Are all Empire Power Stations linked?

Question

When practicing some commanding vs bots I ran into the problem of my Relay Towers losing their connection when adding a Power Station further up in the link. This did not seem to affect my power, so is my link still there or are all Power Stations linked with each other without the need of a Relay Tower? In other words do all Power Stations share one common power grid or do they each have there own?

Asked by Blem

Answer

Relays are always linked to the closest powersource (powered relay or powerstation) and if they lose that connection (i.e. powerstation or relay got destroyed) they look for other powersources to connect to. The connection is not "lost", it's just not maintained because it's not neccessary.

They will always only connect to one powersource at a time, which explains your image where the powerstation is closer to the relay than the other relay. If you would sell the powerstation, the relay would connect to the other relay again.

Sidenote:
If a relay is connected to a powerstation (including via other relays) it is always powered, which means you don't need a connection to your base to power forward buildings, just a connection to a powerstation.

Answered by dbemerlin

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Is there a difference between a Marksman and Sniper?

Question

The Assault (Marksman) and Stealth (Sniper) classes both use long range rifles that look the same. Are there any differences that make one weapon better than the other or are fire-rate, damage, zoom, accuracy and recoil all the same? Aside from the class's starting health and class ability is there anything that makes one long range rifle better then the other?

Asked by Bravo840

Answer

I don't play sniper that often, but i didn't notice a significant difference between the rifles. However, there is a huge difference due to the class ability which changes the roles completely.

Assault Snipers can see cloaked units through their scopes, which makes them ideal countersnipers against stealth snipers on the more open maps while stealth snipers are more useful against anything else that can't see them.

When in doubt, go with stealth sniper.

Answered by dbemerlin

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Is there any way to play offline?

Question

I'm not as good at Nuclear Dawn as I'd like. I think I would be better with the strategy element of being commander than with the point-and-shoot part, but I'm scared to attempt playing commander while there are real people counting on me.

Also, I would like to be able to practice playing soldier with some bots that are less effective than the online enemies I've encountered so far, so I can get a better hang of the game and not just jump in and make my team lose (like I've been doing).

Is there any way to play offline with bots*?

_{*I'm not counting training as that's not really the same as a full game.}

Asked by John the Green

Answer

Found this quote from Silverfell from InterWave Studios:

I'm afraid there's nothing we can do help there - we are not planning, and have never announced or talked about, a single player component for Nuclear Dawn.

Training with bots is about as close as you can get, but that lacks any kind of story, narrative or pacing.

But what you can do is host your own game and add bots to the server:

1. First you need to enable console for the game.

   1. Right click on Nuclear Dawn in your Steam Library and select Properties.
   2. Select SET LAUNCH OPTIONS....
   3. Type in -console in the text box.
   4. Press OK on the Launch Options window and CLOSE on the properties window.
2. Launch Nuclear Dawn and the console window should be open when the game starts.
3. In the console type in bot_quota X where X is the number of bots you wish to have in the game, so for a 5v5 you would type 9 for you and 9 bots. EDIT: looks like it is limited to 22 bots.
4. Close the console and select Create Game, here you can set up what map to play and some other things. I added a password but I am not sure that is needed.
5. Press Start and enjoy your fight against bots.

If you want to be commander it takes a couple of seconds for you to win the vote and if you want to add more bots during game you can open the console and type in the command again with a higher number, the default button for the console is `, you can not bring up the console while in command mode.

The bots do not know how to play commander so it should be fairly easy to beat them and playing this way will reward you with achievements and xp.

Also i did see some talk on the official forum about players making single player/co-op maps, but couldn't find any so guess they aren't done.

Answered by Blem

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Maximum possible damage to inflict with poison grenade?

Question

I'm trying to figure out if it would be better to throw a poison grenade into a group of enemies vs. a regular grenade. What's the max possible damage a poison grenade can inflict (over the duration of time until the poison dissipates)?

Asked by John

Answer

Update with new test results:

• Consortium P12 Grenades
  • Exo took 45 damage per tick
  • Support, Assault and Stealth took 15 damage per tick

---

• Empire U23 Grenades
  • Exo took 75 damage a tick
  • Support, Assault and Stealth took 25 damage per tick

---

• Any character staying in the poison dies after ~10-15 seconds.
• Poison effect seems to last for about 2 seconds after leaving the cloud.

So as summary:
Against exos, poison grenades are a lot more effective than normal grenades due to the high loss of health per tick, however, against other classes, frag grenades should prove to be more effective since the opponent will most likely run from the cloud, so the total damage caused won't be as high.

Answered by dbemerlin

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How does the Empire's Power Relays work?

Question

The tutorial mentioned that the Empire team's Power Relays operated by Line of Sight. Does that mean that so long as there isn't anything between the two relays, I can make them any distance apart from each other? Does that mean that the structures that team makes have to be in sight too, or just in range of a Relay?

Asked by Aceofgods

Answer

Empire relays do have a limited range, however, it is much longer than that of the Consortium relays.
To balance that, Empire relays need a line of sight, which means there must not be solid, opaque objects in the way.

Power can in some cases be routed through glass and some other transparent surfaces. IIRC other buildings you construct are ignored for line of sight.

Answered by dbemerlin

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Is there any bonus for being Commander?

Question

I just started playing and I see people who are way higher level than me. I was wondering if you get a sort of XP bonus for being Commander or if Commanders could get XP easier than soldiers?

Asked by Aceofgods

Answer

You get experience if your team follows your orders (if you give them orders via the interface). Otherwise it's mostly just from kills via turrets or commander abilities.

You often get XP for "Commander support" even without giving orders, though i haven't quite figured out why, i think it's related to your team capping stuff.

Basically, to max XP for everyone, give a lot of orders (and remember to remove them again later) and you and your team will get XP for following those orders.

Answered by dbemerlin

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How do people keep killing me so fast?

Question

I keep getting killed within seconds of contact. Example:

x=wall m=me e=enemy

x m   x
x     x
x     xxxxxxxx
x            e
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx     x
x m   x
x     xxxxxxxx
x            e
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx     x
x     x
x m   xxxxxxxx
x            e
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx     x
x     x
x     xxxxxxxx
x  m         e
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And I'm dead nearly instantly. At first I blamed lag, but this is happening consistently in all kinds of situations. Contact is made, and BAM. I'm dead.

I've also considered camping, but the game has a minimap so I know where he is just as well as he knows where I am. In the above example, I had my cursor on where I expected him to be (and he was there) but he killed me faster than I could kill him. And neither of us were Exo's, so I didn't have to wait for my gun to spin up and he didn't get the advantage of extra firepower.

Is there something I'm missing here or am I just that bad?

Asked by John the Green

Answer

What class are you, what class is the opponent?

Support and - even more so - stealth die very quickly especially if the opponent has good aim and manages to hit the head. Support or stealth vs assault is usually very 1-sided unless you manage to suprise the assault by flanking him (though the engineer shotgun can do a ton of damage).

In case of assault vs assault, he might just have better aim and reaction than you.

In short: He was probably just better than you.

Answered by dbemerlin

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Is the secondary attack the same as primary?

Question

Some equipment do not have a secondary attack like the engineers blowtorch, but others looks like there is no difference between primary and secondary attack.

When using knives as Stealth or medkids, ammo boxes or daisycutter as support is there a difference between using primary or secondary attack(right and left mouse button) even though it looks the same?

Asked by Blem

Answer

No, there is no difference between left and right mousebutton for knives, kits or mines.

Answered by dbemerlin

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What actions reward experience?

Question

Some basic actions like kills, assists, healing, damaging buildings and capturing resource points reward XP, but are there other more obscure actions you can do to increase your XP gain and are there any bonus XP rewarded at end of round for winning or doing specific tasks?

Asked by Blem

Answer

XP is awarded for:

• Killing Opponents (+10)
• Headshotting Opponents (+5)
• Assisting Kills (+5, more if critical assist)
• Neutralizing Resource Point (depends on type, +5/+10/+15 IIRC)
• Capturing Resource Point (depends on type, +10/+15/+20 IIRC)
• Healing (+10 every x amount of health, +15 for healing multiple players)
• Hypospraying (+5)
• Damaging buildings (+10 every x amount of damage)
• Repairing buildings (+10 every x amount of repair)

Bonus on XP:

• Being in a squad
• Following commander orders

XP loss:

• Suiciding (-10)

I don't recall any other action giving XP.

Source: Me

Answered by dbemerlin

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Does medic grenade hurt my teammates?

Question

I have been playing a medic for a couple of games and I like there P-12 Poison Grenade/U-23 Radiation Grenade, but I have managed to kill my self once or twice by running in to my own grenades deadly smoke, this results in -10 for committing suicide.

I have yet to kill anyone from my own team(as far as I know) have i just been lucky or does teammates not take damage from my grenade?

And if they can die from my grenade do I get a penalty of some kind for killing my own teammates?

Asked by Blem

Answer

If friendly fire is disabled, all AoE effects only hurt you and the opponents, this includes P12 Grenades. The only way to hurt your teammates with FF off would be to become commander and throw buildings on their heads, otherwise they are completely safe from you.

With FF enabled, you should be able to kill anyone including teammates with P12s but i haven't tried that yet.

Answered by dbemerlin

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Is there a surrender option?

Question

I was in a horrible match where our Commander left and nobody stepped up for a few minutes, and by then the enemy had Flame Turrets in all of our spawns. IS there any way to just forfeit the match?

Asked by Aceofgods

Answer

The commander can start a surrender vote which the team has to accept by pressing F1 (I think 75% have to accept, not exactly sure).

However, the commander has to be in the bunker (if he gets killed on the way to the bunker every time => no surrender possible) and it only works if a building is missing in the base. For example to unlock surrender early, it is possible to just sell the default MG turret and the button will appear in the top right.

I'm a little unsure about the exact conditions for when the surrender button appears and sometimes it is even gone for good eventhough there are no buildings other than the bunker left and there isn't a surrender vote active.

In my experience, surrender votes never get through thanks to too many players with a "never surrender" mentality even if they die the second they spawn, so hoping on surrender is futile anyways.

Answered by dbemerlin

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How can I most effectively destroy enemy turrets?

Question

In Nuclear Dawn, the enemy commander can place turrets (rocket or machine-gun) or other various structures to benefit their team.

The problem I've run into is: I can't destroy them. I've tried grenades, every last bit of ammo as an EXO, even when working with a teammate to take one down. But the health of the structure seems to freeze at quarter-health.

How can I destroy these turrets?

Asked by Fluttershy

Answer

Best approach is to use Siege Kits. Kits are "subclasses" for the 4 possible classes.

Your commander needs to research them, otherwise they are unavailable.

As siege weapons count:

• The Grenade Launcher for the Soldier Class
• The LAW/Pulse Cannon for the Exo Class.
• The Saboteur Kit for the Stealth Class, but that one is less effective.

With those weapons every tower falls after a few shots.

But as always in ND: Teamwork wins.

As a sidenote:

You can kill a Tower with 2 Handgrenades if they explode in the moment they unpack from that crate to the tower. It is, however, very tricky and I never managed to do that. But it works.

Answered by scorcher24

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How do I backstab?

Question

As a Stealth, I cannot seem to successfully backstab anyone in the training mission. I run behind the enemy, I attack with the blades, and he just turns around and murders me! The tutorial says a backstab can kill any enemy in one hit, but I can't get the hang of it. What else must I do? Is there some cloaked/uncloaked requirement?

Asked by OrigamiRobot

Answer

To kill them in one hit you need to be behind them and be in range, hitting too early will uncloak you and the bot will turn at once.

You can see that you are in range by your crosshair chaning looks as on the picture below.

As far as I can tell you do not need to be cloaked, but I have a hard time telling if the cloak have faded before i hit when I try to do it vs the bots in the training mission and it is definitely easier if you are cloaked.

Answered by Blem

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