But better use of a “tactical” weapon would not be a set timer, but manual detonation, as I suggested a while ago.
What you suggest is a manual timer that can break balance.
May aswell have a nuclear suicide bomb and call it a manually detonated nuke.
Definition of tactical-
of, relating to, or constituting actions carefully planned to gain a specific military end.
“as a tactical officer in the field he had no equal”
(of bombing or weapons) done or for use in immediate support of military or naval operations.
Mhmm. Your point is…?
Having a blinking light and a timer long enough for anything to escape is not to anyone’s gain. It just wastes money and time. I admit it is good for scaring enemies away from beacons, but that’s it.
And if yer stupid enough to immediately click again after dropping it, that’s your fault.
Though, at light of recent discussions, I resign my original suggestion in favour of simple manual detonation.
Still would break balance and the change in mechanics would not be apreciated.
Still would break balance and the change in mechanics would not be apreciated.
By yourself, along with any other non-CovOps players. Please. If you change a mechanic, it is applied to everyone, so even if you do fly CovOps you will still gain this advantage. I hated 95% of the paches starting from 0.1.5, but I grew in to them. They started to seem more usable. They could add a weapon that one-shots, but has a giant strobe 3 seconds before detonation. People would rage for a bit, then they’d Learn to get used to it and avoid it. Sometimes you gotta accept something you personally don’t want. Just like everyone else.
By yourself, along with any other non-CovOps players. Please. If you change a mechanic, it is applied to everyone, so even if you do fly CovOps you will still gain this advantage. I hated 95% of the paches starting from 0.1.5, but I grew in to them. They started to seem more usable. They could add a weapon that one-shots, but has a giant strobe 3 seconds before detonation. People would rage for a bit, then they’d Learn to get used to it and avoid it. Sometimes you gotta accept something you personally don’t want. Just like everyone else.
I still don’t see how having a 3 second timer on a nuke would benefit anyone other than yourself.
The point of having weapons to begin with is self/team benefit. If the enemy gets killed, then it’s a good weapon.
If nukes reduce their delay explotion to 3 seconds, then it would be also fair that all guards gain +200 resist points to all for shields…or give the RT from LRF to have 0 sec delay and a 50% shorter cooldown…i can came up with many “fair” balances equal to your nuke suggestion 
This video really sheds some light onto skill to power balance. Nuke spamming is a great example, it takes very little skill, but is very powerful. Yes, better tactics exist, but most take a considerable amount of skill to use (as well as teamwork). Nuke spamming is extremely easy to pull off, and is easy to find success with.
Where this game gets it wrong is that there is no incentive to move on from nuke-spamming. It’s too effective as it is, so players have no reason to move on from it (like explained in the video). Alternatives to nuke-spamming need to be added (or be made easier) in order to encourage players to develop their skillsets instead of nukespamming until it is no longer effective.
Regarding the OP, buffing nukes by giving them a manual detonation would break the ratio of skill to power. The power of these weapons would be vastly increased, while the skill required remaining low, thus creating imbalance in the game. Imo, nukes need a counter. One covops running a nuke is really no threat, but when half of a team starts doing it, it becomes extremely powerful. I feel like the System Hack for ECM would be a great balancing point for nuke-spam. System Hack could be used to either take control of the nukes that have been dropped within the radius, or it could simply destroy them. This would encourage players to do one of two things.
Find more effective tactics than nuke-spam, thus resulting in them improving their skillsets in other areas.
Learn more effective ways to nuke-spam, thus resulting in them improving their skills in nuke-spamming.
With option 2, you are teaching players to learn to play tactically, instead of unskillfully running in, dropping nukes, and running out. Players would no longer be able to drop tons of nukes in one spot and hope for the best, they would be forced to find another tactic that can overcome the counter.