Disclaimer: This guide is intended to help new players figure out the Nuclear Operative antag role fast and easy, and can also help experienced players with my findings. It will NOT turn the viewer into an unstoppable one-man army or a cigarette smoking, bandanna wearing badass in a cardboard box.
So, you lucked out and got selected to join a Nukie squad hellbent on destroying the station. You start with an Ansem 10mm pistol, an uplink, and an energy dagger. The pistol makes for an excellent sidearm, and you can find more ammunition for it in the Nuclear Base’s armory or buy more. The dagger is okay if you have nothing else to fall back on and makes for a great throwing weapon, but this should be a last resort, not the first.
The assault ship contains many goodies and plenty of equipment for the team, including several Syndicate Minibombs (Effectively hand grenades that can blow a hole in a basic wall, cause mass damage to a group of enemies, or gib a dead enemy if dropped directly on their corpse), a few bricks of C4 (great for breaching basic walls or doors, not so great as a form of attack or corpse destruction), and a suspicious beacon that can teleport in a Syndicate bomb (About half as strong as a maxcap bomb, excellent for taking a chunk out of the AI satellite or for sabotaging Telecommunications or the Supermatter Engine). You also get several Syndicate Modsuits for free (These are spaceproof, have advanced jetpacks, and offer decent protection. IMPORTANT: Remember to toggle the armor booster module on after you arrive on station. You move faster and get more protection from the suit while it is on, but you won’t be spaceproof. Thus, turn it on when you are in a safe atmosphere and turn it off when you have to go into space.)
All of this equipment is offered for free and taking advantage of it is a crucial skill for nuclear assault teams. But what makes the team isn’t the free goodies, but the stuff you can buy with your uplink. I will cover every weapon later on, but for now it is time to discuss how to get on the station and the disk.
STRATEGIES
The two prevailing strategies for nuclear operatives are either stealth or loud, or some mixture of the two. This does not mean they are the only strategies, just the ones that are popular and decently effective.
Going loud is about as subtle as it sounds, throwing any notion of stealth out the window and then blowing it to pieces with C4. In this strategy, the team’s greatest assets are speed and firepower, hoping to get their job done before the station can react in time. Packing heavy weaponry is recommended, because Security will be out for your blood and are more than likely to open up the Armory to the crew, which can rapidly complicate things. Below are some suggested tactics to use for Loud strategies. Pulling these tactics off will weaken the station and its defenders, potentially allowing for easy acquisition of the disk.
Suggested tactics for going loud:
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Go for the Telecommunications systems. If you can sabotage those systems first, the station will be left dazed and confused for a little bit. This will not completely stop their ability to communicate (the station intercomms and station-bounced radios will still let them talk to each other), but it will greatly hinder their ability to organize and put up an effective resistance. Often, Telecomms is right next to the Supermatter, which could also be sabotaged by blowing up the cooling manifolds outside the station. Delamination will typically wipe out telecommunications, and even if not, it will cut power to the station, promising a slow death for the AI and the energy weapons Security relies on.
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Destroy the station AI. The AI can see everything and will do anything it can to stop you within the limits of its laws. If you are lucky, it will have Robodoc laws and won’t be able to do more than simply closing the doors in your face. If you are unlucky, it will have Paladin laws and will send its cyborgs to kill you, along with shocking the doors to make your lives hell (Good thing your modsuit has electrical insulation…). Thus, eliminating the AI is a good idea. This can be accomplished by brute forcing your way into the satellite with a few bricks of C4, the Syndicate Bomb, or a rocket launcher. There are always other ways to get in besides the methods listed above. Alternatively, if one of your squadmates bought a Sniper Rifle with Piercing rounds and Thermal Imaging Glasses, they can easily spot the AI inside the satellite and kill it with 4 piercing shots, without ever having to break in.
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Destroy the Armory. Assaulting the Station Armory from outside is relatively easy thanks to the C4 you start with. Bomb your way inside from space, deal with Officer Armsky (Beepsky’s Armory counterpart), and either space their puny energy weapons or take them to use against them. You can also take the Ablative Trenchcoat (Offers high laser and disabler resistance with a chance to reflect), but bear in mind it fits in the same slot as your modsuit’s chestpiece, so don’t expect to put it to decent use if the station’s been spaced.
Work In Progress, will be finished soon.