Nuke Target

There has been a lot of discussion about the implications of the huge red target used when a nuke is launched.
Well, according to Starcraft II Q&A,

(emphasis mine)

So as it turns out, spotting a nuke will be just as difficult in StarCraft II as it was in the original game.

 

Thanks for the information, now I understand what's going on, but is the big red one where it's going to hit around like as far as it goes?

 

I believe that the purpose of the big red thing is for targeting only.
The reticule shows how close to hitting the nuke is, if you look carefully, you will see three arrow/chevron type things slowly moving in from the outer portion of the reticule, and they meet as the nuke hits.

 

This is quite a shocking turn of events.

Now that nukes drop in under 10 seconds, this is kinda crazy.

Now there's only believing the nukes were scripted to drop much faster than actual gameplay, just to speed things up in the demo video.  They can't expect nukes to be stoppable in less than 10 seconds.

 

there going to make that longer i think, at this point in the demo they were jsut having fun and showing that nukes were still there, imagine that you had to wait 15/20 seconds for, woudnt be actually that fun to watch.

i wonder if the other player then sees a center dot and the 3 other dots moving in, or jsut the center dot.

 

Perhaps they are trying some sort of new "proximity" timer or something. For example, if you are playing on a Large Map Size, and your silo is at the very bottom left corner, and you are nuking the upper right most corner, it would take, say 30 seconds. On the other hand, if they are going straight into your base, and you happen to have a silo and ghost right there, it would take only 5-10 seconds. There definitely needs to be a min time, even if they are right on the silo, because nukes are supposed to be ICBMs, which stands for Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles. The Ballistic means that the missiles, by definition, travel on ballistic trajectories (uncontrolled) up from the silo, into the upper atmosphere, and then fly, ballistically, back towards their target. It takes time to fly into the outer atmosphere and back down

As for the other player, I read on this forum that Blizzard was quoted as saying that the demo viewed it from the POV of the terran who launched, which guaranteed that this demo was doctored to a great extent. They also said that enemies would see a SC1-esque dot.

 

What about allies? Do they see the dot or the huge fancy target?

'Tis perplexing me.




EDIT OUT OF THREAD: This is my six hundred and sixty sixth post. Just thought I'd commemorate.

 

Did you have a lot of backstab experience involving ally nukes? ;D

 

You could just unally before you drop them, problem solved.

 

XD, no no no....Not to back stab.

To let them know to get the hell outta there, cause the sky is falling.

 

I look at it once in a while...

 

Nukes can be more powerful, and should also be harder to launch successfully.

 

make the area of effect of nuke bigger. heehee.

 

It is alreadly big enough mind you..make it bigger and it goes GG lol
And btw, will sc2 have friendly fire? caues the nukes might kill some ally unit and there goes backstabbing. lol =D

 

wait what do u mean launch sucessfully? u mean there could be a malfunction in the silo and the missile could blow up in ur base or something?
and i think nukes are already strong enough and making them too powerful may ensure in balance issues

 

I think they should have added extra effects to the nuclear explosion like leaving a powerful radiation field that damages units within its radius

 

Note:everything i am about to ponder is done with only limited knowledge of nuclear weaponry and radiation paths.

If a person were to detonate a nuke in space, there would not be any fire. This is due to a lack of oxygen. Heat would instead be dissipated by x-rays/gamma-rays/micro-waves. The main point is that i dont believe radiation on a space platform would stick around to long, because theres no normal atmospheric containment.

(this part made sense to me, if it didnt to you, sorry)

The thing is is that there would be no atomic fallout. There may not be any leftover radiation with the stuff the terrans are using anyway, but thats for another thread.

Now the Protoss have something totally different on their hands, in the scouts( i think( upgrade to anti matter thrusters. Antimatter is an incredibly complex subject, and im not even going to attempt to explain it. The one advantage of anitmatter is that when its combined with matter(everything around us) it releases a metric buttload of energy, and about 3 grams is enough to destroy earth.

 

There would still be fallout, but since they use tactical instead of strategic, 'tis a small amount.

But what bugs me is one of the major difference between a nuke and really big bomb is that a nuke releases an EMP blast.


EDIT: In the Platforms, there would be radiation.....Heat is a form a radiation, but that's not what I mean. The metal itself would become irradiated. Depleted uranium shells?

 

there wouldn't necessarily have a fallout if the nuke didn't hit the ground(detonated in space) but if it detonates in space then the radiation will spread out in all directions.

Also, your right about the EMP, but in the SC universe their bombs might only leave a slightly larger EMP shock wave than explosive killzone.

 

Na, the EMP is huge. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs wiped out a square mile, but the EMP hit maybe 20 I think. I understand why they don't have the EMP (Total cheapness against the Protoss), but it still bugs me lol.


EDIT: UNLESS!!! These nukes are FUSION not FISSION.....It's the dirty radiation that causes the EMP and the fallout! Of course! It all makes sense now!!!