Nuclei

Nuclei are one of the latest additions to the inventory as well as into Team Stages for use. They are essentially colored polygons of technology that provide a significant boost to your Power level and an additional form of weaponry. As of now there are 9 nuclei, with each category possessing 3 Nuclei types each.

Nuclei work on a rock-paper-scissors fashion, where Pompeii > Babylon > Atlantis > Pompeii.

* Or in color naming - Red > Green > Blue > Red. (Think R>G>B)

**Note:** Due to the great amounts of HP that Team Stage bosses have, the damage output of Nuclei are useless against them, although they work well against regular enemies. As such, the Nuclei's actual combat powers display no importance. However, they provide a significant Power boost (up to 4000+) and are worth investing in if possible.

## Equipment

To handle nuclei, simply enter the warehouse screen and you will see 3 slots surrounding your fighter. Each slot can be allocated with a nuclei of your choice in any fashion and arrangement. Note that there is only one catch when handling nuclei of the same **type** but of different tiers, e.g

* If you equip an **Azure** and **Cerulean** nuclei (the 3rd one can be any other type), upon collecting a blue power-up, the Cerulean's attack (scatter shot) will always trigger. Even if you were to equip two Azure nuclei or position the Azure nuclei in front, the higher tiered nuclei (Cerulean) will take dominance.
* The same is said of the Pompeii and Babylon classes.

In order to take advantage of the Nuclei powers, simply equip one of each colour.

## Upgrading

Upgrading Nuclei is a bit more tricky and resource intensive. It has a tier system up to +3 (or Max) but requires a different means to upgrade, as explained below-

 Upgrading to +2
 Upgrading to +3 (Max)

Or

**As for the Exp table-**

 Upgrading to +2
 Upgrading to +3 (Max)
 Maxing out +3

Of course, bear in mind only 1 Nucleus of each upgrade set needs to be maxed out on EXP before it can be upgraded with another 2 nuclei. Still, the requirements are pretty heavy (and confusing, when looking at the Nuclei list).

Fortunately as well, the gold cost is not as heavy as GoW parts, but you would want to reduce the number of times that you want to upgrade a nucleus as much as possible.

## Activation

In Team Stages, these power-ups are sometimes dropped and will cycle in G->R->B fashion every 1.5 seconds. When the relevant Nuclei is collected (depending on your loadout), "Nucleus Activated" will appear and trigger the attack that is described on your Nuclei. If you collect a Nuclei power-up that you are not equipped with, no effect will occur.

* Remember that the Nuclei continues to cycle even when it is being pulled to your ship. Making it play catch with you can cause it to cycle to another colour.

Once the nuclei activates, it initiates an attack of the dominant nuclei for a very short duration (about 2 seconds).

## Trivia

The derivation of the Nuclei names and tiers are more interesting than first examined.

* Pompeii - This city, destroyed by volcanic activity bears the Blaze and Fiery nuclei which represents the Fire element, and is obviously red.
* Babylon - This city, situated in vast desert plains, alludes to the Earth element and has the Dust and Sod nuclei (No not the slang!) to represent the earthen aspect.
* Atlantis - This city, sunken and legendary, has the names Azure and Cerulean that represents blue and the Water element.

*Nice job there, TS.*