Novalith Cannon

When all attempts at peaceful negotiations have failed, and the enemy is unwilling to back down, the TEC have little choice but to unleash this weapon, their final solution to conflict. Representing the pinnacle of the TEC's Nuclear Weapons Technology, the mighty Novalith Cannon is the end result of years of research and testing. Essentially a massive railgun, its Novalith Warheads are accelerated to near-lightspeed velocity before firing, sending its nuclear payload to annihilate the TEC's foes at any distance. The in game description of the Novalith Warhead is "The apex of TEC ordinance technology; it will cause tremendous damage to a planet's infrastructure on impact."
The apocalyptic weapon is able to deal 3500 damage to an enemy planet or asteroid. Usually, it takes 1 shot to kill an asteroid (health upgrades or not), and 2 shots to kill a planet at maximum health (6000). TEC players with Shield Generators around their planets take much less damage, though, due to the Shield Generator's bombardment mitigation ability.
Unfortunately, Novalith Warheads aren't exactly the cleanest weapons in the galaxy, and cause quite a mess upon impact. Until the radiation reaches acceptable levels, you can't colonize the planet or asteroid you destroy - in addition, for a considerable period, the planet's growth and max population cap is severely reduced.
As of Diplomacy v.1.2, the Novalith reduces the trade income of the target planet by 100%, in order to further increase the loss of Credit income, and to compensate for the effects of Auxiliary Government and the likes of it.
==Notes==
Though its description could be interpreted that it suggests otherwise, the Novalith can actually target planets surrounding another star. In addition, the warheads are near-impossible to detect en-route; the only way they can be seen is if one zooms in close enough, which still makes for a very nasty surprise attack. That said, find a system that can be easily fortified, and see to it that it's well-defended, even to the point of creating a second "defense" fleet.
*For the best results, try hot-keying them to a number that you don't use often. When you're ready to launch the missiles, use the mouse, Tab, and "Q" (the Hotkey assigned to firing the weapon) to quickly send an alarmingly large volley in a very short timespan. It does require some manual work, but you're able to ensure that a planet's dead.
*Alternatively, you could have them all set to autocast, but that brings its own brand of problems; namely, wasting shots on planets that aren't owned by your enemies, or, worse yet, you when they get there!
Even though it now has a new effect, it is still an obnoxiously expensive piece of hardware, and it is not prudent to research and build one in most multiplayer matches.
The first version of the game had an issue that caused it to crash if it fired on one of your planets - it was (thankfully?) fixed later on, though.
The AI spams firing of Novalith Cannons, even when the difficulty setting is set to Easy Economist.
With the expansion pack Entrenchment, the Novalith was changed so that each blast will reduce the maximum population supported for a good long while.
Cost: 	8000 600 500
Build Time: 	136 Seconds
Requires 8 Military Lab Structures	
Requires 1 Point in Extended Range Missiles	
Category:Orbital Structures
Category:TEC
Category:Tactical Structure