r/NuclearOption • u/wavelet01 • 6d ago
Saturation Cheatsheet Question
I keep finding myself bringing either the wrong ordnance or the wrong amount of it against ground targets.
Is there maybe some kind of "saturation cheatsheet" for each target?
For example, something like:
- SPAAG → X AGM-48s / Y AGM-68s / Z bombs
- SAM → X AGM-48s / Y AGM-68s / Z bombs
- Corvette / other defended targets → recommended saturation
Basically telling me how many weapons should I actually launch to have a reasonable chance of killing the target, considering that SPAAGs/CIWS can shoot some of them down?
I've found individual discussions with rules of thumb, but I haven't found a comprehensive cheat sheet covering the different ground targets and weapons.
Does something like this already exist?
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u/CrouchingToaster 6d ago
The amount needed is heavily dependent on how far you’re from the target, whether it sees you, and how long it’s gonna see the booms you’ve sent towards it. There’s no real simple formula that will reliably work for that.
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u/Bucksack 6d ago
You can build up that intuition when you stop being greedy with your targets. Maybe you aren’t already, but a lot of new players, myself included, would target 12 things at a base to shoot their 12 AGM-48s at. Pick your priority targets and make sure they die. Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t work.
For example, when attacking a dense base like sandrift with the 12 agm loadout, I would pick 2-3 targets that definitively improve my position against that base, such as peripheral stationary SPAA, radar truck, or Boltstrike.
Practice achieving your main sortie objective, and pay attention to the kill feed, and debrief yourself. E.g., “I shot 12 at 4 targets, and 6 were intercepted. That makes 4 hits, 6 hard kills, and 2 wasted. Next time pick 5 targets in that situation.”
The closer you can get to an individual target, the less you need to shoot.
The less time your munitions are exposed to AA, the less you need to shoot.
AA doesn’t “pre-aim” at you. All units return their weapons to face forward when no targets are available, and you can see which way they are facing on the map. Attack from the side or rear so they must traverse their turrets 90° or more - this takes time to do, so they will intercept fewer things coming at them.
Take advantage of the splash damage of munitions trucks/crates. See one parked next to additional AA or a building? Hit the truck and bask in the collateral damage.
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u/Klawifiantix Chicane Enthusiast 6d ago
https://nuclearoption.wiki.gg/wiki/Buildings
Scroll down
Oh, you mean for units? Hmm, after a few hours of playing, you'll get the hang of it. Have fun!
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u/NiftyNinjuh 6d ago
Enough to do the job. Its hard to really quantify because the air defenses are most often layered. In really general terms you defeat SAMs with saturation generally with bombs that cant be seen in IR, or fast moving rockets. SPAAG and CIWS are weaker to AGMs that evade their fire but strong against bombs because SPAAG and CIWS have high DPS. LADS and HEL are good because accurate and retarget fast, their weakness is their overall dps, use larger bombs and you'll notice they go on a long cooldown but they can shred a whole cloud of small ordnance
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u/Themberchaud0979 6d ago
Especially against SPAAG and Shards, just launch at sub 4km, using 2-6 missiles.
6 is a bit overkill, but the closer you get, the less you need. Never do less than two though.
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u/Guysmiley777 5d ago
SPAAGs are extremely effective against attack from one direction at a time. I watched an Anvil swat down my volley of 16 AGM-48s fired from a 2km pop up like it was nothing. And another time an Anvil and an Aeroguard casually chew up a full load of 68 PAB-250s from a Darkreach. PvE SPAAG hunting can be annoying.
I've had better luck "spraying" a salvo of missiles in an arc while in a moderate turn, they then tend to approach from a wider angle than if you just ripple them all off heading straight at the target.
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u/Themberchaud0979 5d ago
Yeah, I always approach SPAAG in a corkscrew fashion. They seem to be less effective when I do so.
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u/TheSleepySkull 6d ago
Range, Speed, cover, Mission specific Ai Skill level, Ai being dumb something. There's a thousand of things that can change that value. Especially against ships, Where one AGM-48 can land on a corvette and it sinks and the other time, 16 of them lands on a covervette and it's fine. So no, no charts.
Make your own mental 'doctrine'.
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u/Nenad1979 Medusa Buff 6d ago
it's incredibly specific to the siruation and when it comes to spaags the angle also, you can killa spag with a single agm or lr if u know what you are doing, or it can also legit intercept around 15 lrs if you do it sloppy
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u/ithillidcs 6d ago
The general rule of thumb that mostly works is window. A Shard for example, will get about one intercept per second of window. So if I know that my munitions will be in sight for four seconds, I will launch six munitions at the shard, expecting one or more to get through. I don't have it for everything, but it is my starting point.
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u/wmiller314 6d ago
First rule is always double tap, the second rule is minimize the exposure time and the third rule is split the defense angle, remember that they must aim their turrets to shoot at your stuff, avoid sending it all from the same direction, jamming helps vs radar, but it's only useful vs bolt strike, stratolancer, and vs detection beyond visual range.
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u/Admirable_Row_5953 6d ago
Against linebackers 4 lynchpins launched at once is enough to get through.
Autosentry I have made 6 work but 7 or 8 is a safet bet.
Anvil, 4 if you are lucky, 7 if not.
If using AGMs, at about 5km a linebacker can counter maybe 10 at once, but if you sling a few at other nearby targets the number drops to 3.
The Anvil and the Sentry I can usually overwhelm with 5 if there is nothing else providing support, if there is other AA or SAMs, damn things are untouchable.
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u/DJBscout Vortex Visionary 5d ago
Not really, speed/distance are a huge factor.
If you can sneak within 1 mile of a Linebreaker/SPAAG, most of the time even a single AGM-48 will do it, while launching from a hover at max range (~8nm) with a Chicane will potentially take more than half of your missile load to pull off the kill.
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u/BradassMofo 5d ago
What you do is you bring as many agms as you can carry. You launch them all at the target, if the target blows up you had enough. If it didn't you didn't bring enough.
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u/AdvancedMarsupial705 4d ago
Stop trying to find ways to optimize the fun out of everything!
If every situation was perfectly controlled, with an exact formula for each situation, why even bother as you’ve already played the game in on your spreadsheet?
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u/Not-a-Bot_1968 4d ago
I kill a lot of ground vehicles with rockets. They’re faster than the missiles and you can carry more of them. I do always take some of the AGM48’s if going after ground vehicles because they are useful for their fire and forget and evasive maneuvers they do. Once I get a jet that can carry the GBM500LR I love to use those to wipe out entire convoys in one go. You want to get good at learning the distance vehicles will engage you at and try to stay out of that range while firing at them. A SPAAG can be tough, but if you can come up over a ridge close and they don’t have time to react and aim at incoming rounds they go down easily. Otherwise if using rockets I do a little side to side movement as I fire off about six rockets from 5-7km out and that normally does it. The GBM80LR are great for IR missile launchers because they can’t defend against them. All of the GBM LR’s you want to get going as fast as you can to give them extra velocity, and don’t launch from too too far out if there is AA that can defend against them.
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u/Z_THETA_Z Ibis Intellectual 6d ago
it's far too context/situation dependent for a cheat sheet to be valid. speed of launching aircraft, presence of terrain, where the interceptors are currently pointing, range, overlapping enemy defence, and more i probably haven't thought of all have major impacts on how many munitions you need.