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What Are Water Nukes in OpenFront?

Water Nukes is the v31 game option that makes nukes permanently turn destroyed land into water. Here is exactly what changes — the blast shape, the terrain, and how (or whether) you can take the ground back.

Tutorial Difficulty · Intermediate Published Jun 3, 2026 #nukes#mechanics#water-nukes

Short answer: Water Nukes is an optional game mode, added in v31, where a nuclear strike doesn’t just wipe the territory — it permanently converts the destroyed land tiles into water. The crater fills in, ships can sail through it, and the map itself is redrawn for the rest of the match.

It is off by default. You opt in when creating a lobby, and in public games it shows up as a Water Nukes modifier badge so everyone knows the rules before they spawn.

Where to turn it on

  • Single-player / Host lobby: a Water Nukes toggle in the game-options panel, next to options like Nukes Disabled, SAMs Disabled, and 1M Starting Gold.
  • Public games: you can’t toggle it yourself, but the lobby card carries a Water Nukes badge when the mode is active.

Normal nuke vs. Water Nuke

Every nuke removes the owner from the tiles in its blast and kills troops the same way in both modes. The difference is what the destroyed ground becomes:

Normal nukeWater Nuke
Destroyed landStays land, left as fallout (irradiated)Turned into water, permanently
FalloutLingers, then clearsCleared — water tiles can’t hold fallout
Reclaiming groundWalk back over it once radiation fadesThe land is gone; you need boats/ports
Blast edgeRagged (random outer ring)Smooth, rounded crater

That smooth edge is deliberate. Water Nukes generate the boundary from 16 angular samples that are then averaged, so the crater undulates gently instead of leaving a spiky “flower” of scattered single land pixels you’d otherwise have to boat out and recapture one by one.

The rules that catch people out

  • Only unowned land turns to water. The nuke first strips ownership from every tile in the blast, then queues the now-empty land for conversion. The conversion is batched — it flushes a tick or two later, not instantly.
  • Re-conquering can save a tile. Because conversion checks “is this still unowned land?” at flush time, if you (or anyone) re-expand onto a fresh crater before it flushes, that tile stays land. Fast re-expansion is a real counter to losing ground permanently.
  • The terrain is genuinely rewritten. Once tiles flip to water, OpenFront recomputes the coastline, ocean tiles, shoreline edges, the minimap, and the naval pathfinding graph — so the new water is real, navigable sea, not just a cosmetic hole.
  • Blast size is unchanged. Water Nukes don’t make nukes bigger. An Atom Bomb is still inner 12 / outer 30, a Hydrogen Bomb inner 80 / outer 100, and a MIRV still scatters multiple warheads. SAM still intercepts atom and hydrogen bombs; MIRV still can’t be intercepted. See the database for exact numbers and the v31 release notes for the patch context.

Why it’s so strong: inland-water trading

v31 shipped Water Nukes alongside a second change: ports, Warships, and trade ships are no longer restricted to oceans — any body of water works, including lakes and inland seas. Put the two together and a Water Nuke doesn’t just deny land, it can create a brand-new waterway: carve a channel into an enemy’s interior, drop a Port on the fresh water, and run Warships or trade routes where there was solid ground a minute ago.

How to play it

  • Plan a high-ground safehouse early. In a long Water Nukes game the map can be redrawn entirely. Keep your core economy on terrain that won’t be the first thing carved away.
  • Use nukes to sever, not just to kill. A well-placed crater can cut a land bridge, isolate a capital, or open a sea lane for your navy. Think about the shape of the hole, not only the troops it removes.
  • Keep inland depth on defense. Don’t string your whole nation along a thin coast — a single salvo can erase a coastal spine and leave your buildings stranded on islands.
  • Re-expand fast after you’re hit. Rushing troops back onto a fresh crater before it converts is the only way to keep that ground as land.

Quick FAQ

  • Is Water Nukes on by default? No — it’s an opt-in lobby option.
  • Does it affect every nuke? Yes — Atom, Hydrogen, and MIRV warheads all convert land in this mode.
  • Can I get my land back? Only by re-conquering a crater before it converts. After it’s water, the land is gone; you can still use the water itself with boats, ports, and (in v31) inland trade.

For the keys to fire those nukes back-to-back, see the shortcuts cheat sheet.

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