Launch a Nuke
Would have the ability for players to get their hands on nuclear missiles to launch into Appalachia, it became clear that whoever holds the nukes hold the power. But to get access to a nuke, you’ll have to go through many steps to get there – and it’s not as straight forward as you might expect.
The tasks for launching a nuke break down into three main parts: Get the Nuclear Silo Code Fragments, Gain Access to the Silos, and Reach the Control Room.
Take a Silo Code
You won’t be able to find an entire intact launch code for nukes – instead, you’ll have to put together Code Pieces for the Silos at Site Alpha, Site Bravo, and Site Charlie. Of all the steps, this is the easiest, but can still take time due to the random nature of getting these Code Pieces.
The only things that carry these codes are unique enemy officers, either Scorched Officers or Feral Ghoul Officers – former members of the military who were entrusted with pieces of various nuclear launch codes.
Scorched Officers can apparently appear anywhere – though they seem to be most often found outside of The Forest, and usually around or on the outskirts of Points of Interest or Locations.Thankfully, Scorched Officers have some very distinct features:
- Officers carry a large radio backpack with a tall antennae on the back.
- The antennae will constantly flash a red light on and off.
- An Officer’s backpack will continually emit a pinging noise much like a radar or sonar beacon.
Once you take down the officer (or find his body, as you can loot the body even if other enemies kill it first), you’ll be given a code fragment consisting of a letter and number for one of the three hidden silos – which will then be marked on your map if it hasn’t already:
- Site Alpha: Located in the center of the Savage Divide, off to the southeast from the Top of the World and north of the National Isolated Radio Array, at a nondescript shack at the edge of a small pond.
- Site Bravo: At the base of the cliffs of the Savage Divide and the Toxic Valley, northeast of the Grafton Dam and south of the Palace of the Winding Path, in a small shack. past a military gate.
- Site Charlie: Hidden in the R and G Processing Services site in the southern edge of the Savage Divide where the railroad lines intersect, between Bastion Park and the Spruce Knob.
Each site’s entrance (except the R and G Processing Services location) is oddly unguarded, as they are well hidden – however, the elevator leading into the silo is locked by a unique handprint signature device.
Each silo has its own eight-digit launch code, and the code pieces you find can be from any of the three silos. To make things worse, the codes are only valid for a single week – then they get destroyed to prevent hoarding. Thankfully it appears that you can share codes among your group – and you’ll likely need a group for the other parts.
Finding Silo Codes
Keycards are carried by flying cargobots, which take a lot of bullets to put down and are sometimes guarded by vertibots. Code fragments are carried by scorched officers and feral ghoul officers—the ones with the backpack antennas that flash red and make that very annoying beeping sound. You’ll probably have encountered a bunch of these guys before you get to this point, as they spawn randomly all over West Virginia. Try Uncanny Caverns in the Forest, Mount Blair in Ash Heap, Abbie’s Bunker in the Mire, and Grafton in Toxic Valley. (The one in the video above all by his lonesome was spotted between the Charleston Fire Department and Belching Betty, which is a mine on Mount Blair).
Each code fragment has a letter and number which you’ll need to plug into the changing algorithm at the Enclave bunker, a final code-breaking puzzle to solve. If you don’t want to figure it out yourself, head over here for a guide to cracking it. Or if you can’t even be bothered hunting down the officers in the first place, this website will straight up tell you each week’s three codes—they’re the same for everyone across all servers.
