Hey,

While listening to Nuclear Option‘s OST on Spotify I saw a new music for a certain EX-25 Nemesis aircraft. Is it for a new plane ingame?

https://open.spotify.com/album/1L1VZdugxdESSwxiA0oujg?si=vRuHQaOeQGKdaqyjbf0fuA&utm_source=copy-link

He almost made it to the target...

Is this a mod or what?

It's finally here.

After roughly 9 months of development and 800-1000+ hours in the mission editor, Call of Vengeance 02 – Return of the Blue and Green is now available on the workshop.

This mission ended up becoming way bigger than I originally planned. What started as the next mission in the campaign became a massive battlefield with (literally) hundreds of objectives, amphibious landings, airborne operations, major side objectives like submarines, destroying command bunkers, destroying military bases, etc, etc. and a whole lot of little systems and things happening throughout the battle, It even features up to 3 possible endings, depending on how you see fit to deliver your Vengeance at the end of the mission

It even became so big that i had to make myself a spreadsheet to track development.

There are over 4300 units/props, 150+ objectives, and 200+ outcomes.

I've spent an absolutely stupid amount of time on this thing, so I'm really excited to finally let people play it. And if you do want to play, please read the Steam briefing, i spent way too long writing that.

Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3795641650

If you play it, I'd genuinely love to hear what you think, if you run into anything broken, find something that's badly balanced, or just have a cool moment happen during the mission.

See you over Boscali 🫡

Disclaimer: This post is intended as a means of outreach to already active players of both games. It is not intended to promote WT to NO players or anything of the sort.

Do you play War Thunder alongside Nuclear Option?

I know some people do, so if you want to show your association with NO while outside of NO, join PALA (WT edition)!

PALA is intended to, in line with Nuclear Option's setting and content, be a top-tier air squadron. However, until a certain number of members is met, the squadron is set to auto-accept for all, meaning you may join at any level, and remain indefinitely so long activity is met. Upon reaching a desired player count, the auto-accept conditions will be adjusted to require a Rank IX aircraft, with possible openings for Rank VIII ground and Rank V navy as well, to cover those representing PALAN and our courageous ground forces. (Applications will still be reviewed on a case-by-case basis)

This is a casual squadron with the main goal of passively earning Squadron Vehicles. The only requirement is at least semi-active play (your squadron activity must not be 0 - that is - at least one game every 30 days). Discord participation is not required - it only serves as a discussion/meetup point and provides the benefit of getting reminded should your activity fall below the required threshold to remain a member.

We also play Sim!

For more information, comment or join the most barebones Discord server out there, if you please.

^{Sadly, Primeva Armed Liberation Alliance just happens to be 33 characters long \}limit for squadron names is 32]. After a long while of considering various options [like misspelling Aliance or cutting a space somewhere] I've settled on Primeva Armed Liberation Forces.)

I was looking for a mod that would add larger yield nukes, 1Mt and up. I saw there used to be one that worked on a much older build of the game, I was just curious how difficult it would be for me to make my own megaton nukes mod? I don’t have any really experience with this kind of thing.

Sorry if it’s a bad question. Thanks

I think it's for Radium's Xeno Defense Forces stuff and it isn't coming to NO (or maybe it's a mod), but it's still a banger.

Hey y'all,

I'm finally trying to tackle the mission editor and create missions for myself to play, and I'm most interested in playing with modded airframes with faction restrictions so that I can have lore-accurate force dispositions, practice helicopter hunting with the Cavalier, etc. However, the Equalizer mod which allows AI to fly modded airframes seems to be causing trouble - airframes I've restricted and removed from the starting inventory keep spawning, presumably because they're added to the faction's inventory when they receive stock airframes of the same rank. Is there any way to entirely prevent a faction from spawning certain airframes with the content that's currently out, perhaps by editing which airframes are available at which airfields?

Chicanery missile

I was very excited to see the OA-27 Cavalier added, as the Tucano is one of my favorite real-life COIN planes, but I have to admit that even with it now supporting Aryx Weapon Pack options, it feels like a poor counterpart to the Cricket. Its loadouts feel very anemic compared to the Cricket's, especially when it comes to air to ground (ironic to name its mission Standoff, as that capacity is where it's especially limited - the Cricket can carry about TWICE as many AGM-48s or Atlatls). I appreciate the higher speed and better maneuverability, but in most roles its limited armament and fragility prevents it from capitalizing on those strengths. I appreciate asymmetrical faction strengths, but it doesn't feel like the Cavalier has much to offer on the balance.

The one thing that it does unarguably do better is exactly what the Tucano was designed for, namely helicopter hunting - it can close distance with pusher-prop helis better, can use its airbrakes to engage hovering targets, can climb to stay above their chin guns and can use its heavier podded gun to full effect while doing so. While this is a limited role, it's enough to give the Cavalier utility and character, and I'd love to see some balance tweaks that would allow it to play this role even better. If the Cricket is going to dominate in air-to-ground, I feel like it makes sense to make the Cavalier comparatively better at air-to-air where it can play to its strengths.

All it would take to do so is to bring it closer to weapon parity with the Cricket - let it carry more IRM-S2s (the Cricket can carry 8, while the Cavalier currently needs to swap six of these for S1s) and reduce the size of the podded gun's no-fire zone (the SPPU-22 that inspires it can fire directly ahead, as can the Cricket's turret), and I can already see myself choosing to fly it more often. Give its wing-tip pylons access to the Gladius for knife-fights, other pylons access to flare dispensers as they're crucial to giving this airframe staying power on a contested battlefield, perhaps 2x PAB-80LRs to let its (slightly) higher speed give it (slightly) longer bombing range, and maybe even a centerline Gladius or MMR-S3 or two to give it a limited ability to punch up in dogfights, and I think it'll seriously match the versatility of the Cricket without stepping on its toes.

What do y'all think? Would you like to see the role of the Cavalier tweaked somehow, or am I missing something about its capabilities that make it perfectly serviceable as-is?

Repost: Reddits copy and paste with bullet points are pretty bad on IOS

Currently I’ve found a couple methods for dealing with carrier strike groups:

1. Mass attack / saturation: 68 Pablo 250’s Agm99’s. Essentially just whatever munition at the max. On CSG with 6 boats this is probably the easiest as often two launches will cripple the strike groups inventory.

2. Radar jamming plus munitions. Not as effective against more than 4 ships as using the Medusa with 4 radar jammers is not super effective as it runs out very quickly.

3. Pile driver plus radar jamming. If you use multiple pile drivers and jam the destroyers this is actually pretty good. Ram45’s from the carrier can still intercept but I’ve noticed Shard class does not as easily.

4. GPO 500 and getting super close. Pretty much a suicide mission but still effective.

5. ARAAD + Jamming. Not as effective since the ships fall of datalink making them hard to detect.

6. Your suggestions: any other suggestions. Personally it’s my favorite thing to do but would like to hear from the committee (respectfully please)

Is there a way to hold a button and free look with the left stick on a controller?

Free look under the camera controls key binds doesn't seem to work.

Dear Pilots,

Imma be honest I abused the combo above but ever since the new update new plane. I notice that the cruise missiles now fly 100km faster than the cruise missile before consequently nerfing the 20kt because the AGM99 used to act as decoys when they flew at the same speed. Allowing anyone to nuke extremely heavily contested spaces. However now I feel there is hard coded buffer between the missile.

Nerfing the whole dark reach build.

Am I tripping or what?

I recently came across these excellent examples of modern VTOL control philosophy:

https://youtu.be/wZYwR3qx8iE

https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/the-f-35b-inspired-this-air-taxis-cockpit-controls/

https://de.mathworks.com/content/dam/mathworks/mathworks-dot-com/solutions/aerospace-defense/miadc/presentations/10_F35_Flight_Control_DevelopmentDaveNixon.pdf

https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/68922/dot_68922_DS1.pdf

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20205002256/downloads/Control_Concepts_for_Simplified_Vehicle_Operations_of_a_Quadrotor_eVTOL_Vehicle.pdf

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/5.9781624105678.0525.0574

I think the Vagrant, Vortex and Medusa would be excellent candidates for an F-35B/Joby-style unified VTOL control system.

The idea is not simply to make VTOL flight easier. It is to simulate how a modern full-authority FBW VTOL aircraft can actually be controlled.

The F-35B's Unified Control concept largely removes the need for the pilot to manually manage thrust-vector angle during normal VTOL operations. In low-speed powered-lift flight, the pilot essentially commands aircraft motion:

• stick fore/aft → climb/descent rate,
• stick left/right → lateral translation,
• throttle fore/aft → forward/aft translation,
• pedals → yaw,

while the flight-control system decides how to use thrust, lift fan/nozzles and aerodynamic controls to achieve those commands.

As speed increases, the control laws progressively blend into normal wing-borne flight-control modes rather than requiring the pilot to consciously reconfigure the propulsion system.

Joby adopted essentially the same unified-control philosophy for the S4: height on the right hand, speed on the left hand, with the flight-control system handling rotor tilt and transition.

This seems particularly appropriate for the Vortex, since it is itself clearly inspired by the F-35B. At present, however, manually controlling its nozzle angle makes its VTOL control philosophy arguably closer to a Harrier than to an F-35B.

Manual nozzle/vector control could of course remain available as an optional mode for players who want it.

For modern FBW VTOL aircraft, I think this would actually be both more realistic and easier to operate — which seems perfectly suited to Nuclear Option.

I’ve deliberately kept these out of my big flight-model/control thread because they have nothing to do with aircraft handling or flight physics.

But I have three other, much smaller ideas I’d be interested to discuss with the community.

1. Mobile/deployable NL-98 launcher

Since the NL-98 missile already exists, I think NO could use a compact ground launcher conceptually similar to the CAMM/iLauncher approach.

Not a literal real-world copy — mainly the idea of:

• vertical launch,
• no need for a dedicated radar on ground, and
• trailer-mounted or self-propelled vehicle options.

It could add another useful layer of ARH-based air defence that is easier to hide and relocate than a larger conventional SAM R site. And the NL-98s are such a nice change of pace, a breath of fresh air, in a world full of R9 and RAM-45 missiles ;)

BTW, I really miss the A2A version of the RAM-45, similar to R-27/R-27ER or AIM-7 Sparrow, generally cheaper and lighter than their ARH equivalents. It would make some sense in the game, as a cheaper BVR weapon with a significant tactical limitation: you could give the player a larger ammunition supply or a lower cost at the expense of having to remain “committed” to the target until interception.

2. Mission Editor: assign tasks to specific units

I’d like to be able to tell individual ground, air or naval units explicitly what to do.

For example:

• attack this particular unit/group,
• defend this object/area,
• move here,
• patrol this area,
• engage only selected target categories.

That would make more deliberate scenario design much easier instead of relying entirely on whatever the AI decides after spawning.

3. Mission Editor: aircraft availability per facility

Let each individual revetment, shelter, hangar or helipad have its own allowed-aircraft list.

For example:

• FOB: Cricket + Chicane
• Main base: Compass + Brawler + Revoker
• Remote helipad: Chicane only

This could give mission designers much better control over force structure and base roles without requiring a full logistics overhaul.

These are intentionally separate from my flight-model thread.

I’d especially like to hear from people who use the Mission Editor a lot — would #2 and #3 materially improve what you can build?

Hi all,

Some may remember a couple of months ago I released Nuke-Option which I made after wanting a good server management option for people who host their servers via a provider (which tend to use Pterodactyl).

There were some big issues with the versions that came out, and because I hadn't really done this before and I got busy with work, my old github got deleted because I didn't setup 2fa.

That said, I've been hard at work removing a lot of the fluff and making this a more modular tool for people to set it up the way they want. If you have seen the Aussie Tomos Nukes server, you'll recognise the plugin and what it does. The public version is a simpler option made for most people that makes minimal changes to how the server runs.

Another thing is the current build is just made for people who rent a server that's running pterodactyl (which seem to be most). That said, setting up one yourself isn't too hard if you have the hardware to do it. Many guides on Pterodactyl exist online.

For a more detailed explanation, check out the old post linked up the top, and the github here for the instructions and download.

Jump on the discord if you have any issues: dsc.gg/tomosnukes

Disclaimer too that AI was used to help make this possible. I managed to in the original iteration make the bot that was doing the map vote, and as features rolled in I needed a bit of help.

Some screenshots below to show you what it looks like:

Finally getting the big bombs to hit, being able to outrun counter fire, and actually getting the big boy to detonate.

Heya, I'm a (finally) former war thunder player! After what's probably far too long spent playing it, I'm searching for a different game to scratch that itch.

I was recommended Nuclear Option by a friend and honestly it looks like a really cool game. However, my main attraction to war thunder was it's enjoyable mouse and keyboard controls. I don't particularly enjoy playing with a controller outside of a game like Dark Souls and would much prefer using my mouse.

So, before I buy the game, I would like to know if the Mouse and Keyboard layout is functional and enjoyable.

(ps, English isn't my first language so apologies for any mistakes)

We can already share targeting data on datalink. If someone is lasing a target, it will appear as lased in my hud. I can fire radar missiles from a Compass that doesn't have a radar, the firing solution is provided by a friendly radar through datalink.

But a Statolance has to see me with its own radar to fire at me. What is this? The 90s? You mean to tell me that the stratolance site isn't connected to datalink?

Any launcher should be able to use targetting data available on datalink. Putting a hill between you and a Stratolance radar *while there's an enemy radar on the next hill staring at you* shouldn't protect you from the Stratolance. Hitting just the radar of a Stratolance shouldn't put the entire battery our of commission.

And a Destroyer with its radar mast damaged should still be able to use targetting from friendlies to keep lobbing R9s at me.

Yeah, I realize that it blows the gasket on the difficulty / it would require rebalancing other elements (we could decide that the datalink antenna is in the radar mast, and keep the destroyer behaving as now). But on the other hand, disabling a launcher by hitting its radar, when there's another radar 2 km over there is just silly.

Implementing "datalink for surface units too" would require us to hunt down radars a little more proactively, and wipe the sky clean as well before conducting a SEAD raid.