Aerospace & WMD's in 2020

Talk about on-going development of Supreme Ruler 2020 here. What would you like to see in updates or in a future Supreme Ruler title?

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DavidKD
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Joined: Mar 04 2010
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Aerospace & WMD's in 2020

Post by DavidKD »

Suggestions for future products in the 2010/2020 family of games.
Satellite related:

Aerospace plants should manufacture satellites the same way that other fabrication plants make other military units
for sea, air and ground units. In other words your satellite manufacturing capacity is set by the number of aerospace
plants you have active, so you can build multiple satellites of each time simultaneously. Similarly multiple orbital
launch pads should allow multiple satellite launches equal to the number of launch pads rather than the current limit of
only one satellite launch per day regardless of how many orbital launch pads. For Multiplayer and improved AI use, an ASAT
satellite (or class of such satellite weapons) that can attack each other as well as other satellites (Comm, Recon, and
Missile Defense Sats). Along with Kessler effect if sufficient satellites destroyed locking everyone out of orbit unless
cleanup efforts are undertaken.

Suggested tech developments for orbital access:
Air-breathing rockets (reduced launch weight for increased payload/efficiency)
Hypersonic flight (should also lead to hypersonic missiles)

These should lead to SSTO (Single-Stage To Orbit) vehicles that can take off and land like aircraft thus converting
all airfields into potential orbital launch pad equivalents for satellite launches. As well as providing global transport
for airliftable cargoes with extreme rapidity. DC-X designs would even allow for vertical takeoff/landing with minimal
support facilities. Though the fuel handling/refueling requirements will still limit these to actual facilities, not quite
as able to go anywhere and land anywhere like a helicopter.

ORION drive spacecraft (if you don't mind upsetting the world) [original principle derives from an explosively
propelled vehicle concept from 1899, subsequently updated by Freeman Dyson, et al in the 1950s and 60s] to use nuclear
explosives to propel spaceships into orbit. US program cancelled by President Kennedy in the early 60s. Such ships would
be able to easily make single stage trips from the Earth to the Moon.

Dirigibles (and other lighter than air concepts) to include nuclear powered flying craft. Various concepts
explored during the 1950s and 60s. Such craft would be very fragile to hostile fire but possessed of global range and
payload capacities per vehicle equal to hundreds of tons. Such bouyant craft would be slower than airplanes but far more
fuel efficient with longer ranges. Especially if equipped with pebble-bed reactors or their equivalents.

Missile speeds:
I note that when I fire ballistic missiles at distant targets, it can take them considerably longer than an hour to
reach their targets. Firing missiles from Hawaii to Xi'an, China for example can take over a day to reach their target.
Missiles and other high speed vehicles need to be able to travel multiple hexes per clock tick if need be though having to
check interactions for each of these traversed hexes will no doubt be another CPU computational sink.

Suggested tech developments for missiles:
EMP weapons - some way to temporarily reduce the efficiency of areas affected thereby. Probably a one time
reduction of supply levels in the affected hexes, with recovery back to normal over subsequent days. EMP weapons
(conventional) in missiles should have limited one hex ranges at most while EMP weapons (nuclear) can if mounted on
ballistic missiles cause EMP effects over wide areas indeed. Such nuclear EMP attacks should be considered diplomatically
equivalent to any other strategic nuclear attack. Effects on military cores and facilities minimal due to hardening.
Counter-technology in the form of civil defense to harden electronic devices and power grids, etc to resist EMP attacks.

Weapons of Mass Distruction:

Chemical, Nuclear, Biological:

Effects -- some way to designate affected hexes when such attacks are launched. Effect decays over time.
Chemical weapons come in several varieties with difference persistences so decay can vary depending on class of
weapon used. Effects on NBC protected units should be a loss of unit efficiency in affected hexes with a max efficiency
loss (from employing their NBC gear) of ~50%. NBC protection kits and related tech should reduce the hit to unit
efficiency in these hexes. Non-NBC protected units should also take a loss of efficiency but also suffer casualties with
effects reduced by NBC protection techs. And don't forget to inflict civilian casualties on attacked hexes.
Nuclear weapons create short term hazards due to fallout and blast effects. As with chemical weapons, effects on
NBC equipped units should be loss of efficiency while non-NBC units take casualties. To model the weather effects you'd
probably need something like Hearts of Iron III's weather system to determine direction of fallout spread. With effects
degrading over a time of about one week in an additive fashion. So if attacked with four weapons the effects would be four
times as intense but still fade quickly. Neutron bomb technology would allow nuclear attacks that minimize civilian
casualties and generate no fallout but are still very distructive of military units. The average distance between villages
on the North German plain is 2 kilotons (hence the use of 1kt-0.1kt neutron bombs to destroy massed enemy formations
without destroying the civilian population). As the Gulf War I fires showed in 1991, nuclear winter effects will be
minimal in all but the largest exchanges (literally 5000+ Mt) and thus can be ignored.
Biological weapons are the gift that keeps on giving. ["Compared to bioweapons, nukes are just great big bubblegum
pops."] Attacks can be by conventional military means or via spies. If via spies, diplomatic effects should be just as bad
as nuclear/chemical attacks as opsec for a large bioattack is extremely difficult and the originator hard to hide when his
people fail to drop dead. Effects from attacked hexes should spread in a fashion determined by the victim's health care
level. Adjacent hexes should have a chance per day of being infected and infected hexes should have a similar chance of
increasing/decreasing casualties with a hex being considered 'cured' when casualties drop to 0 (or population drops to 0).
Hexes that are physically adjacent should be considered adjacent with increased risk if the hexes are connected via road
and/or rail. All hexes that contain civilian Sea Piers should be considered connected to each other, while all hexes with
civilian Airports should be considered connected to each other as well. NBC techs and victim health care ratings should
help retard/reduce spread and deaths. Players/AI should have quarantine options to involve declaring Quarantines against
various nations (thus resulting in those Piers/Airports no longer being considered connected). Similarly once a nation is
infected domestic quarantines may be declared of a hex or hexes or even entire nation, to help reduce spread/intensity.
Domestic quarantines should have negative effects on local supply levels - thus impacting production, while infection will
kill citizens reducing national happiness and generating further causus belli against the attackers.

In addition to NBC techs already in game, and quarantine options, suggest a civil defense tech to reduce civilian
casualties. This would represent things like the Israeli's issuing gas masks and ventilators to civilians, construction of
fallout shelters and so forth. Similarly one could also include techs to increase the effectiveness of militias based on
how much emphasis your government wants to give them. You could be the Swiss with fortifications and an automatic weapon
in every home, or some third world banana republic where no one is armed and there is no militia; thus allowing variations
in how effective garrison units are in various nations instead of a single setting.
dyonsos
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Posts: 28
Joined: Oct 05 2008

Re: Aerospace & WMD's in 2020

Post by dyonsos »

Add me to the list of requestors. I think this would be a great add-in and update. I personally haven't fired a nuke yet...but this looks great. There are also many commercial reasons for satellites that could potentially boost economy.
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