. Maybe something that would re-direct the nuke somewhere? Delay the launch to impact time? Or a scanner that can pick up the radiation and pin point the exact location of where the nuke is charged?

quote: Incidentally, I don''t know if any other SC players can confirm/deny this, but I think I noticed a bug in SC which made nuclear launches almost impossible to stop. Instead of selecting a single ghost and using the nuke button, select a group of ghosts and use it. If you do this, it seems that the little red dot DOESN''T APPEAR, making it almost impossible for your opponent to see what part of his base you are nuking. I haven''t had a chance to double check this yet...

I don''t know about the disappearing dot... but I do know sometimes it''s hard to catch the dot when it''s aimming at a red building with similar color. Oh, I hate matrixed ghosts. Matrix is a spell that increases their hp by 3 times and it can be used repeatly; pretty much guarentee the nuke.