Assembly Hall

This is an idea that crossed my mind after a pretty dark period in my life when I watched a lot of nuclear holocaust films like Threads and The Day After. It occurred to me that there is no weapon system like this in EVE. The original Titan Doomsday weapons did a large amount of AoE damage with only the most heavily protected ships surviving. They were rebalanced and now only affect a single target, albeit with a devastating amount of damage.


What if there was a weapon in EVE that had severe consequences for firing it? With nuclear weapons, there is the brief intense burst of damage which leaves a city in ruins. However, the far more horrific effect is fallout: radioactive dust that slowly eats away at living tissue and effectively renders large areas uninhabitable. It's this latter part that I think could be interesting in large scale warfare in EVE.


Two example long term effects that could be used for this theoretical weapon:

* A gradually increasing damage over time effect, similar to that found during the Recon mission
* An effect that prevents ships from either warping in system or jumping in/out of it, effectively rendering travel impossible

It would be interesting to see how alliances would use such a weapon. Would they use it as a "scorched earth" option, rendering a victory by an opposing faction pointless? Would the weapon be used on a large scale, rendering large areas of null-sec unusable, forcing them to concentrate into the smaller, still usable regions?

Needless to say, a long term effect isn't the same as a permanent effect and systems would eventually become liveable once again, with the length of the weapon's effect, its initial damage spike, cost, etc a matter for balancing. I guess I'm mainly curious to see what people think about a true "nuclear" weapon in EVE and how many people would push that button if it was there.

(Note: this is merely a thought experiment - not a request for something like this to be added)

Good idea - there's not much you can do without cap.

By long term, I'm thinking the disruption lasting somewhere between a couple of weeks to a month. Something to really deter people from just popping them off like Titans. Titans are a really good way of illustrating potential problems with nuclear weapons in EVE. Initially, Titans were rare beasts and seeing one jump in to a major fight was a sign that you had really, *really* pissed someone off. The effect of Titans has become less intimidating over the years as their numbers have inexorably grown. That's not necessarily a bad thing or good thing; it's just EVE changing with time.

So if a nuclear weapon was introduced to EVE, with the possible effects outlined above, how could the supply of such weapons be limited? I have to admit that I don't know enough about supercapital production or the more advanced research types (T3 for example) to offer much in the way of input here. Restriction of the BPs would be a good idea, similar to the existing system for the Revenant supercarrier. The other half would be the production of a crucial element in the weapon, similar to how uranium enrichment takes an enormous amount of power and time.

Again, just some idle thoughts, nothing more.

While the OP's thought does make me giggle, I'm going to have to say "Not Supported."

This is a game. And some people just want to see the world burn. Screw the long term consequences.

(side thought; this would make spies in corporations/alliances absolutely deadly. Just drop a nuke on a rival corporation/alliance's doorstep and watch dozens/hundreds/thousands of players be without a home the next day)

Some People? Most of the people I know would push the button just because. With very capable large Ex-Sov-Powerblocs now living a much more nomadic life without much space of their own, I can already see all of new Eden being turned into a nuclear wasteland just for ***** and giggles with a weapon like this.

Mutual assured destruction will not hold people back from firing these. There won't be a cold war situation like there has and in parts still does exist in the real world, as it's a game and people don't give a damn.

Not that I don't find the idea amusing, but I don't think Eve would stay playable for long after it's release.

As someone who's played in all areas of the game, and gotten to know the mindsets of those attracted to the various enterprises available here, I can resoundingly not support this idea.

There is no question of "if" the players of this game would nuke vast regions just for giggles, merely a matter of how long it'd take them to get the logistics of the nuking in place. The planning would start the instant such an idea was released to the population, and the time to execution would simply be a matter of construction and travel.

will all those hit by this nuke then have to fly around space for the next 50 years with bits falling off them,and what about the space were the wep was released,will it also suffer from strange space effects due to nukage?

Well, if you kill off a systems star, the system is essentially dead. Since planets CAN still work if they survive the loss of a star, you'd end up with dark planets that have all artificial support systems. These ideas are nothing new, they've been a staple of Sci-Fi for some time now.

I agree that some players would build and use such a weapon 'just for giggles' because it's a game and not real life. What keeps Nuclear Weapons from being deployed now is the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). It has kept our planets nuclear weapons from being used for over 60 years now. NO such mechanism is in the game so it's really a moot point.