A nuclear flash's "range" is insignificant in space. You need nearly a direct hit (or a near miss) to do any damage in the first place. The difference between a nuclear missile and a high-speed kinetic round isn't as big as you think it is.
What is the future of missiles?
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It's not about the flash... it's about the blast... kinetics impact on a target, and blast can hit multiple surrounding targets. Like i said, nuclear fireballs arent as effective in space as it is on Earth due to lack of oxygen. But blast is still clearly there. Which ever the missile hits should have the most damage and other surrounding ships should receive smaller damage. But this is very ineffective against shields. It's only better off if hulls were exposed to the blast. But this is beside the point. Nukes are only the first stage... who knows what a quantum explosives can do in space... maybe better AOE radius or hull damage?
There is a huge difference. Only similarities they both have are the physical force.
Without a restriction of gravity, blast is clearly wider than an impact of a shell.
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There is no blast in vacuum of space. There is no air, so there is nothing to carry the physical force (missile material is turned into plasma in seconds, so it doesn't matter). It doesn't mean nuclear explosion in space is not destructive - it is causing extreme nuclear radiation and EMP effect. But no blast
More info: Starfish nuclear test in 1962 (check the wiki)
Of course combined radiation & EMP may be emulated in game as some kind of AoE.
The staggering amount of released energy from a nuke is not insignificant.
The blast wave associated with them, as far as space goes, is.
Space isn't entirely empty, there's junk floating around out there, but compared to an atmospheric environment, it is.
The point, the blast wave (the principal destructive force from a fission/fusion warhead) is almost utterly irrelevant in a space environment. Gravity is the force it acts against(as it holds the things it passes to the planet) where as the ships you shoot at are only under the forces they are imparting to move.
That said, it is not illogical or ludicrous to set them as an aoe weapon, the sheer amount of released energy in the vicinity males this plausible enough, and lasers themselves are basically just funky colored heat lamps...
Aso far as matter/anti-matter explosions go, who knows. If that interaction is as theorized, those missiles could be ripping apart the fabric of space time.
And let's not forget, that missile that turns to plasma is ejecting said plasma in all directions, or directionally if so designed, which lends to an aoe type result as well.
Wouldn't mind them if they were aoe myself, I'd rather the mere gun come along and make pd less effective against them. That is where I would start tweaking things, and if they can add retargeting into the game, that should also be put in as a tech path (dumbfire missiles vs self guided munitions) for missile empires to pursue.
I'm fine with getting hit with space bullets or heat beams before missiles hit, because flight time need be considered.
But until small amounts of pd doesn't absolutely negate large missile fleets, the other gripes need to take a seat on the back burner.
And yeah persistence should be there too, because missiles don't just vanish...
The blast wave associated with them, as far as space goes, is.
Space isn't entirely empty, there's junk floating around out there, but compared to an atmospheric environment, it is.
The point, the blast wave (the principal destructive force from a fission/fusion warhead) is almost utterly irrelevant in a space environment. Gravity is the force it acts against(as it holds the things it passes to the planet) where as the ships you shoot at are only under the forces they are imparting to move.
That said, it is not illogical or ludicrous to set them as an aoe weapon, the sheer amount of released energy in the vicinity males this plausible enough, and lasers themselves are basically just funky colored heat lamps...
Aso far as matter/anti-matter explosions go, who knows. If that interaction is as theorized, those missiles could be ripping apart the fabric of space time.
And let's not forget, that missile that turns to plasma is ejecting said plasma in all directions, or directionally if so designed, which lends to an aoe type result as well.
Wouldn't mind them if they were aoe myself, I'd rather the mere gun come along and make pd less effective against them. That is where I would start tweaking things, and if they can add retargeting into the game, that should also be put in as a tech path (dumbfire missiles vs self guided munitions) for missile empires to pursue.
I'm fine with getting hit with space bullets or heat beams before missiles hit, because flight time need be considered.
But until small amounts of pd doesn't absolutely negate large missile fleets, the other gripes need to take a seat on the back burner.
And yeah persistence should be there too, because missiles don't just vanish...
As others have so helpfully pointed out, the "blast" is basically nonexistent in space. You get one inside an atmosphere because the nuclear flash of x-rays turns the atmosphere into plasma, and that plasma very rapidly expands into a fireball- the explosion dynamics are all a result of pressure waves. Obviously, that doesn't happen in space.
What you get instead is a very energetic flash of radiation that falls off in intensity very rapidly thanks to the square-cubed law. To effectively damage a target, you need a nuclear warhead to detonate practically on top of them. That radiation flux will cause vaporization and shockwaves inside the target, but again, not to a degree that couldn't be replicated through a nice relativistic projectile slug (In fact, there's a valid train of thought in space-war theorizing that kinetic warheads- that is, missiles that simply impact the target rather than carry a nuclear warhead- would be more cost-efficient for the damage they'd be able to inflict).
So from a realism standpoint, no, nuclear missiles have no appreciable "blast mechanics" and wouldn't be an effective AoE weapon against spaceships.
It'd be interesting if missiles were an AoE weapon, but honestly I wouldn't mind at all if they stayed direct-fire, and I think the persistence and overkill issues need to be solved first, before any sort of new AoE weapon mechanic is introduced.
I'm concerned that nothing you've stated to this point exhibits any real knowledge of how missile overkill, flight time, persistence, performance vs. armor/vs. shield, or point defense work in this game.
I just want to say, as far as realism tangent is concerned, in a vacuum you actually get a fireball from nuclear detonation, vs mushroom clouds in our atmosphere.
What you wouldn't get, is what we use them for here on earth, big ass bombs basically, and that's the pressure wave from the forces unleashed ie explosive Shockwave.
It does however, unleash enormous amounts of radioactive waves which, without the atmosphere, do not attenuate as they do within. That means while a Megaton warhead might radiate lethal ly to say 50 miles, in space the lethal range of that radiation is on the hundreds if not thousands of miles, from its point of detonation.
That little point is enough for me to not mind it having aoe effects, the game shows ships blowing up, reality would be crews getting lethaly radiated.
And yes armor, hull and Shields compensate for radiation naturally, but what effects would the insane level of employment have on such things? High level tests with 200kt warheads fused wires underground in reality, what manner of insulation would projecting energy into space type constructions (shields) have against that to remain in place to stop or slow or lower the radioactive particles the crew are exposed to?
Like I said, it isn't about realism, just something I could live with. And it's reasonable to me that aoe missiles could exist (I'd consider space missiles in the order of thousands of Megaton, personally)
And those kinetic missiles you mention, are basically the space equivalent of RAP(rocket assisted projectiles) basically somewhat tracking kinetic munitions. Probably truly more cost effective than space nukes or whatever the higher types of warheads are.
What you wouldn't get, is what we use them for here on earth, big ass bombs basically, and that's the pressure wave from the forces unleashed ie explosive Shockwave.
It does however, unleash enormous amounts of radioactive waves which, without the atmosphere, do not attenuate as they do within. That means while a Megaton warhead might radiate lethal ly to say 50 miles, in space the lethal range of that radiation is on the hundreds if not thousands of miles, from its point of detonation.
That little point is enough for me to not mind it having aoe effects, the game shows ships blowing up, reality would be crews getting lethaly radiated.
And yes armor, hull and Shields compensate for radiation naturally, but what effects would the insane level of employment have on such things? High level tests with 200kt warheads fused wires underground in reality, what manner of insulation would projecting energy into space type constructions (shields) have against that to remain in place to stop or slow or lower the radioactive particles the crew are exposed to?
Like I said, it isn't about realism, just something I could live with. And it's reasonable to me that aoe missiles could exist (I'd consider space missiles in the order of thousands of Megaton, personally)
And those kinetic missiles you mention, are basically the space equivalent of RAP(rocket assisted projectiles) basically somewhat tracking kinetic munitions. Probably truly more cost effective than space nukes or whatever the higher types of warheads are.
I'm concerned you haven't read my posts.
I`ll cover the stuff I haven't mentioned.
Persistence of the lack of contributes to the overkill factor. That overkill is already minimalized by spreading fire. It's also a static value per ship because the damage is based on the damage of the fleet against the max hp of the ship referring to a specific line of code:
This means that If I buff damage, the overkill damage per ship will not increase equal to the total buffed damage. This results in an shorter time to kill the opposing fleet and thus means that the buff will work in order to fix missiles.
Performance vs shields/armour Doesn't matter, this is because weapons cannot replace defenses and visa versa. In other words, missiles only competes against other weapons.
Point defenses are a hard counter to missiles. Therefore the ideal situation is that missiles will normally beat equivalent (I value this by mineral equivalence) fleets but lose against point defense equipped fleets. However, missiles already have a counter to point defenses, it's swarmer missiles. Therefore any issue with point defenses is either a balancing error from the point defense or the swarmer missile end. This point is rendered negligible.
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No fireball. Just a flash. The non-nuclear material of the warhead will be instantly vaporized and will be moving away from the detonation at thousands of kilometres an hour. A fireball is a specific property of xrays being absorbed by a planetary atmosphere.
I dunno about that. You'd need to run the math on it- again, the
Again, I wouldn't mind missiles doing AoE damage, but that's more on a "fun mechanics trump realism" level. Still, they're not a priority, and shouldn't be used to try fixing missiles until the underlying core issues have been dealt with.
World strongest Nuke was TZAR bomba - it had approx 58MT of TNT
58MT of TNT is approx. 67500000000000 Wh of energy (6.75*10^13 Wh)
Yamato Battlecruiser 460mm battery:
Bullet Mass: 1460kg
Striking Velocity: 690 miles per second
Energy: ~22500000 joules = ~6250Wh (6.25*10^3Wh)
Tzar bomba produce energy equal to ~10 800 000 000 direct shoots of strongest WW2 naval artillery
Sphere surface: 4*PI*Radius^2
Sphere with radius of 30km have 11 300 000 000 square meters, it means:
At 30 kilometers from space Tzar Bomba detonation, every square meter of enemy ship take radiation energy close to direct hit from Yamato ship 460mm battery. EVERY SQUARE METER OF SHIP.
If ship is 1km long and has average height of 200m (close to standard size of most Sci Fi Battleships), then Tzar Bomba detonation at 30km at ships broadside will be equal to 30000 direct Yamato hits.
It wont be kinetic damage, it will be deadly heat and electromagnetic radiation annihilating hull, electronics and crew.
So:
Nukes in Space CAN do deadly AoE.
Even if distances in Stellaris are much larger then 30km, Nukes in year 2200 might be much more powerful too...
Nukes don't need atmosphere to be deadly at distance, mainly in vacuum of space
If ships have any kind of "radiation immunity shield", then all lasers in Stellaris should do ZERO damage - because nukes in space do similar type of damage.
EDIT:
Same cruiser (1kmx 0.2km) take energy equal to 10 Yamato hits at 1600km. So nukes CAN work as AoE in space.
58MT of TNT is approx. 67500000000000 Wh of energy (6.75*10^13 Wh)
Yamato Battlecruiser 460mm battery:
Bullet Mass: 1460kg
Striking Velocity: 690 miles per second
Energy: ~22500000 joules = ~6250Wh (6.25*10^3Wh)
Tzar bomba produce energy equal to ~10 800 000 000 direct shoots of strongest WW2 naval artillery
Sphere surface: 4*PI*Radius^2
Sphere with radius of 30km have 11 300 000 000 square meters, it means:
At 30 kilometers from space Tzar Bomba detonation, every square meter of enemy ship take radiation energy close to direct hit from Yamato ship 460mm battery. EVERY SQUARE METER OF SHIP.
If ship is 1km long and has average height of 200m (close to standard size of most Sci Fi Battleships), then Tzar Bomba detonation at 30km at ships broadside will be equal to 30000 direct Yamato hits.
It wont be kinetic damage, it will be deadly heat and electromagnetic radiation annihilating hull, electronics and crew.
So:
Nukes in Space CAN do deadly AoE.
Even if distances in Stellaris are much larger then 30km, Nukes in year 2200 might be much more powerful too...
Nukes don't need atmosphere to be deadly at distance, mainly in vacuum of space
If ships have any kind of "radiation immunity shield", then all lasers in Stellaris should do ZERO damage - because nukes in space do similar type of damage.
EDIT:
Same cruiser (1kmx 0.2km) take energy equal to 10 Yamato hits at 1600km. So nukes CAN work as AoE in space.
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@Exarian I'd appreciate some sources on some of your numbers, honestly- calculating the explosive force of the Tsar Bomba using its terrestrial effects seems inherently flawed to me if we're talking about how it'd perform in space. What we'd need would be numbers on its pure fissile strength- which we'd then need to calculate for what percentages of different types of radiation it'd break down into.
Once we knew the type and strength of radiation it produced (realistically, mind- only a very small part of a nuclear warhead's fissionable material actually undergoes fission before the rest is atomized and contributes to fallout) we could look at it through the inverse-cube calculation.
(Besides which, 30 kilometres is insignificant in space-ranges. That's a veritable near-miss.)
Once we knew the type and strength of radiation it produced (realistically, mind- only a very small part of a nuclear warhead's fissionable material actually undergoes fission before the rest is atomized and contributes to fallout) we could look at it through the inverse-cube calculation.
(Besides which, 30 kilometres is insignificant in space-ranges. That's a veritable near-miss.)
1. Nuke detonation is distributed to various effects. In atmosphere, highest part of energy go to shockwave and thermal radiation, and only small fraction go to radiation and EMP.
In space, there is no shockwave, so entire energy go to radiation and EMP (there is no "wasted" part because of no atmosphere) - effects distribution is different, but total energy is the same.
2. 30 km is insignificant in space ranges, but we are using, obsolete, XX century technology (Tzar bomba) too. We can assume XXII century nukes are many, many times stronger... Please note Antimatter missiles technology is giving only moderate damage boost.
3. Numbers I gave are innacurate, sure - I just wanted to explain nukes in space are still extremely deadly weapons, and You don't need to sit on them, to see their destructive power (like some people in this thread basically wrote).
Nuclear weapons do not produce an EMP outside of a planetary-strength magnetic field, actually. There's no EMP in space.
The alternative you haven't considered is that missile guidance systems are simply accurate enough to get the missile to a close effective range. Making bigger and bigger warheads is unsustainable- the inverse-square law, remember? It doesn't scale linearly. What makes far more sense is to build economically viable warheads and a missile body that can get them close enough to damage the intended target.
You're drastically overstating how dangerous nukes in space are, though. Which is counterproductive to discussions as towards realism and such- I haven't been arguing about game mechanics, I've been countering people's erroneous claims about Actual Real World Science. Like I said- I wouldn't mind missiles being an AoE weapon in Stellaris. but that's grounded in game mechanics, not realism. Missile weapons would need to be incredibly precise to be useful in space combat, and they would not be aiming towards impossibly high yields.
1. Then entire explosion go to radiation. Nothing is wasted
2. Well.. Stronger nuke doesn't mean bigger nuke. Stronger=bigger only if we consider same reaction type - perhaps in XXII century there are more energy-efficient reaction types, able to convert higher fraction of mass into energy. Getting "close enough" means also getting close enough to be shot down by point defense (and unlike classics explosives, destroyed nuke has minimal chance for starting nuclear reaction), being jammed by ECM etc. etc.
3. If starships in Stellaris are fighting in on standard SciFi distances (Star Trek, Star Wars - 10 -1000km), then nukes may work as very efficient AoE. Map distances tell us nothing, since even planet orbits have completely incorrect sizes - we can assume ship-to-ship distances are completely symbolic too. If Stellaris concept of space battles is based of the most popular SciFi franchises, then even real world nukes are efficient AoE weapons.
The engagement ranges in Star Trek and Star Wars are implausibly short. Even in modern terrestrial warfare we have weapons that can shoot their target well before their operators can see it. With no air or horizon to get in the way, and centuries of improved technology, effective weapon ranges are going to be orders of magnitude larger.
And, of course, at such ranges, there is no need whatsoever to put your ships in a formation so bunched up that they're susceptible to multikills from nuclear flashes. I mean, maybe if the admiral had the Just Plain Stupid trait there'd be a chance of that happening, but otherwise no.
Again, before we go any further with this: try not to mix up Real Science and Science Fiction. I'm not discussing nuclear weapons as fielded on scifi distances- I'm discussing the hypothetical reality of nuclear weapons in space-based warfare. There's a difference. Stop bringing up "scifi ranges", they're irrelevant. If an AoE mechanic adds interesting gameplay, I don't care how realistic or unrealistic it is so long as the game presents it cohesively.
With that out of the way, your other two points:
- Correct, in space all fission energy that is released by a nuclear detonation is released as a nuclear flash. A fraction will vaporize the missile, the rest will rapidly disperse as per the inverse-square law, which means a comparatively rapid dropoff. We've been over this.
- Making a nuclear warhead with enough energy to destroy an enemy ship multi-kilometer distances away is immensely unlikely. It would be far more cost-effective and plausible to build a delivery vehicle capable of reaching the target. Yes, that has its own complications- there's a constant back-and-forth in theorizing on this topic about whether or not point defence would negate missiles or if missiles could overcome point defence. The idea that you could just make bigger and bigger warheads doesn't come up though, because its ludicrous.
Man its like crazy, people rejecting scientific data like crazy.
1 ok it may not be fire, but the explosion is spherical. That's the point, it still has an explosion there isn't some flash and it's done. T
2 inverse cube is irrelevant. I get your point, the sheer amount of radiation (since there's more atmosphere for both a blast wave, or medium for thermal it all becomes expelled radioactives) is mindbogling. All of that force is converted to radiation (ya kbow, conservation of energy). AND given the vacuum, said radiation doesn't attenuate. So basically, people in California will have been fried by Hiroshima and Nagasaki to illustrate that (if the earth was both flat and a vacuum)
The largest outer atmospheric test was a 1.4Mt warhead. I'd imagine the smallest futuristic missile would yield at least 10x that. Not necessarily by being bigger as someone pointed out, but being more efficient in yields.
4 no emp in space? If em isn't allowed in space, scratch arc emitters, lasers, the protective blanket of our planet, electricity, planets and life itself (cuz ya know it's one of those basic forces that bind elements)
But yeah there's emp in space and barring some perfect system to withstand e1 and e2 emp, would effect anything relying on electromagnetiam.
In the end it is all irrelevant. The point i was making is there is enough to make the aoe plausible if that's something they could and would do. It's a game after all reality is what they say it is. Area of effect would also provide a niche for missiles, anti swarm damage bits, persistence is more important though. After that I'd say pd Nerf then tweaking the numbers (more of this if they get aoe)
1 ok it may not be fire, but the explosion is spherical. That's the point, it still has an explosion there isn't some flash and it's done. T
2 inverse cube is irrelevant. I get your point, the sheer amount of radiation (since there's more atmosphere for both a blast wave, or medium for thermal it all becomes expelled radioactives) is mindbogling. All of that force is converted to radiation (ya kbow, conservation of energy). AND given the vacuum, said radiation doesn't attenuate. So basically, people in California will have been fried by Hiroshima and Nagasaki to illustrate that (if the earth was both flat and a vacuum)
The largest outer atmospheric test was a 1.4Mt warhead. I'd imagine the smallest futuristic missile would yield at least 10x that. Not necessarily by being bigger as someone pointed out, but being more efficient in yields.
4 no emp in space? If em isn't allowed in space, scratch arc emitters, lasers, the protective blanket of our planet, electricity, planets and life itself (cuz ya know it's one of those basic forces that bind elements)
But yeah there's emp in space and barring some perfect system to withstand e1 and e2 emp, would effect anything relying on electromagnetiam.
In the end it is all irrelevant. The point i was making is there is enough to make the aoe plausible if that's something they could and would do. It's a game after all reality is what they say it is. Area of effect would also provide a niche for missiles, anti swarm damage bits, persistence is more important though. After that I'd say pd Nerf then tweaking the numbers (more of this if they get aoe)
Square-cube law is related to SA:V, not distance.
Anyway nuclear weapons are more dangerous in vacuum than in atmosphere.
Humans are notoriously resistant to overpressure, not so much gamma/x-ray radiation, and explosions in atmosphere fall off in accordance with the inverse-cube law, not the inverse square law. Ergo, a nuclear bomb needs to be eight times as powerful to be twice as big in atmosphere, or twenty seven times powerful to be thrice as big, etc. In space you only need to be four times bigger or nine times, respectively. Atmosphere is a huge problem for nuclear weapon lethality, it's only dramatic because flats are bad at resisting overpressure and collapsed buildings kill loads of people. Ceteris paribus, a nuclear weapon will kill more people from further away when in vacuum than in atmosphere.
Nuclear weapons are "easier" to optimize for generation of neutron radiation than blast overpressures, too.
It's quite terrifying if you start looking at the numbers. You really never want to be in line-of-sight of a nuclear detonation in space, no matter how big, unless there's a substantial atmosphere between you and the radiation.
This is all a bit of a meaningless tangent though.
The ideal solution is to have rock-paper-scissors. Lasers beats missile beats kinetics beats laser. Give each weapon category a speciality, such as lasers beating point defense, missiles beating shields, kinetics beating armour, or something. Make PD a ship stat, too. Ignoring matter disintegrators, weapon types shouldn't really stray from their arbitrary rock-paper-scissors pigeonhole to keep combat and ship design simultaneously simple and intuitive.
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Let's look at some of your points:
- Swarmer missiles do not work as advertised (drawing PD fire), as PD simply ignores them as unhittable and focuses on other targets. Swarmer missiles are also only available in one size.
- Point defense is a defensive system masquerading as a weapon system, where a limited number of slots on a limited number of ships can more than counter any Accuracy advantage missiles have over kinetic/energy, and a few slots more can completely neuter any missile attack against an entire fleet, regardless of missile size or damage.
- Average damage per day is the primary balance point for the three main weapon types, but that's base damage only - only torpedoes (a specialist slot weapon, at that) gain any "versus" bonus, while kinetics and energy have weapons up and down their lists that do better versus their toughest defense and against their weakest defense. Those bonuses are also greater as weapon slot size goes up, while larger missiles are really only useful versus Corvettes as they lack the defensive depth that missiles can't punch through and missiles' tracking bonus only helps against ships that might otherwise avoid the other attack types.
You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
A nuclear detonation does not produce an EMP outside of a strong magnetic field. This is a verifiable fact that you'd know if you did any sort of quick research. You appear to be confusing "EM" (electromagnetic radiation) with "EMP" (electromagnetic pulse). They're different. Unless you can start pulling sources for your claims, all you're doing is demonstrating a marked lack of understanding of the subject matter and pulling claims out your arse.
I'm done debating with you, you're clearly ignorant on the subject and you're not willing to stick within the boundaries of the conversation being had.