AI War:Missiles
How Do I Get EMPs, Nukes, And Other Missiles?
A: All of these can be built at the Missile Silo, a very expensive Constructor unit. Each player can only build one Missile Silo, so be mindful of where you build yours. The Missile Silo can be found under the CONST tab of your command station. Be prepared to spend over a hundred thousands metal and crystal if you want to build missiles -- the Missile Silo is relatively expensive by itself, and the missiles are even more so.
Nukes
How Do I Use Nukes?
A: Nukes are the most powerful missile in the game. They are wicked expensive (100k each of metal and crystal), they take an hour to build (or 16 minutes with 3 engineers assisting the silo), and they and detonating them also has the negative effect of raising the AI Progress by 50 (in addition to any AI Progress increases that are incurred based on what you destroy). Oh, and there's the risk of accidentally having one of your own missiles detonate on your planet or an ally's planet, which is super bad news.
So, those are the negatives about nukes... why the heck would you want to use one? Well, when one goes off, it completely destroys all non-core, non-starship ships at a planet (plus it destroys the planet itself, and all the resource spots there). This is something to only be done with care, but it can really be a lifesaver in some situations. For instance, in one solo campaign there were two Mark IV planets right next to the player's home planet.
This was a really tough map, and so the player was nine hours in and both those two planets remained untouched. The player hadn't even managed to pull off a gate-raid, although he had tried several times. This meant that there were two hostile wormholes leading right into his home planet, which in turn meant that he had to keep a pretty sizable garrison there. This was inconvenient and expensive, and his resources keep getting destroyed and needing to be rebuilt. With a couple of nukes, he could take out those two planets with relative ease -- but the cost in terms of AI Progress is pretty steep, so it had to be really worth it. He thought it was, but using a nuke on one of the planets actually cost him the game...
We mentioned that starships are immune to nukes, right? Well, as it turned out the AI had a huge number of starships on the planet he nuked: 11 Zinth and 19 Spire. He had 20 planets and around 1,500 ships (this campaign was not going overly well, as has been noted, so he was low on forces). With that many starships suddenly set loose from guarding their (now destroyed) planet, he lost every planet he controlled while massing his forces at his home planet. He had around 800 ships that survived and made it to his planet to defend, and he set up mines and turrets all over the place, but it wasn't enough; the starships still slaughtered him.
Clearly, before you nuke a planet like that you need to deal with the starships first. Even with just four or five starships there it's something to be prepared for; that can still cost you several planets, or even the game if they are near your home planet and choose to strike out in that direction. One of the many dangers of nukes.
We also mentioned that nukes can be set off on your own planet. Basically, there are two ways to set off a nuke or emp -- scrap it yourself, or have it get shot down by enemies. If enemies are on your planet and happen to destroy the nuke, there goes your planet and all the resources and ships on it. Your home planet command station is immune to nukes, just like core ships and starships are, so those will at least survive (you won't lose the game immediately just because of one misfire, in other words), but it is still a VERY costly mistake to make.
So, given all this, nukes come with a little in-game warning that only advanced players should try to use them. Nuking a whole planet out of existence is great (morbid) fun, but the potential repercussions can be pretty dire. Just as in real life, firing a nuke is not something to do casually.
