Name: Missile Silo
Side: Nod
ERA: Tiberian Sun
Cost: $4000
Notes: Only one can be built at a time
Gameplay
The Nod Missile Silo completely replaces the Tiberium Chemical Plant.
There are several differences that need to be noted.
First off, only a single Missile Silo can be built at a time. While it is uncommon for more than one tech building to be built, the fact that this particular structure is restricted, is unique amongst the tech structures.
The Missile Silo is similar to the Kane's Wrath Tiberium Chemical Plant, in that it holds a number of very dangerous support powers.
Unlike the Tiberium Chemical Plant, it also unlocks a specific unit, the Nod SSM (so the Nod SSM has been moved up to tier 4, now that the Nod artillery is at tier 3).
Other changes from the Tiberium Chemical Plant is that the Seed tiberium support power has been moved down to the Tech assembly plant (so it is now tier 3).
The Blue Tiberium Mix upgrade has also been moved to the Tech assembly plant (again available earlier).
Finally, the Tiberium Vapour bomb support power has been removed completely.
So as you can see there are quite a few changes caused by this structural replacement.
Next I will breakdown the support powers associated with this structure, and their use.
Catalyst Missile
First up is the return of the Catalyst missile!
The only change that this major annoyance has got (in comparison to C&C3, not Kane's Wrath) is a hefty price increase, to $4500.
This is deliberately steep to prevent this unstoppable support power being used as a brainless one click ability.
Simply put, the desire is that the player has to think about weighing up the cost, vs the impact to the enemy.
Also the extra cost acknowledges that there are a few more targets that either take extra damage from the Catalyst, or worse, will be cleanly killed.
For example the Scrin Terraforming Nexus (cost $4000) can be cleanly killed by a Catalyst strike. If the cost of use was $2000, this would be one of a number of mindless easy targets, but with the increased cost, you at least have to weigh up more factors, e.g. maybe the Terraforming Nexus is close enough to other items that would be effected by the Catalyst strike.
Here is one that you might find amusing, the Catalyst missile will also cleanly destroy... the Nod Missile Silo! (the tiberium processed for the Chemical missile counts as a valid target for the Catalyst missile). Again at $2000 you have yet another near mindless (indeed frankly stupid) target for your Catalyst missile. But at $4500, with the Missile Silo costing $4000, you at least have to put some thought into it.
C&C3 radius, not Kane's Wrath!
This was a waste!
In a similar vein to the Disruptor's 'Crystal crush' weapon, sides that have tiberium based upgrades, or that are naturally tiberium based will also take hefty damage.
So any Nod vehicle or structure that has the 'Blue Mix' upgrade will be cleanly destroyed (none of the Blue mix upgraded vehicles have enough health to survive a Catalyst strike). So suddenly, we can see that if there are a bunch of Blue mix vehicles in a Nod base, around Blue mix upgraded SAMs, the Catalyst can now easily be very cost effective.
And the Scrin have it even worse.
Of course it can still cleanly destroy the tiberium based Corrupter, however if either the Tripod or Devourer have got tiberium ammo (from using their 'Conversion reserve ability') they will take huge damage from a Catalyst strike (the Devourer will be cleanly destroyed).
Also if the Scrin take advantage of the immensely powerful 'Shard' Upgrades, they will also take extra damage, indeed none of the items, infantry, vehicle, or structure, have enough health to survive a Catalyst strike!
So you can see that as a game develops, and the sides begin to upgrade, the potential damage output and cost effectiveness of the Catalyst strike rises.
Multi Missile
A lot simpler this one, although we will get a couple of things clear from the beginning.
For those Kane's Wrath players that are looking forward to the Tiberium Chemical Plant style 'endless-one-click-barrage', that happened as soon as the structure was placed, you are in for disappointment!
The only support power that is ready as soon as the structure has been placed is the Catalyst missile. The other two support powers you will have to wait for.
But there is a rather large positive, once they are ready, these support powers cost nothing to use!
Once again (as with the Napalm strike) this is about distributing the way support powers are used in a more even manner, and is designed to stop the quick barrage of support powers happening as soon as a relevant structure is placed.
Once the Multi missile is ready it is an unstoppable one click, that is most effective against structures, although you can try other targets.
The larger negative of the Multi missile strike is the random nature of the cluster warheads split. You cannot accurately account for where or how the split will effect the distribution of damage. So if you were to use the Multi missile on the exact same target in the exact same location multiple times, you could get a different result every time.
This can obviously lead to frustration if you want a specific building destroyed by a multi missile strike (indeed there really should not be a traditional radius decal, but it will have to do for now).
The radius decal is not really helpful, and may be changed in the future
See what I mean?
At least the War factory is down!
It is possible for the Multi missile to destroy more than one War factory class structure (so that is the damage potential), but it might also fail due to the random spread.
I feel I am making it sound worse then it is, this is still a very powerful, unstoppable support power, it is free, and it recharges faster then the other two support powers on this structure.
Chemical Missile
The Chemical missile is particularly nasty for the enemy. It has the widest effect radius, and while the initial blast does not do any damage, it is the toxic clouds and liquid that the enemy has to worry about!
Large radius of effect!
This damages everything, structures, vehicles, airborne aircraft, and of course infantry, over a period of 30 seconds.
Just as with the Scrin Rift Super weapon, it is vital that the enemy repairs their structures so that they do not unnecessarily lose any buildings (for example, if you do not repair your power plants, you will lose them!).
Quite a few (low tier) defensive structures lost!
For vehicles, if possible they will want to try to get them out of the toxic fallout. Although what will make this difficult is the fact that the standard Tiberian History chemical weapon debuffs apply (read up on the SSM chemical warhead, or the Chemical warrior for more information), so they will be moving a lot slower.
Infantry inside the fallout will quickly die before they can do anything, it is just a case of avoiding sending infantry anywhere near the toxic fumes.
The bad news for the enemy is that there is a chance of Visceroids spawning from the infantry chemical fallout deaths, this of course adds extra problems inside their base (although they can rank up some units by killing the Visceroids off).
Here you can see a lot of Visceroids (obviously it will depend on how many infantry were in the base before the Missile strike).
The final major component of this nightmare is the fact that production speed is halved in the effected area.
This means that all factories will only produce at half the speed, and also that the effected enemy will only get a 50% return on any tiberium being processed from a harvester drop.
As you can see this support power is a potential nightmare for the enemy, and the above should give you enough information on usage without me giving you further details.
However, in the Hexapod 'Hints & Tips', it talks of potentially using the Chemical missile on a Hexapod to reduce it's effectiveness (this would be a last ditch measure for sure), but be warned, that your own units are not exempt from the toxic fallout. For example if your Banshees fly into the fallout in order to destroy the weakened Hexapod, they will also be weakened, and will be much easier to take out (indeed the Hexapod death explosion will probably finish them off).
Counter
In terms of dealing with the Missile Silo, it should be noted that the Silo is not revealed to players, you will have to use scouting to find out, and prepare for an enemy Missile Silo.
And while they can simply hide it from view via a Stealth generator, this is considered Nod's privilege, and you are expected to deal with it.
