New Weapon Idea

[Admiral Grover]

I've never done any modding at all, but I was wondering if it would be possible to make weapon similar to the neutron bomb, but it an missile format. Sort of a 10 or 14 range seeker that does damage only to population. This sort of weapon would not be too powerful as the point defence cannons on the planet or surrounding starbases would be able to destroy some if not all of the missles.
I was also wondering how hard it would be to mod the current AI to use these types of weapons, as I think they could add a new dimension to attacking and captureing planets, rather than just glassing them.

Regards,

[Gimboid]

Yes, this type of weapon is certainly doable i believe

Set the weapon type as seeking instead of direct fire (if u copy the existing neutron bomb component and modify it), leave the damage type as only planet population, set the seeker speed and damage resist (for when its hit by PDC) and set the damage amount at the ranges u want it to be able to fire at and it should be ready to use

[Taera]

Whats the use in it anyway?
Neutron Bomb is a handy tool.. sometimes.
Why does one want to create neutron missile? What'll be the difference between the two?

[Admiral Grover]

The difference would be in the range of the weapon, as I have always thought that the range of the neutron bomb was a little short. I can recall many games where I have destroyed all the defences of a 8000M planet, and then sitting for 10-15 turns afterwords killing off population just to make the defending population small enough so I don't lose many troops

Therefore with the seeker idea, while the defences are being destroyed by the rest of the fleet, the neutron missles are also hitting the planet, killing off the population.

One thing you have to watch out for though is if you kill off all the population, you can no longer land troops on the planet, you have to wait till the combat has ended, and then attack again. IMHO this could be considered a bug, and I have no idea if this has been fixed yet in gold or not.

Regards,

[ 28 February 2002: Message edited by: Admiral Grover ]

[Taera]

Well right.
I though have to disagree that it would be too helpful. If you want to do both - fight the orbiting defense and bombard the population then dont forget that ground installations tend to have quite many PDCs each. if you fight the defenses, the ground PDCs are open for fire, and then your shots just wont pass through. Same goes for when you just attack a planet. You can either bombard it by waves of seekers to get sure the neutron missiles get through the PDCs, but then again if you attack it with rockets you wont get anything from the bombardament.

[Admiral Grover]

Very good point. Although with the regular missles being fired at the same time as the Neutron missles, the regulars should get cut down, while the Neutrons get through. If not, then I guess a new tactic is needed, cuz IME if the Ground defences have that many PDC's, then they also have a substantial amount of regular weapons which can be a detriment to any attacking fleet. This will also change a bit under gold, with the range and accuracy enhancements given to WP Mounts. This could make it more difficult for ships to get in range of planet to even attack and do it al little bit of damange.

Regards,

[Taera]

As far as i know planetary napalm lvl.5 at heavy mount wipes out WPs quite nice. Its my weapon of choice when laying siege on a homeworld protected by lots of WPs. I used to research it early in the game before, helpful...

[Admiral Grover]

Very true but as with any weapon you risk damaging facilities on the planet which may be worth keeping. I wonder if there is some way to create a weapon that would only detroy the units on the planets (such as the weapon platforms)...

Regards,

[Taera]

If you play tactical, its not a problem. Bomb them with planetary napalms, soften up with neutron bombs and then take over them.

[Taera]

Seriously, even though i dont create mods (for now) i sometimes think over some ideas and sometimes suggest them to different places. Thought in this idea too.