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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

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There are many problems with using nukes.

1: The public doesn't like to have them used.

2: Fallout, especially if used over your country

3: You can't find weapons grade plutonium at Harry's Hardware.

4: Nuclear weapons are more like a show off "look I have nukes, don't bug me or I will nuke you!" than a practical battlefield weapon.

5: Wouldn't it be easier to just use much cheaper air to air missiles?

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IRT the Taiwan nuke missile issue, it was my understanding that we gave them the missiles to prevent China from taking them over. But it is heavy speculation and likely myth in any case.

 

Rather than use a nuke-based warhead, why not some type of EMP blast? If it knocks out the aircraft's electronics for a while, the craft will drop to the ground, and there's no fallout. So long as it's shot from a distance it would work. Now I expect to hear that there are size issues or the like, but we are talking about sci-fi again. But I think it's more likely than us firing nukes overhead too.

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Actually, I believe the elerium power sources for creative text explain that powerful magnetic fields are used to propel the alien craft, that was suggested for the flying suit as well. Such a device would have to be finely tuned to maintain stable flight. Someone offered that the grav shield actually send a magnetic wave that confuses the navigation systems long enough to slow them down, allowing the second round of base defenses. So an EMP would play rather well into such a system, and ties in much better than "nuke them thar bugs!" :D
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Yummie, unscathed supply ships galore :naughty:

 

That would be a great weapon, maybe it can be used in a portable weapon as well, against Cyberdisk and Sectopod, and if we include (alien) defensive turrets.

Maybe make shot down UFO's damaged all the time, so if you want to catch a complete one (which you'd need for research) you'd need to get landed one or use EMP... looks kinda v1+ though, I agree.

 

This topic has gone awfully far from a fighter concept hasn't it? ^_^

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OK, I sense that this topic split a while back, but since I aint a mod it aint my problem :)

 

To sum up and add my own idea's:

 

EMP

 

Pro's: Can bring down UFO with possibility of power source being intact ( it's still gotta 'land' u know :)

Interceptor can be safe distance away (e.g just out of range of UFO fire )

 

Cons: Currently none :)

 

I propose these cons

 

High cost 4 missile

Not very accurate

 

Would that work?

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If everybody wants to use it all the time, it's too good. If no one wants to use it ever, it's not good enough.

 

If EMPs give you better results they should either be expensive (in terms of being late technology or the like) or they should have downsides (like being less effective, or crappy range, or the aliens sometimes haveing countermeasures.

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Ok here is my idea for balance.

 

EMP launcher carries 6 missiles (these missiles are small, but have range equal to terror ship gun.)

 

Small ships take 1-3 shots, medium 4-6, large 8-12, and battleships take 13-24.

This is due to the fact that larger ships have more navigators that can be hooked into the ufo systems to prevent damage.

 

Missiles are cheap (relatively,) human tech, and researchable after ufo powersource? hows that?

 

Ufo crashes but only with minor damage, powersources most likely intact, most aliens alive, only dents and dings on the ufo hull.

 

It would be almost like making a ufo land where you want it! Like the ocean! :devillaugh:

 

That reminds me, how about we make ufos float?

Edited by Cpl. Facehugger
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Another option is to make the emp range very short, like the laser cannon I think it had the shortest range. So if you want the ship you have to expose yourself to enemy fire closing the gap. Making it require research on elerium first might be good, puts it in the middle game. Say it requires elerium to have enough power, maybe it costs 1 elerium per missile or something like that. Making it pricy and dangerous to deploy, but your rewards could be higher if you're lucky. That would balance it.
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Well, it shouldn't be completely useless either ^_^ If it is really short ranged I don't think I'll consider using one. Maybe though if that's the only way some UFO's can be brought down with a reasonable amount of hits though, but just for a little extra gain :whatwhat:
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Tactical nuclear weapons aren't huge, megaton devices.. I suggested a nuclear tip warhead in my concept post for the avalanche missile so that it didn't have to score a direct hit to take out a missile... it was meant for a very high stakes mission. I combined two ideas from the nuclear tipped anti bomber missiles from the 60's and the F-15's anti satellite missiles system that was cancelled by the congress of the USA.

 

In game terms I would just have it do the same amount of damage at the same range and effects of the regular avalanche missile.

 

Any kind of missile that had a heavy warhead like a tactical nuclear device would probably have very long range and be quite large, like the phoenix missile.

 

As for fallout, I'm not sure that these weapons would be responsible for much, as they would not radiate much dust when detonated at altitude, and their yield is quite small.

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Wasn't 1 detonated in that book Sum of all Fears? Tho I've watched the film as well and I easily get confused, I think that was a tactical nuke so the fallout was minimal. Tho I doubt it countries would be very happy about 2 detonating a nuke over their country, maybe a big drop in funding if u det one over their terrortory? Even if it doesn't kill anyone it would seriously annoy the country leaders just because of the principle of the thing.

 

I could be wrong, and I am far from an expert in the subject, but isn't an EMP pulse created by a nuclear reaction? Or am I just getting confused?

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Wasn't 1 detonated in that book Sum of all Fears? Tho I've watched the film as well and I easily get confused, I think that was a tactical nuke so the fallout was minimal. Tho I doubt it countries would be very happy about 2 detonating a nuke over their country, maybe a big drop in funding if u det one over their terrortory? Even if it doesn't kill anyone it would seriously annoy the country leaders just because of the principle of the thing.

 

I could be wrong, and I am far from an expert in the subject, but isn't an EMP pulse created by a nuclear reaction? Or am I just getting confused?

I think Jim69 has struck upon the negatives for the EMP I like it a lot :stupid:

 

 

Pro = brings down UFO regardless

&

Con = loss funding from that country it detonates over

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That's assuming that the countries find out what kind of weapons you're using to take down the ufos... Considering the damage they resist in the battlescape, wouldn't it take something really nasty to shoot them down?
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Yeah, but am I the only 1 who thought that they were indestructable ( I never managed 2 blow a hole in the outside ne way ) 4 gameplay reasons rather than 2 make sense?
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Yeah, but, consider the kind of damage your skyranger can resist in the battlescape too...

 

Anyway, if we are going to make emp short ranged, I think it should be like a laser (unltd ammo, short range) and that it should take no elerium. Why would elerium be needed at all? Thats why I said it should be a human weapon.

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Well, we gotta come up with an explination I think. The only 2 ways I can see of doin it is usin a nuke, or usin elerium and saying that it has a simular effect when collided with Uranium, and doesn't produce any fallout.
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Not necesarily, maby it is not excactly EMP, but some other form of energy that disrupts the ufo's magnetic propulsion to allow it to crash.

 

And, EMP can be produced other ways than nukes, but not nearly enough to disable a large amount of electronics.

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Well, that way it's gonna have 2 be after u research UFO components, which is when it is less relevent 2 have a UFO on the ground undamaged. I vote 4 using nukes, add's a balancer of the funding drop and is the best way 2 go IMO.
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Despite the science-fiction flavor, the electro-magnetic bomb is close to reality. It has been the subject of extensive research in the US and presumably (Sakharov tested his magnetic compression generator 40 years ago + Altshuler, Voitenko and Bichenkov ) Russia for decades. The concept arose through early nuclear testing when scientists realized that high altitude atomic blasts produced an electro-magnetic pulse capable of destroying delicate electronics systems on the ground.

 

Any thermonuclear war would have started with such ionospheric blasts. One consequence was that military computer and electronic systems were "hardened" to minimize such damage, but civil systems remain vulnerable. Two types of non-nuclear EMP devices have been developed. One uses conventional explosives to induce the EMP; another uses a single-use, high-power microwave generation device.

 

EMP capabilities were discussed in a paper published by the RAAF Air Power Studies Center in 1996. Its author, defense analyst Carlo Copp, [1] concluded that the design and deployment of electro-magnetic warheads for bombs and missiles was technically feasible in the next decade. "Providing that satisfactory solutions can be found for these problems, electro-magnetic munitions for bomb and missile applications promise to be an important and robust weapon in both strategic and tactical operations, offering significantly reduced collateral damage and lower human casualties than established weapons," he said.

 

"High Power Electro-magnetic Pulse generation techniques and High Power Microwave technology have matured to the point where practical E-bombs (Electro-magnetic bombs) are becoming technically feasible, with new applications in both Strategic and Tactical Information Warfare. The development of conventional E-bomb devices allows their use in non-nuclear confrontations. This paper discusses aspects of the technology base, weapon delivery techniques and proposes a doctrinal foundation for the use of such devices in warhead and bomb applications."

http://www.tfd.chalmers.se/~valeri/EMP.html

 

LOL Beercan bombs. Anyways, all the information which you seek is here. As far as an electromagnetic beam, I think that might be a little sci fi for a non alien technology. Laser beams coalesce naturally... it's one of the properties of a laser beam... I think that making a phased electron beam would be something much more complex, considering electrons repell each other.

 

I think that one ought to be able to research E-bomb's at the beginning of the game like laser weapons... but remember, provided the aliens weren't hardened against the ebomb... as they should be because they encounter all kinds of cosmic rays and electronic fields in solar space... these things would destroy the electronic equipment on board the vessel. Meaning, if they have any kind of containment field for an exothermic or nuclear reaction as a means of propulsion or a power source, the inside of the ship would be flooded with the energy, as far as they have mechanical means to contain it (like mechanically activated blast doors that crank shut during a power failure).

 

On this vein, I would like to see a debris trail or a skin groove in the ground when you splash a UFO... and a bulldozed pile of earth and sticks and pieces of farmhouse on the leading edge of the crash site.

Edited by fux0r666
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I like that. It is a good idea.

 

Sure a emp beam would be hard to make in real life, but this is a game, a SCI FI fame for that matter, so we could say that in the future, humanity has devloped EMP weaponry.

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I meant skid groove..

 

But it is only ten years in the future, right... If we could get electrons to behave the way we want and if we could alter the properties of subatomic particles and fields, suffice it to say that we would be the ones invading THEM.

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Yeah, in the style guide we doin 4 human weapons it says ( not a quote ) Ultra High-tech Human gear, that looks possible. I know this is only 4 the images and models, but it should apply here 2. Basically, if something is theorised now but not quite rdy yet then it is possible. However, to expect us 2 be able 2 come up with these new theory's, find an application, test them AND build them satisfactorily is a lot 2 ask. Lasers are possible, they have the theory nailed down they just not quite there yet, tho I doubt they will have laser weapons in 10 years time so imagine how long it would take 4 these idea's 2 come around.
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Well, an EMP weapon that is non nuclear has been theorized, but so far no one has been able to isolate the magnetic wavelegnth (or signature, not sure) or able to provide enough power for practical use.
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