NationStates News

OVERVIEW

N-Day is an opportunity for nations to come together and exchange nuclear weapons in a fiery Armageddon of mutually assured destruction.

To Participate

1. Once registration opens, you can create or join a Faction. Nations outside a Faction can't attack or be attacked. You can join a Faction when you're ready and leave when you're not (to stay safe).

2. When the event begins, nations will be assigned a random Specialty and begin to accumulate Production. You will now be able to spend Production, fire nukes and deploy shields.

3. Watch your nation automatically generate Production. Use Production to build Nukes and Shield.

4. Launch Nukes at other nations and use Shield to shoot down Nukes that are launched at you.
   

Tactics

The simplest way to play N-Day is to join whichever Faction seems most fun and start targeting Nukes at its enemies while shooting down anything incoming. Your Faction page's icon bar shows everything you need to know, including who's targeting anyone in your Faction, and who your fellow Faction members are targeting.

Attacking: Step by Step

1. On your Production screen, spend some of your Production to build Nukes. These go into your Stockpile.

2. On another nation's Nuke page, click/tap the TARGET button and select the number of Nukes to use.

3. Once Targeted, it takes 10 minutes for your Nukes to reach a READY state (3 for Intel Specialists). Note that your Targeted page is public: All nations can see who is targeting whom.

4. When your Targeted Nukes are ready, click/tap LAUNCH.

5. Your Nukes are now categorized as Launches for you and Incoming for your target. Launched Nukes take 3-5 minutes to reach their target. When they do, they earn Strikes for you and inflict Radiation on the target, which reduces their rate of Production. This also earns Score for your Faction and reduces the enemy Faction's Score.

Defending: Step by Step

1. On the Production screen, spend Production to build Shield.

2. Find Launched Nukes to destroy. Your top priority is any Incoming Nukes launched at you. Secondarily, you may wish to target Incoming Nukes on anyone in your Faction (see your Faction's Incoming page), and also keep an eye on Targeted Nukes that may threaten you or your Faction in the near future.

3. Click/tap DESTROY to deploy 1 Shield per Nuke.

Strategy

Strategically, it may be wise to avoid attacks on nations or Factions until you are confident of obliterating them, since this eliminates the possibility of counter-attack. Smaller-scale attacks, which damage but don't destroy an enemy, can lead to an escalating series of grudge-related nuclear exchanges.

On the other hand, targeting an enemy can be an effective warning. And it takes Nukes 10 minutes to be ready to launch, so you can't leave it too late.

Scoring

Each Nuke that reaches a target causes Radiation damage, which reduces the target's rate of Production generation and counts as a Strike for the attacker.

A Faction's Score is calculated by

RADIATION_GIVEN - (0.25 * RADIATION_TAKEN)

Duration

N-Day lasts for 24 hours, after which point, an Arms Control Agreement means that no Nukes can be launched. (In-flight nukes can still land, however.)

The "winner" is the Faction with the highest score; if, that is, nuclear war can be said to have a winner. Which we say it can. It's the Faction with the highest score.

FACTIONS

Once registration opens, Factions can be founded by a Regional Officer of any region. Any and all Regional Officers of that region can update the Faction's official text to issue instructions to Faction members.

Factions can be made open to all members, or restricted to the region's members only.

You can leave your Faction, which is a good way to stay safe if you're signing off for the night. However, you can only do this if you're not engaged with the enemy! That means:

• You must not have any nukes targeted or launched at another nation; and

• No nukes can be targeted or incoming on you.

Note that in practice, this can make it challenging to leave a Faction, since you may be frequently targeted.

While outside a Faction, you cannot be targeted, and do not generate any Production.

Before joining, it's worth making sure a Faction isn't currently under mass bombardment.

Bikini Atoll and Kicking Faction Members
Bikini Atoll is a special, game-created, faction. It operates as a normal faction, but nations that are kicked from their factions will be transported to Bikini Atoll. All targets on the nation persist. Nations can be kicked from their nuke page, by Regional Officers in the factions founding region. Nations with incoming nukes cannot be kicked.

SPECIALTIES

Nations are randomly assigned a specialty.

Military Specialists build Nukes faster: They receive 50% more Nukes when converting Production.

Strategic Specialists build Shield faster: They receive 50% more Shield when converting Production.

Economic Specialists can accumulate more Production: Their production cap is four times larger than the other specialties.

Intel Specialists can finalize targets faster: Their targetted nukes reach READY in 3 minutes instead of 10. They have no Production advantages.

	Military Specialist	Strategic Specialist	Economic Specialist	Intel Specialist
1 Nuke	2	3	3	3
1 Shield	6	4	6	6

PRODUCTION
Non-WA nations automatically generate Production at a rate of 15 Production per 2 minutes, up to a maximum of 750 (3000 for Econ Specialists).
WA nations automatically generate Production at a rate of 150 Production per 2 minutes, up to a maximum of 2500 (10000 for Econ Specialists).

Production can be spent on Nukes or Shield.

WA NATIONS
World Assembly members will accumulate Production 10x faster than non-WA members, and have their Production limits increased by around 3x.
It is allowed to switch WA membership to receive this benefit for different nations, but (as per regular site rules) you are only allowed to have one nation in the WA at a time.
Keep in mind that if your Production is over the non-WA limit when you resign membership on a nation, the Production on that nation will decrease down to the limit (i.e. if you resign with 75 Production on a non-Econ nation, the Production will drop to 50).

We ask that you refrain from switching WA for N-Day purposes more than once every two minutes. You will not be punished for this, but it is against the spirit of this change to the event mechanics.

NUKES

Nukes are purchased with Production, kept in stockpile until ready, then targeted and launched at an enemy nation.

Launched Nukes take 3-5 minutes to reach their target. While in-flight, they can be shot down by any nation using Shield. If they're not, each Nuke generates 0.25% of Radiation in the target and earns 1 Strike for the attacker.

SHIELD

Shield can be used to knock out Launched Nukes. You can shoot down any in-flight Nukes regardless of who they are aimed at.

Locate in-flight Nukes under Launches or Incoming, and use the DESTROY button to eliminate them at a rate of 1 Shield per Nuke.

It is possible to waste Shield if multiple nations deploy Shield simultaneously to knock out the same Nukes. However, there is a chance for duplicate shields to 'overflow' and take out the next set of incoming nukes instead.

Shielding a nation in another faction to yours incurs a 50% penalty on the cost to shield (it takes 1.5 shields to knock down one nuke).

SHIELD BANK

It is possible to donate shield to the Faction Shield Bank, which will automatically shoot down incoming nukes. This alone will not stop all incoming nukes, however, as the rate at which the Shield Bank shoots down nukes is dependent on the number of incoming nukes and its size. The exact formula per minute is given by:

MAX(MIN(0.15 * FACTION_INCOMING, 0.25 * SHIELD_BANK_SIZE), 200)

TARGETING

Target a nation by viewing their Nuke page and clicking/tapping TARGET. You may then select how many Nukes to target from your Stockpile.

It takes a short time for a Targeted Nuke to reach a READY state, after which it may be launched. This is normally 10 minutes, but Intel Specialists are faster, finalizing targets in only 3 minutes.

If not launched after 1 hour, Targeted Nukes automatically return to your Stockpile.

RADIATION

Radiation is generated in a nation when it is struck by a Nuke.

Radiation proportionately reduces a nation's Production generation rate by 0.5% per 1% of Radiation. For example, 20% Radiation reduces Production generation by 10%.

When a nation is 100% Radiated, it is destroyed and no longer able to launch any Nukes nor use any Shield.

Radiation is irreversible.

You can leave a Faction when irradiated, but this does not affect your Faction's score.

SCORE

A Faction's score measures strikes and radiation that occurred while those nations were a member. It is unaffected by nations joining or leaving the Faction.

GLOSSARY

Term	Explanation
Production	Used to buy Nukes and Shield. Automatically generated by all non-destroyed nations in a Faction.
Nuke	Unholy instrument of death and destruction.
Stockpiled Nuke	A Nuke that has been purchased with Production and is sitting idle, awaiting a target.
Targeted Nuke	A Nuke that has been targeted at a nation. A targeted Nuke takes 10 minutes to achieve a READY state, after which it may be launched.
Launched/Incoming/In-Flight Nuke	A Nuke that has been launched at a nation and is currently chewing up 3-5 minutes of in-flight time.
Shield	A unit of defensive technology. Possibly involves lasers or satellites or something.
Strike	A record of how many Nukes have successfully landed on targets.
Radiation	A record of how many Nukes have struck the nation. Reduces Production generation.
Faction	A group of nations sharing a common interest in survival and/or bloodlust.
Score	The Faction Score