Nukes

[Notso]

Being fairly new to DCS, I may have missed earlier discussions on this topic. But what is the reasoning behind not having nukes in DCS? Several of the aircraft such as the F-16, Hornet and the upcoming F-15E from RAZBAM carried them IRL. I get that conventional is the main focus of DCS, but nuke equipped fighters were a part of the cold war on all sides and it is still a viable mission today.

 

Is it an ethical question that DCS has shied away from it? Or more of a practical thing with getting enough source material to code it? My guess is a bit of both. I'm just curious, because I think it would be very interesting to be able to simulate all the "what ifs" that thankfully never actually happened between NATO and the Soviets, or North Korea, or China and such.

 

On the practical side, of course ED or anyone else is never going to be able to get B-61 tech manuals and such. But there is quite a bit of open source stuff on the internets that a fairly educated guess could be made. Or is it just too politically sensitive to go down that road?

[dark_wood]

See here: http://kuknamys.cz/ProjectXX/21_Mig21PFM/DCS%20MiG-21bis%20EN.pdf

page 150

[draconus]

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3657640&postcount=94

[kengou]

My understanding is it's probably a couple of things. Ethical and political delicacies, alongside the technical/performance challenges, mean they just don't want to go there.

[notproplayer3]

I'd really hope someone could mod nukes into the game then

[Furiz]

Why would you even want a nuke in DCS?

 

 

 

game wise it is just plain boring, you go up and you drop it and it destroys everything, and you are done. how fun is that? it is like using cheat in FPS games. Imagine that in MP, 1 bomb = 200 enemy + 10 friendly kills, mission over server restart, lets do it again?;D

 

 

Sim wise I can understand, if we are simming let it be full sim. But the problem lies in game aspect + ethical etc...

 

 

 

In real life it has more of a psychological use than destructive use.

[Tippis]

game wise it is just plain boring, you go up and you drop it and it destroys everything, and you are done. how fun is that? it is like using cheat in FPS games. Imagine that in MP, 1 bomb = 200 enemy + 10 friendly kills, mission over server restart, lets do it again?;D

Quite hilarious, as it happens. :D

 

 

[Mars Exulte]

Ethics are irrelevant. All a nuke in a videogame is is a lag inducing nightmare. If you want to ''simulate'' an attack, that's easily done with any weapon, but an actual nuclear weapon, even a small one is going to introduce crushing lag/crashes as your computer tries to keep up with hundreds or thousands of objects destructing.

 

Some things simply do not translate well to video games. This is one of those things.

[probad]

a nuke simulation based on guesses is only going to pique more interest and result in more questions and digging from more people

against the backdrop of nuclear non-proliferation, i dont think anyone who owns nukes is interested in offering any more knowledge on their employment than what is already made available

 

you might only think it's a harmless game for yourself but for governments, it's a lot of noses poking where they don't belong. and while it's perfectly fine if you want to assume the risk of personal investigation, it's not so trivial for a business operation like eagle dynamics, not the least since they have relationships to maintain.

Edited July 6, 2020 by probad

[Tippis]

Ethics are irrelevant. All a nuke in a videogame is is a lag inducing nightmare. If you want to ''simulate'' an attack, that's easily done with any weapon, but an actual nuclear weapon, even a small one is going to introduce crushing lag/crashes as your computer tries to keep up with hundreds or thousands of objects destructing.

 

Some things simply do not translate well to video games. This is one of those things.

For comparison and illustration, you can quite easily set up a trigger zone and use the fancy new “expand zone” action in combination with “set destruction level in zone” to create concentric rings of ever-more destroyed landscape.

 

It creates a very interesting visual. It also, as zhukov suggests, brings the game to its knees. Even in SP with nothing else going on, expect the game to just freeze for a minute while it figure out how on earth to deal with this request; in MP, it's likely to just keel over and die.

[Ghostraider]

Its totaly useless in DCS you start drop it and the game is over, for Visual sightseeing call you toube

[Notso]

Why would you even want a nuke in DCS?

 

 

 

game wise it is just plain boring, you go up and you drop it and it destroys everything, and you are done. how fun is that? it is like using cheat in FPS games. Imagine that in MP, 1 bomb = 200 enemy + 10 friendly kills, mission over server restart, lets do it again?;D

 

 

Sim wise I can understand, if we are simming let it be full sim. But the problem lies in game aspect + ethical etc...

 

 

 

In real life it has more of a psychological use than destructive use.

 

No, I disagree. First of all, a fighter jet carried nuke like a B-61 is not a city killer, even on it's highest yield settings. It was designed to be a fairly discrete weapon. Relatively.

 

And I think you're misunderstanding the context in which they would be used. It's not like in the middle of a MP war, that the one guy with a B-61 will lob it in and win the war out of the blue to everyone's surprise. The conflict would likely escalate to a point where both sides knew it was coming and it would turn from conventional to nuke and stay that way until it was resolved one way or the other. Or another likely scenario is that an individual nuke strike would be put on to take out a specific target, such as an Iranian weapons facility or such. The interesting part is the fighter would still have to penetrate enemy defenses and defensive CAPs and hit the target and fight back out.

 

It would be very easy and fun to set up a nuke-specific mission pack in an MP server and both sides would have to play their roles. You would still have fighter cover and escorts, AWACs, SEAD, etc. The red air and IADS would still have to try to stop the fighter from getting through. IN fact there would need to be much much more coordination of Blue air assets to make sure they were not affected by the blast once it went boom.

 

And I reject the ethical and moral arguments. It's a valid weapon most western and adversary militaries use, so is a legitimate simulation aspect. And it's not like DCS is actually melting anyone. The key is you would only use it in a specific context or scenario. Of course you would not use them willy nilly just to win an MP mission. That's just silly.

[Notso]

a nuke simulation based on guesses is only going to pique more interest and result in more questions and digging from more people

against the backdrop of nuclear non-proliferation, i dont think anyone who owns nukes is interested in offering any more knowledge on their employment than what is already made available

 

you might only think it's a harmless game for yourself but for governments, it's a lot of noses poking where they don't belong. and while it's perfectly fine if you want to assume the risk of personal investigation, it's not so trivial for a business operation like eagle dynamics, not the least since they have relationships to maintain.

 

That's a fair point from a commercial perspective.

[Notso]

For comparison and illustration, you can quite easily set up a trigger zone and use the fancy new “expand zone” action in combination with “set destruction level in zone” to create concentric rings of ever-more destroyed landscape.

 

It creates a very interesting visual. It also, as zhukov suggests, brings the game to its knees. Even in SP with nothing else going on, expect the game to just freeze for a minute while it figure out how on earth to deal with this request; in MP, it's likely to just keel over and die.

 

Haha, it would be a perfect simulation of the EMP. :lol:

[Notso]

Its totaly useless in DCS you start drop it and the game is over, for Visual sightseeing call you toube

 

Why is it over?

[drPhibes]

No, I disagree. First of all, a fighter jet carried nuke like a B-61 is not a city killer, even on it's highest yield settings. It was designed to be a fairly discrete weapon. Relatively.

 

 

15 and 21 kiloton bombs leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A test (Halfbeak) of the an early B61 warhead in 1966 had an estimated yield of over 350 kilotons.

[Kang]

As has been shown, the MiG-21 in DCS carries nuclear weapons. The engine is not very happy with it, which results in its results being a bit garish, as in a huge texture cratre that'll appear or disappear depending on view angle and the similar issues, also obviously the large number of ground units, scenery objects and unlucky airplanes being entirely destroyed at the same time does indeed make the whole sim puke for a few seconds.

 

That doesn't mean it's entirely useless. You can have one or two interesting scenarios using them, I found mostly the high-stakes 'not one plane may reach its destination!' intercept missions can be fun from either side.

 

So, yes, thanks to M3 for including the option. But it's not really something that needs expanding. As has been pointed out you can have the same effect by a bit of clever trigger work and it really is a bit of a pain in MP to get people to behave responsibly around stuff like that. And that's not even touching on the troubles of researching any modern-day special weapons.

 

In response to the final question: it is over because you singlehandedly obliterated every single unit in a wide area. You rendered all air defences useless and possibly prevented further use of any airbase. The only way for that not to quickly end your whole mission is to have such a widely dispersed ground war going on that either nobody will enjoy spending their day looking for that single tank somewhere west of Vaziani or you use so many units in total that the whole scenario is borderline unplayable for most people.

[Holbeach]

Why is it over?

 

 

As you have pointed out, it takes imagination to enjoy The Nuke.

 

 

..

[probad]

what has become apparent to me is that op has no intentions of actually entertaining rebuttals to his position, otherwise he would have been satisfied with the existing threads and official verdict that he already acknowledged the existence of. he has the search function at his disposal but he willingly chooses not to use it, because goddammit he wants his nuke!

 

we're not the people who need to be convinced to give you a nuke deployment simulation, and this isn't something that can be voted into existence.

Edited July 6, 2020 by probad

[Notso]

what has become apparent to me is that op has no intentions of actually entertaining rebuttals to his position, otherwise he would have been satisfied with the existing threads and official verdict that he already acknowledged the existence of. he has the search function at his disposal but he willingly chooses not to use it, because goddammit he wants his nuke!

 

we're not the people who need to be convinced to give you a nuke deployment simulation, and this isn't something that can be voted into existence.

 

Someone pissed into your wheaties today. Just saying.

[Harker]

I'd certainly like to see a strategic nuclear cruise missile or trigger-based ICBM in the game, just for the scenarios that can come out of it. But it'd just be for the emotional effect. As others have said, it's going to kill both the server and your PC. But that's not my issue.

 

So, all we need is a visual effect and a way to not kill our PC's right? Not so much. It's still going to be just a big bomb. It's going to behave the same as if you actually dropped X tons of TNT, but that's all wrong. We're still missing the "nuclear" part of the nuclear bomb, namely radiation effects, fallout, electromagnetic effects. For example, a fighter dropping the bomb doesn't only need to escape the blast radius, but also the gamma ray burst and neutron burst, which are near instantaneous and are going to completely fry the aircraft's systems. DCS doesn't have that kind of damage modeling, nor should it have to, although trigger-based systems failures could work here.

 

A major use of nuclear weapons is area denial, trough radiation. Only hardened vehicles could operate in the area for X time, following a nuclear blast. But we'd completely miss that very important strategic element and the nuke would be reduced to just a big bomb. Might as well go with a MOAB then.

 

Also, ED, or any member of the public for that matter, will never get their hands on actual technical documents, but ED doesn't need any to simulate a nuclear weapon. They already have a cruise missile model (SLAM etc) and a ballistic missile model (SCUD). Anything else regarding guidance would have to be guesswork. And fireball sizes etc are easy to calculate if one knows the yields values, which are readily available online.

[QuiGon]

Why is everyone only talking about competetive MP here? While I agree that there is not much use for a nuke there, I can imagine a lot of interesting SP/Coop missions with tactical nukes.

[Kang]

I'd certainly like to see a strategic nuclear cruise missile or trigger-based ICBM in the game, just for the scenarios that can come out of it. But it'd just be for the emotional effect. As others have said, it's going to kill both the server and your PC. But that's not my issue.

One could argue that the introduction of the Scud launcher has made that exact scenario possible; one doesn't even have to actually wait out where it hits scenario-wise. Previously similar things could be done with a Smerch launcher, albeit much less visually interesting.

 

So, all we need is a visual effect and a way to not kill our PC's right? Not so much. It's still going to be just a big bomb. It's going to behave the same as if you actually dropped X tons of TNT, but that's all wrong. We're still missing the "nuclear" part of the nuclear bomb, namely radiation effects, fallout, electromagnetic effects. For example, a fighter dropping the bomb doesn't only need to escape the blast radius, but also the gamma ray burst and neutron burst, which are near instantaneous and are going to completely fry the aircraft's systems. DCS doesn't have that kind of damage modeling, nor should it have to, although trigger-based systems failures could work here.

Actually, quite a few of the planes in DCS probably stand a bit of a chance to survive the infamous electromagnetic pulse. Older, often tube-based electronics like inside the MiG-21 can survive or recover from such an event much better than more recent constructions featuring compact-built transistors.

On the other hand modern day fighter planes probably have a few tricks up their sleeve to protect the most important systems. Likely all secret.

The effect of radiation, fallout or neutron showers would mostly be felt by the pilot, but either that's not something to be noticed instantly, or it is acute radiation poisoning in which case it is obviously a rather quick fade to black.

 

A major use of nuclear weapons is area denial, trough radiation. Only hardened vehicles could operate in the area for X time, following a nuclear blast. But we'd completely miss that very important strategic element and the nuke would be reduced to just a big bomb. Might as well go with a MOAB then.

The fun bit is that when you just go through the ground unit encyclopedia you can't help but notice how many of the vehicles available in DCS are actually designed to be perfectly fine operating in a fallout zone. Basically, it mostly denies the soft vehicles access, while APCs and air defence units just keep on rolling.

[Harker]

One could argue that the introduction of the Scud launcher has made that exact scenario possible; one doesn't even have to actually wait out where it hits scenario-wise. Previously similar things could be done with a Smerch launcher, albeit much less visually interesting.

 

Actually, quite a few of the planes in DCS probably stand a bit of a chance to survive the infamous electromagnetic pulse. Older, often tube-based electronics like inside the MiG-21 can survive or recover from such an event much better than more recent constructions featuring compact-built transistors.

On the other hand modern day fighter planes probably have a few tricks up their sleeve to protect the most important systems. Likely all secret.

The effect of radiation, fallout or neutron showers would mostly be felt by the pilot, but either that's not something to be noticed instantly, or it is acute radiation poisoning in which case it is obviously a rather quick fade to black.

 

 

The fun bit is that when you just go through the ground unit encyclopedia you can't help but notice how many of the vehicles available in DCS are actually designed to be perfectly fine operating in a fallout zone. Basically, it mostly denies the soft vehicles access, while APCs and air defence units just keep on rolling.

 

I'm already happy with the inclusion of the SCUD. That's why I think that making a specific nuclear weapon would be pointless from a mission-making perspective, unless all the extra nuances are modeled. If it's just a SCUD missile with a big warhead, what's the difference? You can achieve the same result with triggers.

 

And I agree that more modern stuff are likely able to withstand radiation effects for some time (MBTs, other armored vehicles, maybe some jets), but the thing is that DCS doesn't have any sort of relevant criterion or damage model for that. So, in DCS, a fuel truck could go anywhere a T-90 could. Or the fact that any kind of electronic sensor would be overloaded and possibly fried by the EM pulse. Your jet will keep flying, but you'll certainly lose some systems.

[Furiz]

The effort in my opinion is better to be focused on stuff like, finishing modules in EA, adding some life to airfields like they did with the SC, new maps, Redfor Full Fidelity planes and eventually fuel trucks not being able to go anywhere a T-90 can go,

 

 

all of this (I'm sure I missed stuff but I didn't want a wall of text) seems more important than adding a nuke to the game.