Some ideas

[Krehator]

This is a great game. I actually have been playing around with a game like this (harpoon like) although I never do seem to finish any of my coding pojects. It's good to see someone has come up with something good. I was getting sick of waiting for a good nuke game.


Heres some ideas:

- Shrink the footprint on some stations. It can be a pain to fit stations on the map.
- Airborne radar platforms (extended radar)
- Stealth aircraft.
- Seaborne ABM platforms.
- Fast attack subs (hunters)
- Option for "dud rate". Let's be realistic, not all of them are going to make it. Some wont even get off the ground.
- Sandbox mode where you layout the units of all sides, then select one to play.
- Random landmass generator.
- Mobile ground launch sites (ABM and ICBM)
- Conventional missile attack ability for some of the ships to take out ground targets.
- Space defense platforms. No need for units, just allow a limited number of shots against targets.
- Space based radar and tracking systems.


Overall I'm very impressed with the game as it is but I'm not sure how long it will stay fun without some kind of new stuff.

[Crusader Scott]

Some good suggestions there. However, I think most of them are beyond the scope of this game without a major software overhaul (i.e., DEFCON 2).

DEFCON is not meant to be a ultra-realistic look at nuclear warfare. DEFCON is really little more than the nuclear variant of Chess. Abstractions are the rule of the day, not high fidelity realism. Like Chess, DEFCON will be around a long time because it is such a fun and easy to play game with a lot of strategic depth.

However, just as some people don't care for the abstracted warfare of Chess, there will be some who want a more hardcore version of DEFCON, and I think this will be the greatest contribution of the game to the world of gaming. I have heard that a number of people are now thinking about making their own take on a nuclear war game. I wish them luck. There is plenty of stuff to be explored in this much ignored realm of human conflict. I, for one, would like to see a game like the sim in Wargames, one that can be played over a period of days instead of hours! I guess such a game would have to be like a MMO game, where you can log-in, check the status of the world, issue your orders, and log-out again.

Just an idea.

[xander]

- Shrink the footprint on some stations. It can be a pain to fit stations on the map.

Play with larger world scales. Otherwise, get used to the small footprint. It is part of the challenge of playing Europe.

- Airborne radar platforms (extended radar)
- Stealth aircraft.
- Seaborne ABM platforms.
- Fast attack subs (hunters)

These have all been brought up before (or things like them). They have been pretty much discussed to death. They have been rejected by a large portion of the people that post here.

- Option for "dud rate". Let's be realistic, not all of them are going to make it. Some wont even get off the ground.

That is an interesting idea. It would require a re-write of the code that control hit probabilities, but it might be fun to play with. I'm not going to say that I actually like this idea, but I think it has some merit.

- Sandbox mode where you layout the units of all sides, then select one to play.

If you enable team switching, you could do something similar to this, though you would have to get your units placed before Defcon 4. The other problem that I have with this is that you will know where your enemy's units are (i.e. their subs), but the CPU won't know where your shit is. As this mode is useless with human players, and you already have a huge advantage over the CPU, I'm not sure how well it would work.

- Random landmass generator.

If you can program, you could probably pull this off. You would need to randomly generate coastlines and country borders as vectors, then use those maps to generate bitmaps for player territories. It could be done without touching the game. It would be a bit of a pain to get your maps out to other players for a quick game, but it could be done.

- Mobile ground launch sites (ABM and ICBM)
- Conventional missile attack ability for some of the ships to take out ground targets.
- Space defense platforms. No need for units, just allow a limited number of shots against targets.
- Space based radar and tracking systems.

No. See above.

xander

[NeoThermic]

- Option for "dud rate". Let's be realistic, not all of them are going to make it. Some wont even get off the ground.

Just to note that according to the statistics I worked though, nukes in Defcon do not make kills 100% of the time.

NeoThermic

[Krehator]

- Option for "dud rate". Let's be realistic, not all of them are going to make it. Some wont even get off the ground.

Just to note that according to the statistics I worked though, nukes in Defcon do not make kills 100% of the time.

NeoThermic

Really? I didn't notice. The only one that don't make it seem to be shot down. Of course I could have just missed the duds.




Also, I'm going to keep on working on my own project. My concept is geared more for the ultra-realistic player and some people desire it. Not to take anything away from this game. I still love it.

[PsychicKid]

- Option for "dud rate". Let's be realistic, not all of them are going to make it. Some wont even get off the ground.

Just to note that according to the statistics I worked though, nukes in Defcon do not make kills 100% of the time.

NeoThermic

Really? Could you elaborate perhaps? I've never seen a dud before.

[NeoThermic]

- Option for "dud rate". Let's be realistic, not all of them are going to make it. Some wont even get off the ground.

Just to note that according to the statistics I worked though, nukes in Defcon do not make kills 100% of the time.

NeoThermic

Really? Could you elaborate perhaps? I've never seen a dud before.

That's because they do explode graphically, but in terms of actually effecting the population, they appear to do absolutely nothing (yay for reading memory registers!)

It's difficult to spot, and does require time and effort, but nukes only appear to work 99% of the time. In the course of a game, with 164 nukes, that means roughly one nuke, possibly two, might not damage anything.

NeoThermic

[PsychicKid]

Odd, I've never seen this occur. I should investigate it.

[PSBirch]

- Option for "dud rate". Let's be realistic, not all of them are going to make it. Some wont even get off the ground.

Just to note that according to the statistics I worked though, nukes in Defcon do not make kills 100% of the time.

NeoThermic

Really? Could you elaborate perhaps? I've never seen a dud before.

That's because they do explode graphically, but in terms of actually effecting the population, they appear to do absolutely nothing (yay for reading memory registers!)

It's difficult to spot, and does require time and effort, but nukes only appear to work 99% of the time. In the course of a game, with 164 nukes, that means roughly one nuke, possibly two, might not damage anything.

NeoThermic

I've seen it -- play a game and place no units and watch the individual hits on your cities to up your chances. Occasionally you'll see a flash and no "XYZ Hit - N.M Million Dead" on a fresh city.