Often called "Nukes", these torpedoes have a long range and large area of effect capable of damaging or destroying many enemy ships at one time. They have the same speed as homing torpedoes, and can be fired in any direction, homing in on their target, and have a maximum lifetime of 18 seconds. If no target is selected, the Nuke will fire forward, and a poorly aimed nuke will simply drift off into space unless it homes in on something else (such as a friendly base). It is even possible for the ship that fired the nuke to be caught in the blast, so these weapons are often used as a long-range first strike against a fleet of ships.

Upon detonating, a Nuke will deal 8 points of damage every 0.5 seconds for 10 seconds. The blast will expand rapidly from the center to a radius of 1000 units and then contract back to the center. The enemy ship targeted will take the most damage, as it is closest to the center of the explosion and is likely to receive all 160 points of damage. Ships on the fringes of the explosion will take less damage, as it will take time for the blast radius to catch up with them. Enemy ships will try to dodge the explosion of a nuke, making it hard to destroy large groups with a single nuke. Thie above is for Artemis Cosmos and has not been confirmed but is based on the values defined in preferences.json.  

In Artemis 2.0, a Nuke will deal 1.6 points of damage every 1/10 of a second for 10 seconds. It is assumed that the overall damage of a nuke, 160 points, is unchanged in Artemis Cosmos.  

Nukes can be particularly destructive to unshielded player ships, whether in PvP or if your own ship is caught in the blast. This is because each tic of damage taken will damage an internal system, unlike enemy beams, which will damage only one system per hit. If you are crippled and your shields are down, it can be suicide to launch a Nuke into your attackers. It may be faster than self destructing, however. (See the section on Engineering or here for Artemis 2.0)

Because of their delicate construction and dangerous nature, Nukes take longer to construct, and starbases cannot hold as many of them compared to the more common homing torpedo. Nukes take 10 minutes to produce, and Deep Space bases can only hold two of them to start, (they can build more) which is also the limit of the Artemis class starship's hold.

As with all torpedoes, the damage can be set in preferences.json. Blast radius can be set as well. In Artemis 2.0, speed, turn rate, build time and initial supply at a base can all be set in the artemis.ini file, but blast radius cannot.

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