OpenFront Nukes
Silo plus ammo, SAM nets, and what v33 changed for MIRV warheads.
Nuclear weapons in OpenFront are a gold sink with a map-shaped blast, not a win button. You still win by holding about 80% of non-fallout land. Fallout removes land from that pool, so a strike can help a leader or deny a rival the last percent. Read How to Play for that rule. This page is the budget, the three weapons, and the SAM net that answers them.
If you do not have a City and a Port yet, you are not in the nuclear phase. Finish Getting Started and the Buildings shopping list first.
Silo plus ammo: 1.75 million for the first Atom
A Missile Silo costs 1,000,000 each with no cost scaling and about 100 ticks to build. It does not include a free nuke. An Atom Bomb costs 750,000. The smallest complete first strike from zero gold in the silo column is therefore 1,750,000. A Silo you cannot load is a beacon. Upgrades shorten reload. Multiple Silos are how you volley; one Silo spaces queued bombs by one tick, while separate ready Silos can fire together.
Hotkeys: 5 arms a Silo, 8 arms Atom (double-tap toggles x5 on loaded tubes), 9 Hydrogen, 0 MIRV, U flips Atom/Hydrogen arc, Esc cancels. Controls is the full table. Always cancel after a salvo.
Atom, Hydrogen, MIRV
Atom (750,000). Smallest blast (community inner/outer figures around 12 / 30). Use it to delete a City cluster, a silo, a rail hub, or a Defense Post neck you cannot afford to walk. x5 exists for Atoms only, limited by gold and loaded tubes. SAM can intercept it.
Hydrogen (5,000,000). Large blast (community inner/outer around 80 / 100). One accidental 9 click is more than six Atoms. There is no x5 hotkey batch. SAM intercepts with a real but not perfect chance; overlapping launchers matter more than a single tower. Do not Hydrogen your own win condition into fallout if you needed that land.
MIRV. Base 25,000,000 plus 15,000,000 × launched count. In v33, MIRV warheads are real nukes: they fly, they use per-type speeds, and they are SAM targets after split. The carrier is not interceptable. Launching a MIRV puts the Silo on cooldown, so a follow-up nuke needs another ready Silo or a later window. MIRV is a board-state weapon, not a first silo flex.
SAM nets
SAM Launcher: first 1,500,000, then 3,000,000. About 300 ticks to build. Range scales from about 70 to 150 tiles by level (formula community writers cite: 150 − 480/(level+5)). Cooldown about 90 ticks. SAM covers your land, not allies. Nations tend to avoid obvious SAM umbrellas, so the first launcher has deterrence value even before it fires.
Place SAMs to overlap the tiles you cannot replace: stacked Cities, the Silo farm, the Port that feeds the fleet. Do not put every launcher in one Hydrogen radius. A second SAM on a second core beats a sixth upgrade on a lonely beach. After v33, plan MIRV defense as warhead overload, not as “the carrier will slip the old 50-tile shortcut.” That shortcut is gone. Count enemy Silos and gold: one MIRV plus leftover Atoms is a different problem than one Atom.
When a tile falls, Silos and SAMs transfer. Defense Posts die. Taking a nuclear core can hand you the guns; you still have to rebuild the land posts. That capture rule is why a raid on a silo farm is a strategy, not griefing.
When to go nuclear, and when not to
Go nuclear when a player’s core is the only thing stopping the land share, when a Nation is about to Hydrogen you, or when fallout would deny a rival more than it denies you. Do not go nuclear because the Silo icon is on. Diplomacy can buy the 5 minutes you need to finish a SAM; Alliances includes the silo-on-border trick (a silo the neighbor must answer). Team games should assign one backliner to the silo/SAM job so the frontliner is not paying 1.75 million during a push; see Team Games.
Naval maps still need land. Nuking a Port island can stall an invasion and also stall your trade. Naval is the ship half of that tradeoff. Doomsday Clock matches punish fallout and stalled land share at the same time: a pretty MIRV that turns your lead into unusable tiles can skull you on the next wave.
The Guides Hub indexes every tutorial. The Tier List Hub is a short read on whether Atom rushes are paying off this patch. The Updates Hub is where MIRV rules get rewritten. Developer notes and source live via the Links Hub.
Count gold backwards from the blast you actually need. Silo (1M) + Atom (750k) is the first adult purchase. Hydrogen is a 5M decision. MIRV is a 25M+ decision that also silences that Silo and throws interceptable warheads into a SAM net you should have measured first. If you cannot name the tiles the blast must remove, keep the gold and buy a City.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common OpenFront questions.
How much gold is the first OpenFront Atom, including the Silo?
1,750,000: 1,000,000 for the Silo and 750,000 for the Atom. The Silo does not include a free weapon.
Can SAM intercept MIRV in v33?
In-flight MIRV warheads are interceptable like other nukes. The MIRV carrier is not. Launching a MIRV also puts that Silo on cooldown.
What do Atom, Hydrogen, and MIRV cost?
Atom 750,000, Hydrogen 5,000,000, MIRV 25,000,000 plus 15,000,000 for each MIRV you have fired. SAM starts at 1,500,000 then 3,000,000.
Do captured Silos and SAMs transfer?
Yes. Silos and SAMs change owner with the tile. Defense Posts are destroyed on capture instead. Rebuild the land layer after you steal a nuclear core.
Where should I place SAM Launchers?
Overlap the Cities, Silos, and Ports you cannot replace. Spread them enough that one Hydrogen cannot delete the whole net. SAMs do not protect allies.