Nuclear Program

Nuclear weapons in Atomic Dawn are strategic forces, not brigades. Their power lies in the threat: governments make visible, risky commitments under uncertainty and can lose control of them. Using one is possible, and terrible.

The road to the bomb runs through three systems: the Nuclear Policy law decides what a country is willing to pursue, the Nuclear Weapons & Missiles tree supplies the know-how, and a chain of national focuses builds the industry. In 1946 only the United States has all three.

Nuclear Policy

Nuclear Policy is a military law among the Policies. Every option beyond the first needs research, so a country cannot adopt a posture it has not built the capability for:

Protective Research is a real middle road: a country can keep its options open without committing to a bomb. Sweden's path runs through it.

The road to a bomb

Under a Weapons Program, the bomb is built through focuses, each costing money up front and every month it runs. Every step is a point at which a government can turn back.

1. Research. The Atomic Theory Program opens the tree. Fission Weapons needs it plus either Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges or Plutonium Production Reactors (the latter built on Experimental Pile Reactors).
2. A production complex. Either a Plutonium Production Complex (reactors and a reprocessing plant, about two years) or a Uranium Enrichment Complex (slower and dearer, but independent of reactors). Either opens the country's first fissile-material plant.
3. A Weapons Design Bureau, once the bomb research is done.
4. A Nuclear Test Site. No country can test without one.

The whole road takes five years or more from the decision. Some national focus trees replace the generic steps with their own.

Atomic theory itself stays open as basic science. AI countries research enrichment, plutonium production and fission weapons only while their nuclear policy pursues weapons.

Fissile material and warheads

Warheads are made from fissile material as well as money. Each plant yields a steady monthly output; once a country has its first, more can be built, each taking a year and adding upkeep. The United States opens the campaign with nine bombs and plants for about five a month, so its early arsenal is scarce and its monopoly is a closing window.

Warheads sit in a reserve until loaded onto a delivery system; a warhead in reserve deters nobody. Reliability starts low and rises with each test.

The first test

A country becomes a nuclear power with its first test, not when it finishes the research or builds a warhead. Until then it cannot declare a deterrent, field delivery forces, raise a nuclear alert in a crisis or lend an umbrella to a partner. The first test is what the world hears: national events fire, and neighbours suffer a proliferation scare.

A test costs money, needs a warhead and has a cooldown. It raises reliability, the first test at each research tier earns prestige, and it advances the Doomsday Clock. Atmospheric tests are cheaper but anger neighbours.

Later research

The tree continues past the first bomb: Boosted Fission and Thermonuclear Weapons, Warhead Miniaturization and MIRV warheads, rockets from Early Rocketry to ICBMs and solid fuel, and doctrines from Massive Retaliation and Flexible Response to the rival choice between Counterforce Targeting and Second Strike Capability. Permissive Action Links and early-warning research reduce the chance of accidents. Completed fission, boosted, thermonuclear and MIRV research raises the effective strength of a country's deterrent without changing its stockpile.

Delivery and credibility

Delivery systems range from strategic bombers and tactical systems through medium-, intermediate-range and intercontinental missiles to ballistic-missile submarines and cruise missiles. They differ in range, in warning time and in how easily they can be found and destroyed.

Strategic balance compares surviving retaliation, not stockpiles. The game asks: if a rival struck first, how much of its country could we still destroy? The answer is credibility, from 0 to 100%. Two powers that can each destroy the other are at parity however their arsenals compare. Credibility drives Stand-offs and Flashpoints and crisis bargaining and feeds directional Threat Levels.

Foreign basing needs a Nuclear Basing Agreement treaty, and forces can be deployed abroad in secret at the risk of discovery. Rivals see only estimates, as good as their Espionage and Nuclear Estimate Confidence allow, and a country can pay for deception to inflate or hide its arsenal.

Alert, incidents and use

In a stand-off or war a country can climb an alert ladder from Peacetime to Launch Ready. Each step costs upkeep, cannot be reversed quickly, heats the crisis and raises the odds of incidents such as false warnings or a crashed bomber. A world Doomsday Clock tracks the danger.

At war and at Launch Ready, a player can strike an enemy province from the Nuclear tab. Warheads that arrive devastate the province and kill a share of its people. The first use in a campaign breaks a taboo for good. AI nations never strike first; struck, they answer. When enough warheads land on a superpower to destroy its vital targets, the campaign ends for every player with no victor.

Arms control

Treaties can carry Hotline, Limited Test Ban, Arms Inspection, Non-Proliferation, Nuclear-Free Zone, Intermediate-Range Arms Limitation and Strategic Arms Limitation clauses. A strategic limit freezes deployed warheads at signature; cheating is possible, but the partner may catch it.

Costs

Warhead production, commissioning and tests are paid at once; storage, launchers, plants, deception and alert are recurring. All appear in the budget and compete with conventional forces, social policy and development.