Nuclear Missile

**Nuclear Missiles** are the Terrans' most dangerous weapon in *StarCraft*. Nuclear Missiles are constructed at Nuclear Silos, and launched by Ghosts. They do a huge amount of damage to a large area.

Nuclear Missile damage is calculated individually for each unit in the missile's blast radius. Large units lose either 500/250/125 hit points, or two thirds/one third/one sixth of their maximum HP depending on their distance to the center of the explosion -- whichever is greater. Missile damage is explosive, so the damage inflicted on small units is halved, and medium-sized units take only 75% damage.

## Unit quirks

* Nuclear Missiles do not register as "[men]" or "[any unit]" in trigger conditions. They can be detected if the condition specifically checks for "Nuclear Missile", though.
* Prior to being launched, Nuclear Missiles exist inside of their Nuclear Silos, and can be detected there using the Bring condition. This makes it possible to check if a specific Silo is armed.

## Techniques

### Tracking a Nuclear Missile launch

It is possible to track the individual stages of a Nuclear Missile launch using the Bring condition and death counters. However, multiple concurrent launches by the same player cannot be tracked, and "lost" nukes (launches that have been canceled, or prevented by killing the Ghost) cannot be accounted for.

Reserve a death counter for this method; for the purposes of our example, Alan Turret will be used. For simplicity's sake, the triggers below assume that we are only tracking Player 1 nukes, that Player 1 has only one Nuclear Silo, and that we have a location ("NUKE SILO") centered on that Silo.

*StarCraft* Trigger [template]
Description
Detecting Nuclear Missile construction
Players

* Player 1

Conditions

* Player 1 has suffered exactly 0 deaths of Alan Turret.
* Player 1 brings at least 1 Nuclear Missile to NUKE SILO.

Actions

* Modify death counts for Player 1: set to 1 for Alan Turret.
* Preserve trigger.

*StarCraft* Trigger [template]
Description
Detecting Nuclear Missile launch
Players

* Player 1

Conditions

* Player 1 has suffered exactly 1 deaths of Alan Turret.
* Player 1 brings at least 1 Nuclear Missile to Anywhere.
* Player 1 brings exactly 0 Nuclear Missile to NUKE SILO.

Actions

* Modify death counts for Player 1: set to 2 for Alan Turret.
* Preserve trigger.

*StarCraft* Trigger [template]
Description
Detecting Nuclear Missile going off-screen
Players

* Player 1

Conditions

* Player 1 has suffered exactly 2 deaths of Alan Turret.
* Player 1 brings exactly 0 Nuclear Missile to Anywhere.

Actions

* Modify death counts for Player 1: set to 3 for Alan Turret.
* Preserve trigger.

*StarCraft* Trigger [template]
Description
Detecting Nuclear Missile coming back on-screen
Players

* Player 1

Conditions

* Player 1 has suffered exactly 3 deaths of Alan Turret.
* Player 1 brings at least 1 Nuclear Missile to Anywhere.

Actions

* Modify death counts for Player 1: set to 4 for Alan Turret.
* Preserve trigger.

*StarCraft* Trigger [template]
Description
Detecting Nuclear Missile detonation
Players

* Player 1

Conditions

* Player 1 has suffered exactly 4 deaths of Alan Turret.
* Player 1 brings exactly 0 Nuclear Missile to Anywhere.

Actions

* Modify death counts for Player 1: set to 5 for Alan Turret.
* Preserve trigger.

### Automatically training and launching a Nuclear Missile

Start by giving the desired computer player a Command Center with an attached Nuclear Silo, and centering a location (we'll call it "NUKE SILO") on that Silo. Now, run the AI script "Broodwar Teran 2 - Town B" at NUKE SILO. (Remember that this is a campaign AI script. It may have other actions tied to it, such as creating Ghosts.)

You can detect the missile's completion by detecting when the computer player brings at least 1 Nuclear Missile to NUKE SILO. If you so desire, you can then give the Command Center to another player; however, the Nuclear Missile inside the silo will remain under the ownership of the computer that ran the AI script. You can remedy this by explicitly specifying the Nuclear Missile in a Give Unit action. (Note that missiles acquired in this manner do not automatically play the "Nuclear missile ready" sound clip.)

Alternatively, you can have a computer launch it using the "AI Nuke Here" script, if the computer has a Ghost ready.

This appears to be the only way to automatically train and launch Nuclear Missiles; the Modify Unit Hangar Count does not work on Nuclear Silos, and using Create Unit to produce a Nuclear Missile does not allow it to be launched.

If you can afford to create AI Scripts for your project, you may also create a simple script with two commands: *create\_nuke* and *stop* (exact syntax depends on the editor you're using). Running it will allow one nuclear silo belonging to the same computer player to be automatically filled with a nuke eligible to be launched. If you run it several times and the player has a number of empty silos, you may fill as many of them as you want. This is the same method that Blizzard implemented in the script "Brood Wars Terran 2 - Town A" that is used for the initial scenes of the Brood War Terran mission 5A (Emperor's Fall: Ground Zero). Note that unless you use one of the scripts that are hardcoded to be usable by a non-Computer (e.g. human) player - for example, PB3F - as base, you cannot use this method to fill a silo belonging to a human player.