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# System prepended metadata

title: Wonderweapons and Nukes

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# Nukes and other Wonderweapons

Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

## Wonderweapons
Main article: [Technology](/oDgLjMp5RQ2g29oOkCQgHQ?view)

Wonderweapons are a catchall term for extremely expensive military technologies developed by nations in KSPRP One to get a leg up on their opposition. Narratively, their importance is one of tension - the fear of being too far behind, being unable to respond, and thus resulting in your rival forcing you to accept inconvenient terms, or worse.

Besides the general information regarding the handling of proposals, an important rule for all wonderweapons is that they must not be RP-enders. That is to say, if someone is planning a massive nuke to cause an earthquake affecting your rival nations, that's fine; cracking the planet isn't (even if you could somehow argue it's technologically and economically feasible for your nation).

## Nuclear Weapons

In KSPRP One, nuclear weapons work differently than in real life. The first distinction is that unlike real life, nuclear weapons scale much better towards smaller sizes than towards larger sizes. In particular, hydrogen bombs are both achievable at smaller sizes and far rarer at larger ones in this universe. Due to this, nuclear weapons as small as 1 kg (worth 500kg of TNT) are achievable in later eras, while nuclear weapons 1 MT and over are tremendously difficult to construct.

Another distinction from real nuclear weapons is the lack of fallout. In KSPRP One, most of the products produced by a nuclear explosion (even one at ground level) have half-lives measured in minutes, such that fallout from burning cities or debris is nearly nonexistent. However, when building materials, earth or stone are crushed by a nuclear explosion such that they remain in place for around an hour, a competing nuclear reaction mediated by alpha particles causes the products to go down a different decay chain and produce Trinitium, a highly radioactive isotope of Osmium (Os-194) with a half life of around 6 years. Trinitium is also an isotope that quickly 'burns' with subsequent nuclear events, such that it is generally impossible to cause secondary fallout effects through multiple nuclear strikes.

An area affected by trinitium after a low-altitude nuclear strike is uninhabitable or otherwise hard to live in for 30 years unless cleaned up, after which it recovers naturally. The effects of a trinitium affected zone vary based on whether the area striked was a city (highest effect) or a rural area, as well as on the size of the nuclear strike that caused it. Trinitium affected areas manifest as a stacking negative modifier to country mod growth; this modifier is capped such that a nation may remain stable at at least 50 country modifier (although the nation MAY be nuked below such a modifier). Cleanup is a project whose cost varies based on the size of the strike that caused the trinitium affected zone.

By exception, later tech 'salted bombs' are capable of creating a larger trinitium-cover effect, causing more expensive projects and larger country mod growth reduction effects. Kerbal scholars will surely note that the usage of such nuclear weapons is heavily frowned upon.

Rough timeline targeted by the techs:
- 1945-1950 - first nuclear weapon tested (20kt range)
- 1960 - hydrogen bombs developed, first 200 kt bomb, bombs miniaturized to 5kt
- 1970 - nuclear bombs miniaturized to ~1kg, nuclear armed tanks technically feasible when including the complex protection required by nukes
- 1970 - the first salted bombs become feasible
- 1975 - first nuclear bomb >1MT tested, requiring a large amount of resources