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Weapon Attributes | |||||
| Range | Unknown | ||||
| Health | Unknown | ||||
| Mass | Unknown | ||||
| Energy consumption | 50 /launch* | ||||
| Regrowth (seconds) | 8.0 sec | ||||
| P required | 4838 | ||||
Projectile / Drone Attributes | |||||
| Health | 2706 | ||||
| Acceleration | 218 | ||||
| Mass | 101 | ||||
| Projectile Damage | 1000 | ||||
| Projectile Splash | 600 | ||||
| Launch Energy | 50 /missile | ||||
| Drone's ProjectileDamage | 15 | ||||
| Drone's FireRate | 4 | ||||
| Drone's ProjectilesSpread | 2.86 deg | ||||
| Drone's Range of fire | 600 | ||||
| Drone's ProjectileVelocity | 600 | ||||
| Build Rate | 0.2 /sec | ||||
| Note: If the above weapon has launchable projectiles then these stats will shown here. | |||||
"Heavily armored death launcher"
The Nuclear Option, an overpowered missile launcher which annihilates ships in a single hit. The Nuke's defining feature is its 600 explosive radius, which lets it penetrate through everything except the thickest possible armor. The Nuke projectile itself is more durable than most blocks in the game, only the heaviest Sentinel armor and Crystalline hull are more durable. The launcher's low rate of fire doesn't matter much when each shot is a ship killer. The Nuke is astronomically expensive, players can only mount a single launcher onto powerful capital ships without going over the 8,000 P budget limit. Interestingly, the projectile has it's own cannon to fire at its own targets. In terms of strategy, a Nuke ship won't have much budget left for other ship components such as armor, thrusters, or additional weapons. Since the Nuclear Option is such a huge investment, ships mounting this weapon must focus their remaining budget towards ship survivability. However, supporting weapons can hedge against the Nuke's weaknesses. Flurry Missiles can arrest enemy ship regeneration, while the Sentinel cannons and lasers can remove enemy shields for the Nuke. The loss of a Nuke ship greatly reduces the firepower of a fleet, and therefore friendly escorting ships are very worthwhile.
Defense against the Nuclear option possible, the best methods use shields and missile-based point defense (PD), but other methods are possible. Medium and large shields from various factions can withstand a single hit from the Nuke. Core shielding prevents Nukes from one-shotting a ship, greatly reducing their threat. Shielding other ship modules will prevent the Nuke from obliterating them too, assuming other weapons haven't depleted their strength. Conventional PD using lasers is insufficient to deter Nukes because of their low power. Missile-based PD can immediately destroy Nukes by detonating them on contact. While the Nuke can defend itself from missile PD with its cannon, it's easily overwhelmed. Cannons are also useful because they have the power to destroy Nukes and push them away from ships. Nuke explosions are powerful even if they explode at a distance, cannons can keep them away until they eventually detonate.
Designing armor to defend against Nukes requires at least 600 units of separation between the outer edge of the armor and any components to be protected. Therefore, ships armored against Nukes are extremely large. Nukes themselves are very slow, and evading them is possible. However, since a single mistake during evasion will doom a ship, other methods like shielding are needed to protect against this weapon.
Before September 30th, 2018 Rebalance[]
This is the best missile in the game, as it has a turret on it and it's explosion radius can reach most ship cores. However, the p cost essentially limits the player to 1 per ship, unless modded.
It pretty much 1-hit kills almost anything.
There really isn't that much to say in terms of strategy other t
han to make sure you also bring some Gauss Beams or an Obliterator (the Obliterator in perticular complements nicely with Nuclear Option) as shields are the only thing that can protect ships and stations from nukes, in particular the Farmers stations can be difficult to take down with only nukes since the shields are very strong and can hold up against the wrath of this deadly weapons. In a nutshell if you see something right click and watch it explode but if you see a strong shield (like the Tinkerells or the aforementioned Farmers) shoot at it with all of your weapons or if you have armor spikes on your ship ram into it but make sure you don't get reckless as it can be easy swarmed with fighters and gunfire while ramming into a station.