I nuked Jade Cove: AMA
TLDR: feel free to skip this wall of text and ask your question anyway.
Throughout planning, building, fueling, targeting, and launching this rocket, I have noticed that a surprising number of people who are even higher ranked than I am did not understand a very large number of things about this whole process.
Let me start with the process itself, then give some details about how it went for me, and then anyone curious about something I didn't mention can ask.
First of all, it takes 485 rare alloys (9,700 rare metals) to produce all necessary components for the nuke. People miscount this because they often think of just the warhead (75 alloys), body (125 alloys), and booster (150 alloys) as being the whole nuke, but they are missing two things. First, they are missing the pad (100 alloys) but on top of that, they are missing the Rocket Manufactory variant of the small assembly station (35 alloys).
Each of the three main pieces of the rocket takes 24 hours to print, so if you want to crank one out immediately like MSA (at least I'm 90% certain that was y'all) did, you will have to build three rocket manufactory pads (105 alloys, making the total price 555 alloys or 11,100 metals). Each of the components can be put onto the back of a flatbed or anything larger that can carry shippables, although bringing a train rail right up to the pad is quite convenient.
Once you build the pad, you have the option to squad reserve it. Members of the squad can put down the components of the rocket, and everyone on both factions will be able to see the launch pad as a world structure; no Intel is required. As soon as the construction of the rocket is finished, you will have the option to begin fueling, and the nuke, over 24 hours, will take 30,000 liters or 10 liquid containers full of heavy oil. Then, it's time to select a target.
The Intelligence Center must either be in the same hex as the nuke, Target, OR A HEX THAT IS ADJACENT TO BOTH. You CANNOT build the intelligence Center 4000 M away from the nuke with the Target in the middle and be able to select it as a Target. To double-check this, we attempted to target with the Oceanwatch Intelligence Center. It didn't work. Also, your nuke cannot target the water, the nuke that is about to fly actually had an issue with this when they were aiming for the treasury. They aimed the intelligence Center a couple of degrees off and were not able to use that as a target. This ruined my original plan because I was going to Nuke the bridge just North of the town base on the Eastern side so that I could hit the two Northern safe houses and the town base, but aiming for the bridge technically counts as aiming for the water.
To target something, you aim the Intelligence Center at precisely where you would like the nuke to land, you perform a listening operation and the Intelligence Center generates a four-digit launch code. You need to have at least 10 members of the squad that the nuke is reserved to in hex, and three of those have to be the people who put in the launch codes. We did not decide to stress test this precisely, but all of you need to submit the codes within a short window of time, we believe it to be about 5 Seconds.
After that, there are regular announcements in the notifications that the nuke is targeting the location that are given to both sides, and, should one of you so choose, members of the nuke squad can cancel the launch of the nuke, at which point you must wait 4 hours for the opportunity to re-target it. You have 48 hours to fend off any enemy attempts to destroy the nuke, or the intelligence center in use. I have not had the opportunity to test this either, but I have been told that the Intelligence Center used must survive the 48-hour targeting process.
Step 4: Profit
FAQs:
1. Did FMAT really build a nuke? Not quite, I have been informed by my regiment's leadership that it would be very inappropriate for a logistics-exclusive regiment to create and launch their own nuke. A few volunteers from FMAT donated their rare metals to this project, but the primary contributors were 11e in manpower and rare metal donations, HALBD in rare metal donations, and the 27th for the construction of the defenses immediately surrounding the nuke. I was the administrator and coordinator of all of the connected groups. I am a member of FMAT, but this was not an FMAT nuke, this was my nuke.
2. Why did you nuke Jade Cove instead of Huskhollow?
I do not take criticism from people who are too poor to build their own nuke. First and foremost, it was the meme. I am not going to deny that. But destroying MSA's Frontline stockpile did feel like it would be a particularly strong blow to Colonial morale, as well as disabling them from using that Seaport to hold off our pushes any longer. We'll just move in our supplies, our transport is strong this war.
Anything major that I missed or that you happen to be wondering about?