Ballistic missile damage / In practicality and in comparison

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    • Ballistic missile damage / In practicality and in comparison

      So I decided to make a little post about the damage caused by a ballistic missile. Let's just look at the first ballistic missile you unlocked. In the case of Eastern influenced countries that would be the "Scud." So the conventional Scud does 15 damage to buildings. As the dev explained in my last post, this does not mean it will always do exactly 15 damage to its target.

      And a level 1 arms industry has 10 health, totaling up to 1085 resources if you add all of them together (1210 if you double the rare mat cost because it's expensive) and eats 1100 cash.

      Two conventional warheads cost 4650 resources (split between components and electronics) and 4600 cash.

      If you haven't noticed that's about a lvl 4 arms industries with 25 health - or 4 lvl 1 arms industries. Now you may say "Oh but Prof they won't build an Arms industry in the time it takes to build and fire a ballistic missile!" That would be a pretty good counter argument, if it didn't take 6 more hours to make a SINGLE conventional warhead than a lvl 1 arms industry.

      So to elaborate, it takes more resources and time to make a ballistic missile to hit a city than it does to make a single building that can take almost all of its damage - keeping in mind you can still safely build one that will dependently take ALL of its damage.

      And this is assuming it will ALWAYS(Apparently a space here would make it suggestive)hit the target and never get shot down by SAMs, Theater defense, frigates, or AA on the city.

      "Oh but you can upgrade it so it's more effective!" Yes, after spending 6750 rare materials and 3 times as much supplies and about 41 thousand cash you can use a ballistic missile that does 26 damage (Almost forgot the half of a week of straight research it'll take for the upgrades alone). To be honest, you'd probably be better making an armada of MBTs to fight while some poor dude tries to develop a missile stockpile.

      But there is one use for ballistic missiles. With 75 damage against aircraft and a speed twice as fast as an air superiority fighter, it serves as a a formidable anti-aircraft weapon. Yes, a "medium range ballistic missile" that is "used against strategic targets, such as cities" serves better as a quick anti-aircraft weapon defense system than a long range city destroyer.

      I didn't look at nukes much here, but the Scud has a maximum of 80 kilotons on its nuclear warhead but in game it does 30 damage against buildings un-upgraded.



      To be honest, I actually reported this as a bug because I thought it was so ridiculous for a ballistic missile to be so weak against stationary targets. The response to the bug report was that he believed this to be intended and that I could make a post about it here, so I did. Guys, ballistic missiles aren't made to actually level cities. They are made to destroy fairly large in-city military buildings (Depending on which leader you ask, could be apartments) like the ones we build in our cities for the ongoing military conflict.

      How convenient that the purpose of ballistic missiles is to destroy the very things that take damage when we hit cities? Huh. It almost sounds like they should do more damage to them since they were made specifically to destroy them?
    • I'm not saying you don't have some points and that there may be some balancing to do, but just comparing building and missile cost isn't fair at all since missiles do a lot more than damage buildings. Furthermore the cost of a damaged buildings isn't just the upgrade and time costs to repair it, you may lose the ability to produce something in that city, damage morale, resource production etc.
      -danny
    • Debunking the Prof. (no pun intended ;)

      good writeup - I appreciate the effort and it's always good to get numbers double checked. We work long hours here and you won't believe how many numbers we are juggling at times. So there is always the chance to miss something or get something really wrong. Kudos Prof.

      So here is the deal: Yes they are expensive as you correctly point out. But there are some things you got quite fundamentally wrong. Let me point them out so you can decide if you may want to give them a try after all:

      1) "Two conventional warheads cost 4650 resources (split between components and electronics) and 4600 cash."
      Actually building conventional warheads will result in 5 warheads delivered. One "set of 5" costs 1400 Components / 925 Electronics / 2300 Money.
      So 2 warheads actually cost only 2/5ths of the base price or: 560 C / 370E / 920$

      2) "it takes more resources and time to make a ballistic missile to hit a city than it does to make a single building that can take almost all of its damage"
      As I showed above your math was based on wrong assumptions. Effectively this missile will take out or greatly damage a very valuable target but there is more to it...

      Stuff you haven't factored in or left out (on purpose?):

      1) Damage against buildings is applied to ALL buildings. Yes, indeed. So that 15 isn't just applied against one building - it's brought forth against all of them. Kaboom. Same btw. goes for all building damage everywhere.
      2) Damage against infantry 50 - well that's nice. 3 inf level 1 gone in 1 blow. Boom.
      3) Damage against armored vehicles 80 - oh another 2-3 armor gone. Blam.
      4) Damage against Aircraft (on ground) 75 as mentioned (you cannot aim a ballistic missile at flying targets - not even at ground targets outside of map centers) ending another 2-3 aircraft
      5) Damage against Ships (if on map point and not moving) 45 - that's more a side effect true but still
      6) Damage against population 30 - meaning about 1 lower population with one attack. Not even counting the morale debuff.

      So - yeah - I think they are totally not worth it. And nukes or chems - never. Who would use them ever? With these bad stats? (sarcasm off)

      To be honest our missiles and WMD's are INSANELY powerful and need good countering like bunkers, air defenses, NBC unit protection and the like to even stand a chance.
      Have you looked into what happens to a city without population? Check it's resource production and yes - it's abysmal. Not even talking about the morale implications on the cities population and the resulting long production times.

      Effectively I can only give you advice you probably adhere to yourself as experienced player: Don't stack high, don't park in the city and always keep a watchful eye in the sky.

      //Germanico
      "Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion." Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf
    • No - that's actually a legacy of COW where building damage was divided by 25. Don't ask... ;)
      We did away with it, but had to rework the damages accordingly.
      I am not saying it's already perfect - it's a start and we need to check and balance.
      But at least now the numbers are what they are, albeit with some randomization in the results.

      //Germanico
      "Going to war without France is like going hunting without an accordion." Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf
    • Germanico wrote:

      No - that's actually a legacy of COW where building damage was divided by 25. Don't ask... ;)
      We did away with it, but had to rework the damages accordingly.
      I am not saying it's already perfect - it's a start and we need to check and balance.
      But at least now the numbers are what they are, albeit with some randomization in the results.

      //Germanico
      Alright cool. Sorry a lot of it was false, i've had a killer headache the past day and it's been screwing with my head.

      And so can cruise missiles target aircraft? Because I got my cruise missile launcher and it registered a patrolling fighter as a target but I didn't fire and idk if they'll like it if I test it out on them.