Survival Guide - Dust Settles: The Missile Hub

Table of Contents:

Purpose:

Your missile hub will contain all of the options for your patriot and cruise missiles. These missiles are used solely for attacking and defending nuke silos. Anyone who does enough advanced research and is willing to invest the manpower can open and construct both missile types, no matter what focus path is chosen. Any camp can launch cruise missiles at any other camp that has at least 1 nuke. Patriots are only useful, though, to camps on the Nuke Focus path.

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Cruise Missiles:

Cruise missiles are the offensive missile. These are used to destroy nukes and bring a camp down in score. Use these to boost your score in relation to a Nuke Focused camp or to assist an ally.

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How to Open:

You will open the ability to construct cruise missiles by researching all of the Rocketry topics to 20. Once you have reached this goal you will be able to see the table for assigning missile workers and watching construction progress. You will not see any of these options, even with the required research, if you have a minting license.

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Constructing Cruise Missiles:

Once you have opened the ability to construct your own cruise missiles, you will be able to assign workers for construction at the top of the Missile Hub page. You will never be able to work on more than one cruise missile at a time.

You will be able to assign at least 7,500 people max. when you gain the ability to build cruise missiles (this number could increase depending on your Power Generation research). You will assign these people by entering the desired number in the text box and clicking "now." You will only be able to assign missile workers from your available population. Each missile has a 35,000 worker cost, which means that with only 7,500 people assigned, you will only be able to construct 1 missile every 5 turns. At any time you can check to see how many people you currently have assigned as missile workers above the assignment box and how many you can assign max. both in the assignment text-box before entering your own value and under the text-box in the parentheses.

You will be able to keep track of your missile construction with the graph provided under the worker assignment. You total number of constructed, unlaunched missiles will be listed at the bottom of the box.

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Launching Cruise Missiles:

Once you have constructed a cruise missile, you will be able to begin launching them at camps with nukes. You will first select your target. All non-allied camps with at least 1 nuke will be listed in the Target drop-down box with their total number of nukes listed beside their name. Once you have selected your target, you will type in the number of missiles that you want to launch at that camp. Once you have this entered, you will hit the "Begin Launch Sequence" button to commit those missiles for launch. Once set to launch, you will have to end a turn to see the report of whether your missiles hit or missed.

In order to drastically improve the accuracy of your cruise missiles over their non-guided ability, you will have to build and launch spy satellites. This means that you will need to open the ability to build satellites by researching Tracking and open the Space Center by researching Rocketry in your advanced labs. Also the more satellites you have in orbit the more your accuracy will increase.

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Limitations:

You cannot build cruise missiles if you have a minting license. Cruise missiles are considered an offensive weapon and part of the agreement for buying a minting license is that you will not be able to construct offensive weaponry. You can always buy more missiles through the Trade Market or sell your license back to the Neutral Exchange Camp.

Once you begin launching cruise missiles, your success in hitting the target will be dependent upon a number of factors, including the weather, the targeted camp's patriot defenses, and the number of spy satellites that you have in orbit.

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Improvements:

One of the main things that you can do to improve your cruise missiles is to research Power Generation so that you can assign more people for missile construction. This will allow you to construct your missiles faster.

You can improve your success with a missile strike by increasing the number of spy satellites that you have in orbit. This will allow for better targeting as your missiles fly towards the other camp. Also, more satellites will increase your cruise missile range. It also never hurts to launch multiple missiles at once. This will help to increase your chance of at least one or two getting through and destroying a nuke.

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Patriot Missiles:

These are the defensive missiles. If you are following the Nuke Path, you will need to keep plenty of these around and ready to fire to protect your nukes, and your score, from being hurt. If you are not following the Nuke Path, building these missiles can net you some CEPs through the Trade Market from camps looking to protect their nukes or can give you the ability to send a nice aid package to an ally on the Nuke Path.

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How to Open:

You will have to research the Rocketry topics in your advanced labs to 20 in order to open patriots. Once you have reached this goal you will be able to see the table for assigning missile workers and watching construction progress. You will not be restricted from constructing patriot missiles if you have a minting license since these are considered defensive weapons.

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Constructing Patriots:

When you have opened the ability to build patriot missiles, you will be able to assign workers for construction at the top of the Missile Hub page. You will never be able to work on more than one patriot missile bank at a time.

You will be able to assign at least 7,500 people max. when you gain the ability to build patriots (this number could increase depending on your Power Generation research). You will assign these people by entering the desired number in the text box and clicking "now." You will only be able to assign missile workers from your available population. Each missile has a 35,000 worker cost, which means that with only 7,500 people assigned, you will only be able to construct 1 missile bank every 5 turns. At any time you can check to see how many people you currently have assigned as missile workers above the assignment box and how many you can assign max. both in the assignment text-box before entering your own value and under the text-box in the parentheses.

You will be able to keep track of your missile construction with the graph provided under the worker assignment. You total number of constructed, uninstalled missiles will be listed at the bottom of the box.

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Installing Patriots:

Once you have constructed a patriot bank or two, you will be able to begin installing them. You will only need to enter the number of currently uninstalled patriot banks that you want to install. Once you have this entered, you will hit the "Install Them Now" button to commit those missiles for defense. Once set for defense, the missiles will fire when incoming cruise missiles are detected. You can install as many patriot missile banks for defense at a time as you want. Only those banks estimated as needed will be launched during an attack (approximately 4 banks for every cruise missile, depending on certain other conditions).

In order to drastically improve your patriot defenses, you will have to build and launch GPS. This means that you will need to open the ability to build satellites by researching Communications and open the Space Center by researching Rocketry in your advanced labs. When you have the ability to build them, construct as many as you possibly can because more GPS in orbit will always mean higher accuracy.

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Limitations:

Once you can install your patriots, your success in defending your nukes will be dependent upon a number of factors, including the weather, the attacking camp's attack size and satellite accuracy, and the number of GPS that you have in orbit. You will generally need around 4 times the number of patriot banks as the number of cruise missiles since hitting the relatively small incoming missile with another relatively small defending missile (relative in comparison to the targeted nuke) is like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.

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Improvements:

One of the main things that you can do to improve your patriot banks is to research Power Generation so that you can assign more people for missile construction. This will allow you to construct your missile banks faster.

You can improve your success with missile defense by increasing the number of GPS that you have in orbit. This will allow for better targeting as the incoming missiles fly towards your nukes. These satellites will also allow more banks to be fired at each incoming missile. It also never hurts to install plenty of missile banks at once. This will help to increase your chance of preventing most all of the cruise missiles (if not all) from getting through and destroying a nuke.

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