From Jonathan's Reference Pages
As listed in K240 undocumented features, the nuclear missile deals 16 damage to each building on an asteroid, or 43 damage to a building which takes up four squares. It's particularly lethal, and here's why.
As listed in K240 undocumented features, all Terran buildings have between 5HP and 52HP, while alien buildings have a theoretical maximum of 128HP due to the data structure (one signed byte). Lets consider the effect of a successful nuclear strike on one asteroid.
When the first Nuclear hits, all buildings with 16HP or less, and all 2x2 buildings with 43HP or less, are destroyed within seconds. The full list is as follows: Anti-Missile Pod, Asteroid Engines, CPU, Command Centre, Construction Yard, Landing Pad, Laser Turret, Living Quarters, Medical Centre, Missile Silo, Powerplant, Resiblock, Satellite Silo, Security Centre, Seismic Penetrator, Sensor Array, Solar Generator, Solar Matrix, and Solar Panel.
This has three deadly effects. First, the CPU is destroyed along with all Living Quarters and Resiblocks, wiping out your entire population (and destroying the entire colony) unless you built any Protected Resiblocks. Second, all power generation buildings are destroyed except for Protected Solar Matrix and Power Store, which (if power fails) disables Life Support. In fact, all buildings lose power, except Repair Facility, Environment Control, and surviving power generation/storage buildings.
Third, it destroys the colony's defensive capability by destroying every Anti-Missile Pod and Laser Turret, and the power cut negates every Photon Turrets, Plasma Turret, the turrets of any Protected buildings, and all Screen Generators, rendering the colony vulnerable to a second Nuclear missile.
Less lethal complications are that your Missile Silos, Landing Pads and Ore Teleporters are destroyed or lose power, preventing you from evacuating ships, ore or missiles from a doomed colony, and cutting short any retaliatory strike. Your asteroid may be in danger of collisions if its Gravity Nullifier loses power and its Asteroid Engines and Sensor Array are destroyed.
A second Nuclear missile can hit while your Anti-Missile Pods and Screen Generators are still down, and before you've had time for the Repair Facility to fix the damage from the first missile.
All buildings of 32HP or less are destroyed. The full list is as follows: Decontamination Filter, Deep Bore Mine, Gravity Nullifier, Hydration Plant, Hydroponics, Life Support, Mine, Photon Turret, Plasma Turret, Protected Resiblock, Protected Solar Matrix, Protected Storage Tower, Repair Facility, Storage Facility, Storage Tower, Weapons Factory. (Note that all 2x2 buildings have under 43HP, and were destroyed in the first strike.)
The only surviving buildings at this stage are Environment Control, Ore Teleporter, Power Store, Protected Environment Control and Screen Generator. Since the colony no longer has anywhere for the population to live, it is destroyed instantly.
A third strike will destroy any alien building with 48HP or more, and any alien 2x2 building with 128HP (the maximum possible HP for any building). The Kll'Kp'Qua Queen's Chamber, for example, has 100HP and can survive two Nuclear hits.
Building Armour changes the game against Nuclear attack. It doubles the armour of new buildings built, and in conjunction with Repair Facility it doubles the armour of old buildings too.
The first Nuclear missile deals 16 damage to all buildings and 43 damage to all 2x2 buildings. The following buildings are destroyed: Construction Yard, Landing Pad, Living Quarters, Solar Panel. Odds are you will only lose any ships in production and your hangar access.
The second Nuclear missile has the effect that the first would have without Building Armour: lose CPU, non-Protected housing and power generation, Anti-Missile Pods, Laser Turrets, all 2x2 buildings.
A third Nuclear destroys even Protected Resiblocks with Building Armour, and this will destroy the colony.
The Screen Generator halves all damage a building takes, but requires power and only covers part of an asteroid. It's thus weaker than Building Armour, which covers the entire asteroid. The advantage is when both Building Armour and Screen Generator are applied.
The first Nuclear strike will deal 8 damage to buildings covered by a Screen Generator, and 21 to covered 2x2 buildings. No buildings will be destroyed, not even Construction Yard.
The second strike will deal another 8 and 21. Each covered Construction Yard, Landing Pad, Living Quarters and Solar Panel will be destroyed.
The third strike raises the damage total to 24, or 63 for 2x2 buildings. You lose the following covered buildings: Asteroid Engines, Resiblock, Satellite Silo, Seismic Penetrator, Solar Generator, and Solar Matrix. CPU is intact, as are all Protected buildings. You lose the colony if you had no CPU and relied on non-Protected Resiblocks. You lose power if you relied on Solar Generators or non-Protected Solar Matrices.
The fourth strike raises damage to 32 and 84. You lose Anti-Missile Pod, CPU, Command Centre, Laser Turret, Medical Centre, Missile Silo, Powerplant, Security Centre and Sensor Array. If your colony had no Protected Resiblocks, it is destroyed. If your colony had no Protected Solar Matrices or Power Stores, and had not lost power already, it loses power now. Otherwise, you survive minus your Anti-Missile Pods and Laser Turrets, but keep Photon Turrets and Plasma Turrets. All 2x2 buildings are destroyed.
The fifth strike raises damage to 40. You lose Deep Bore Mine, Hydration Plant, Mine, Photon Turret, Plasma Turret, Protected Resiblock, Protected Solar Matrix and Repair Facility. Without housing, your colony is destroyed. However, if your Repair Facility had time to repair even one point of damage between the first and fifth strike, none of these buildings are destroyed. Your colony continues as normal.
The sixth strike raises the total to 48. Any Protected Resiblocks which survived the fifth strike are probably destroyed, and your colony is destroyed with it. Of course, your chances of receiving a sixth strike are greatly diminished. You can survive three Nuclear hits before losing your Anti-Missile Pods, which greatly decreases the chance that a fifth or sixth will hit.
A single Nuclear missile will destroy a colony unless it has a Protected Resiblock, and a second will finish it even if it does. Building Armour with a Repair Facility lets you survive one additional hit. Heavy use of Screen Generators in combination with Building Armour and a Repair Facility will let you survive five hits.
Protected Resiblocks and Anti-Missile Pods are vital for surviving Nuclear missile attack. Protected Resiblocks have more hit points, and this always lets you survive at least one more hit.
Page created: 30th November 2009
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