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Command Center
The Command Center is one desk that runs everything: radar, targets, launch pads, air defense, sirens, teleprinters and screens. It's the biggest part of the mod and the one I've spent the most time on.
Connect everything with Power Cables. The cables act as a data line, so they don't need to carry power for this. The command center follows the cables and picks up:
- Launch pads of every kind, including silos and abort pads
- Missile Defense Batteries
- Radar Stations
- Target Archives
- Screens (video walls)
- Strategy Tables
- Air Raid Sirens, Alarm Sirens and Warning Lights
- Teleprinters
Keycard Readers are linked with the Linker instead of a cable. See Communication and Security.
The SYSTEM page lists everything that's connected.
Right-click the command center to open it. The display looks like an old CRT. You can switch between a green phosphor and an amber tube.
At the top you always see the alarm state, DEFCON, wind and the number of contacts and threats. There are 8 pages:
| Page | What it's for |
|---|---|
| SITUATION | Radar map with contacts, threats, targets and your own missiles |
| FIRE PLAN | Plan strikes: sorties, targets, flight profiles, salvos, tactics |
| FLIGHTS | Your own missiles in the air, with altitude, status and time to impact |
| DEFENSE | Air defense status, rules of engagement, auto defense |
| REPORTS | Damage reports with before and after satellite images |
| LOG | Everything that happened, newest first |
| SYSTEM | Connected devices, owner, access log, attackers, Dead Hand, exercise mode |
| REPLAY | Replay of the last 15 minutes of missile tracks |
Without a radar station the command center sees 256 blocks around itself. Each connected Radar Station extends that to 2000 blocks around the station.
The map has 8 layers you can turn on and off:
| Layer | Shows |
|---|---|
| TERRAIN | The area you've explored |
| DEFENSE | Your batteries and their coverage |
| ENEMY | Known enemy air defense |
| PLAN | Your planned sorties and routes |
| TRACKS | Missile tracks of the last 2 minutes |
| DAMAGE | Impacts and craters |
| FALLOUT | Fallout clouds and contaminated areas |
| TARGETS | Targets and markers |
You can zoom in and out. Click on the map to pick a map target. You can also place up to 12 named markers on the map and use them as targets later.
Every incoming missile shows its type, who launched it and how long until impact. If it was launched inside your radar coverage, you know exactly where from. If it came from outside, you only get an estimate: ±100 blocks, or ±200 blocks if it came from more than 4000 blocks away.
Missiles with stealth coating only show up at a quarter of the range. Decoys look exactly like real missiles.
When your own missiles fly near enemy air defense batteries (within 450 blocks), the command center learns where they are. When enemy interceptors launch, they give their battery's position away too. Known enemy batteries stay on the map for 30 minutes.
Targets come from three places:
- Target Archive: holds up to 8 marked Target Finders with names
- Map target: click on the radar map
- Markers: your named markers on the map
The fire plan is where you plan strikes before you launch them.
- Press + to add a sortie.
- Pick the pad and tube (missile) to use.
- Pick the target.
- Pick a flight profile.
- Set the salvo size (×1 to ×8).
Each sortie shows distance, flight time and the highest point of the flight. If something's wrong it tells you: no pad, tube empty, no target, too close, out of range, wrong pad, silo shaft blocked, tube planned twice, no nuclear release, or DEFCON too high.
| Profile | How it flies |
|---|---|
| Standard | Normal climb, cruise and dive |
| High ballistic | High arc. Hard to intercept at the top, but visible for a long time. |
| Depressed | Flat and fast. Short warning time. |
| Low level | Close to the ground, under the radar |
| Pop-up | Flies low, pulls up shortly before the target and tips over onto it |
| Top attack | Comes in flat, climbs steeply just before the target and dives straight down |
| Custom | Your own |
The altitude graph has 4 control points (pitch over, climb, cruise, dive start). Drag them to make your own profile. Heights go from 8 to 480 blocks above the pad.
You can also set:
- Approach direction in 15° steps. 0° is straight in, ±90° from the side, 180° from behind (the missile flies around the target).
- Waypoints: up to 4. Switch the view to ROUTE and click on the map to add or remove them.
- Fuze: impact, airburst or delayed (the range for height or depth is adjustable)
For every sortie the fire plan shows what the warhead does (crater, damage, fire and fallout radius) and, if you know about enemy air defense on the route, an estimate: how many batteries are on the route, the kill chance, how many missiles get through, expected hits and how many missiles you'd need for a 90 % chance of at least one hit. If you don't know the enemy defense yet, it tells you to do reconnaissance first.
| Tactic | What it does |
|---|---|
| individual | Every missile flies its own plan |
| fan | Spread out in a fan |
| pincer | From two sides |
| front + back | One group from the front, one from behind |
| saturation | Everything at once to overwhelm the defense |
| surround | From all directions |
Same time makes all missiles of the plan hit at the same moment. The command center delays the launches so they arrive together.
Press AUTHORIZE FIRE, then confirm with FIRE! within 8 seconds. If you don't confirm, it goes back to safe. ABORT cancels.
| Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| DEFCON 5 | Peace |
| DEFCON 3 | Alert. Retaliation works from here on. |
| DEFCON 2 | Nuclear weapons possible, depending on doctrine |
| DEFCON 1 | War. Nuclear weapons always free. |
You can raise or lower DEFCON by hand. When a threat comes in, the command center raises it on its own: to 3 for conventional missiles, to 2 for nuclear ones. It never lowers it on its own.
With the Equal response doctrine on, nuclear weapons at DEFCON 2 are only released after someone attacked you with nuclear weapons first. At DEFCON 1 they're always free. With the doctrine off, DEFCON 2 is enough.
Every nuclear launch gets a countdown. You can set it to off, 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds (default 10). The countdown shows up on every screen wall, one launch after another. During the countdown the launch alarm sounds and connected sirens go off.
You can abort a launch during the countdown, or skip it with LAUNCH NOW. "Cancel all launches" stops every queued launch.
Already launched at the wrong target? If you have an Abort Launch Pad with a Hypersonic Interceptor, open FLIGHTS, pick your missile and press "Prepare abort", then "Launch hypersonic". The interceptor chases your own missile and destroys it in the air.
On the DEFENSE page:
- Auto defense: batteries engage incoming missiles on their own
- Intercept all: emergency mode, everything fires at everything for a few seconds
- Rules of engagement: which targets (all, nuclear only, center only), what first (most urgent, nuclear, center) and salvo size
The command center handles 3 targets at once, plus 2 more for every connected radar station (up to 9).
When missiles are inbound the command center goes into alert. ACKNOWLEDGE ALARM stops the alarm sound but keeps the alert state.
Connected sirens and warning lights get the right signal:
- Air raid alarm while threats are inbound
- Launch alarm during a nuclear countdown
- All clear for one minute afterwards
The command center also gives a redstone signal for sirens placed right next to it.
With RETALIATION on, the command center fires back at whoever attacked you, as long as DEFCON is 3 or lower. It aims at the attacker's launch site. If that's only estimated, it fires at three points around the estimated spot.
It uses the same kind of weapon: nuclear only as an answer to a nuclear attack (and only if you have a nuclear missile ready), otherwise conventional.
The Dead Hand fires everything you have if your command center is taken out. Only the owner can arm or disarm it.
It triggers when:
- The command center is destroyed (not when the owner breaks it)
- One of its air defense batteries is destroyed
- The air defense reports it can't stop an incoming nuclear attack anymore
Once triggered, every pad fires whatever it has loaded at the stored targets (attackers' launch sites and the target archive), even if nothing is left of the command center. It stops after 100 missiles, even with infinite ammunition.
Turn on exercise mode to train. Simulated missiles show up at the edge of the radar (about 1800 blocks out) every now and then and fly toward the command center. Alarm, sirens, defense and retaliation all work like the real thing, but nothing actually flies or explodes. Everything is marked EXERCISE in the log.
When a missile from the fire plan gets close to its target, a satellite takes a "before" picture. After the impact you get a report with the after picture, how much changed in percent and the crater size. Up to 8 reports are kept.
REPLAY plays back the missile tracks of the last 15 minutes. Play, pause, ±15 seconds, speed 1×, 4× or 16×. It counts hostile and own missiles, interceptors, kills and impacts.
The log records launches, impacts, kills, DEFCON changes, who authorized what, access attempts at keycard readers and more. Teleprinters connected by cable print it out.
Screen walls and the strategy table show the command center on big displays and let you control it directly. See Screens, Strategy Table and Radar.
See Recipes.
Basics
Weapons
Command and Control
Aftermath
Nuclear Power
Other