Mission: Countdown

Mission: Countdown Alpha, Mission: Countdown Bravo, and Mission: Countdown Charlie are repeatable main quests , which trigger a nuke launch upon a map location selected by the player, creating a blast zone.
==Quick walkthrough==
==Detailed walkthrough==
Before starting this quest, the player character will need to acquire at least one nuclear keycard and the decrypted weekly launch code for a silo bunker. They also must have completed the quest Officer on Deck to attain the rank of General in order to be granted access to the silos.
Upon entering a silo bunker (either Site Alpha, Site Bravo, or Site Charlie), be prepared for many robot enemies, mainly Protectrons, Assaultrons, and Mister Gutsy robots of the regular, Lieutenant, Major, and Colonel rank. Bring energy-resistant gear and energy weapons, along with ballistic-resistant gear and ballistic weapons to protect against Mister Gutsy robots, which use powerful .44 and .45 equipped ballistic weapons, and Assaultrons of the regular type, invaders with their electrified claws, and dominators, which use Assaultron blades in close-quarters combat alongside their powerful head lasers. Both enemy types can whittle down health in a short period of time if they are not dealt with quickly. A highly radioactive room will also be within the silo, that being the silo's power chamber with its primary and secondary reactors, so bringing radiation protection is recommendable until the radiation is subdued.
The first step in the quest will require the player character to find a way past the first set of laser grids blocking access to the rest of the silo from the residential area upon leaving the elevator, by means of forging a biometric ID card. Old biometric ID cards can be found in several of the residential area rooms after first stepping out of the elevator. The majority of the silo will be filled with level-dependent machine gun or Gatling laser turrets and robots, but with a Level 3 hacking skill, and using terminals scattered throughout, the robots and turrets can be programmed to shut down or remove targeting restrictions, making them turn on one another. The robots that can be deactivated include the Robobrains serving as the area commanders, such as the Residence Assistant, Lead Engineer, Operations Director, Storage Room Manager, and Launch Commander Robobrains. The initial starting room, serving as the residential area of the silo, will have a few Mister Handies to deal with before the Mister Gutsies start to appear from the robot fabrication tubes in some of the rooms once the number of robots in the area dwindles. There are at least 5 of the automated turrets that can either be disarmed, destroyed, or turned against the other robots in the residential area.
In the next room are two terminals that the player character can read to acquire information on security protocols, giving instructions for creating a new biometric ID card to bypass the laser grids blocking access to the rest of the silo. This will trigger the start of the security robots spawning for this part of the quest. After acquiring an old biometric ID card, the player should locate an ID card eraser and follow the instructions on the terminal next to it. Afterwards, following the quest markers will take the player character to the biometric scanners in the medical room which they will enter to have the scanner acquire their biometric data. Then, using the terminal next to the ID card eraser will fabricate the new card. Activating the card in one of the two slots at the original terminals that provided the information on making new biometric ID cards will deactivate the first laser grid and halt further robots from being spawned.
Through the deactivated laser grid and the silo corridors is the reactor area with another terminal to handle the robots and turrets. Expect a few automated turrets in the corridors that can't be deactivated by a terminal, along with a couple of Eyebots, Mister Gutsies, and an Assaultron. There are a total of 18 automated turrets guarding the reactors, so turning off their targeting restrictions will make taking out the robots much easier with the turrets attacking them from multiple directions all at once, then turning them off to work on the reactor repairs without any interference. Here, the player character should locate a terminal with instructions in the room with the nuclear reactors. Using the terminal will shut down the reactors for 3 minutes and allow the player character to repair sections of piping around the room marked by yellow and black stripes that are cracked and hissing steam from them. These repairs do not require any materials to complete. Prepare to deal with radiation from the reactors until they are deactivated for the repair work, as well as a variety of robots that will periodically spawn, including utility Protectrons armed with either nailguns that work like railway rifles or clamper claws for physical attacks, and Mister Gutsies. Once the reactors restart, either manually from the terminal they were deactivated with or automatically when the timer expires, the quest will proceed to the next stage, and further robots will stop spawning once the reactors are repaired and the lockdown lifted as the bulkhead doors to the rest of the silo are opened. Decontamination arches can be activated before entering the reactor chamber to cleanse radiation while fixing the reactors.
In the next stage of the quest, the player will follow quest markers to the operations center, where they will need to destroy dozens of mainframe cores to lift the lockdown that had been enabled by their intrusion. Destroying the cores in one room will completely shut off nearby laser grids and grant access to more cores and laser grids. There are more terminals with the aforementioned robot and turret controls, but the player character should be prepared to fight higher level robots such as Assaultron invaders/dominators and Major/Colonel Gutsies in the main mainframe room, followed by additional robots that emerge from the robot fabrication pods in a room that opens up once the laser grid is shut off, such as Protectrons and Eyebots. Like in the reactor chamber, the automated turrets can be turned against the robots by turning off their targeting restrictions, allowing them to blast the robots from multiple angles. The turrets may also destroy some of the mainframe cores themselves with errant shots due to their high rate of fire, making this part a little easier to complete by letting the turrets go wild before disarming them when the room is clear of hostile automatons. After destroying enough cores to reduce the mainframe integrity to zero and end the lockdown, follow the markers to the next area through a door that had been blocked by a laser grid until the lockdown was lifted.
The following stage of the quest in the silo's storage area involves crafting 15 replacement mainframe cores or finding intact ones around the room to restart the system to open the security door to the launch silo. Repairs can be made at a nearby tinker's workbench with circuitry and steel. Replacing all 15 cores and using the terminal to open the security door will take the player to the launch silo and the final part of the quest. There is also a terminal needed to open a shortcut from the entrance and residential area straight to the storage area, bypassing most of the silo explored earlier if killed and needing to retrace steps to where the player character died and recover their dropped loot without so much backtracking. One should also watch out for a sentry bot in the storage area that is patrolling alongside the usual Protectron, Assaultron, and Mister Gutsy robots. Any mainframe cores collected or left over from this part of the quest can be kept for another attempt later or discarded if they cause a player character to be overencumbered by their combined weight. The terminal to shut off or reprogram the turrets and disable the Robobrain is behind a Level 3-locked door before entering the main storage room.
Inside the launch silo is an ICBM nuclear missile. Past this, through a door and up a few flights of stairs is the launch control center, guarded by a few more hostile security robots, including two boss robots in the form of a Launch Commander Robobrain and a high-level Assaultron, possibly a dominator, along with the aforementioned automated turrets, which can be reprogrammed from a terminal just outside the room to take out all the enemy robots before being disabled to avoid dealing with them during launch prep. The player character will be prompted to initiate launch prep. Doing so will spawn friendly launch control robots which must be protected as they carry out their corresponding tasks. Each crew chief is a Protectron with various robot parts attached to the head, torso, or legs, such as the head of a Mister Handy or Gutsy for the launch control chief, sentry bot upper body for the chief propulsion officer, Assaultron head for the chief telemetry officer, Robobrain torso for the chief targeting officer, and Assaultron torso for the chief guidance officer. This process tends to be rather tedious, with the robots being slow-moving and the enemies numerous, especially Assaultrons, Robobrains, Protectrons, and Mister Gutsies with their head lasers, melee strikes, Tesla weapons, smokescreens, and powerful ballistic weapons. Successfully defending the crew chiefs will complete the quest. If any robots are destroyed, use the nearby robot fabricators that are marked when a crew chief is slain to create new ones to replace them. As long as one is intact, launch prep will continue, but at a slower pace until all of the available crew chiefs are working the prep work again, and be paused completely if all the crew chiefs are destroyed until one is rebuilt. Once launch prep is complete, any remaining security robots that were still active and trying to stop the preparations will be immediately killed off since the silo is now armed and ready to fire. If any crew chiefs were still destroyed at this point and the fabrication pod locations were memorized, it will be easy to locate and replace them after the markers showing where they are located are removed upon the completion of the quest.
Once the quest is completed, the player character will be prompted to select a blast zone target location within Appalachia for the nuclear missile to engage the launch sequence. Some lower-level areas located in the western portion of Appalachia are considered to be within a "protected zone" and cannot be targeted. If fissure site Prime is targeted, the scorchbeast queen will be spawned and the Scorched Earth event will begin. If Monongah Mine is targeted, the event A Colossal Problem will be triggered. Targeting other locations will spawn higher level versions of whatever enemy is normally present in that area. Once a location has been selected and confirmed, Death from Above! is triggered as there is a 30-second countdown to clear the launch silo before the bulkhead doors seal and the missile's rocket is ignited. After the missile launches, the player character will be allowed a few more minutes to explore the silo post-launch until being automatically ejected as the silo locks down for restoring the silo payload with building the next missile and resets everything for the next trip through. Exiting the silo before the automatic eject can be done via the opened emergency exit back to the surface through a hidden elevator leading to a portable restroom, or fast travel.
==Rewards==
Quest rewards	Quest rewards 	Quest rewards
350 XP 	100 caps 	Mystery Pick legendary (15%)
<Aid> (x1) 	<GrabBag> (x1)	1-3 missiles (x2)
* 50 XP is rewarded upon completing each step of the quest: Residential, Reactor, Operations and Storage.
==Quest stages==
==Notes==
* The quest is automatically started upon taking the elevator down in any of the three silo sites.
* Progress on this quest is retained upon leaving the location, however it will be reset upon leaving the server.
* Repairing the 15 damaged mainframe cores will require 2 circuitry and 3 steel each, for a total of 30 circuitry and 45 steel.
* After patch 1.0.4.13, the Missile Silo quest rewards are only obtainable once per day.
* After launching a nuke, the launched missile silo will be inaccessible and placed on cooldown for 3 hours on that server and 3 real-world hours for the character that inserted the keycard, should they change worlds.
** Silo status for a particular world may be checked by using the missile silo state holotape.
* The amount of robots that spawn during the launch prep sequence is dependent on the number of players within the silo.
* In the storage area, a terminal may be accessed to unlock a door providing a shortcut from the hallway connecting the residential and reactor areas.
* If the player does not leave the silo after launching the nuke, they will eventually be removed from the area and placed outside the silo's secret exit.
* Once a player enters their nuclear keycard, another player cannot enter their own.
* The decontamination arches in the reactor sector may be activated via terminal in order to remove unwanted radiation.
==Bugs==
* Robobrains spawned during the launch prep sequence will not grant any Experience Points or loot.
* Rarely, the launch prep chiefs will not contribute toward the progress bar.
** It can be caused by another player entering the silo.
** Leaving and re-entering the silo will reset their placement and may restore progression, otherwise it might require rejoining the server.
* Occasionally, all robots and turrets will immediately die as the player approaches them.
==Gallery==
F76_Silo_Charlie_Interior_25.png|Site Charlie
Fo76 launch code entry panel keypad.png|Nuke Silo's Launch code entry panel keypad where the player must input the 8 digit decrypted launch code
FO76-nuke-protected-zone.jpg|ICBM launch targeting map with protected zone depicted in light green
Fo76 nuke target and blast radious.png|The target selection, and the red area that represents the blast radius
Category:Fallout 76 quests