Nuclear Option: A-19 Brawler, Update 0.32
- Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza
- 17 hours ago
- 7 min read
You know... every time Shockfront Studios provides a new decimal update for Nuclear Option, I ask myself "how is this not a 1.0?" and "how is this not 4.0 at least?" The experience gets so notably better every update, you cannot help but wonder what they are expecting 1.0 to look like.
Let us start by watching yet another absolute banger trailer video for the most recent Nuclear Option update before we continue:
Update 0.32 released on December 14th, 2025. It has been a few days since then and I put in plenty of time with all aspects of the update both flying in combat and building missions in the mission editor. Here are some of my takeaways on the update.
A-19 Brawler
The next aircraft in the roster of Nuclear Option and the star of Update 0.32, is the A-19 Brawler. Development of this aircraft was shown off during developer livestreams starting in October 2025.
This straight wing attacker has the same role and similar design cues as the iconic Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. This straight wing, sub sonic, prop fan engine aircraft occupies the role of a dedicated attacker in this game's varied aircraft roster. Viewing this aircraft as the "big brother" of the smaller CI-22 Cricket is a fair opinion. The A-19 can even take off from the same austere highway airstrips the CI-22 does, increasing the combat effectiveness of this new aircraft.
While the other jet powered aircraft in game can carry a respectable array of air-to-ground and anti-ship weaponry, the Brawler is in a league of its own.
The A-19 has six weapon stations. Three wing pylons, two fuselage pylons and a center line pylon that can be used if the inner fuselage pylon is empty. Saturation attacks are the most common tactic in Nuclear Option due to the consistent effectiveness of short-range air defense (SHORAD). The A-19 Brawler can carry massive amounts of guided and unguided bombs, glide bombs, optically guided air-to-ground missiles and laser guided rockets. In a single pass an A-19 can easily attack up to ten targets at once. In large scale battles where columns of land forces are frequently capturing locations, a single A-19 can make all the difference.
True to its design inspiration, the aircraft is also a "gun fighter". It has a pair of nose mounted 35mm autocannons effective up to 3000 meters against armored vehicles. The centerline pylon can mount a 30mm rotary cannon firing armor piercing incendiary or a 57mm cannon that automatically sets warhead fuse type and timing against targets.
Flying the aircraft in combat, it is easy to have the impression that the A-19 Brawler is an anemic, underpowered aircraft. But the problem is not with the power plants. It is with how players can load the airframe with so much ordinance it effects flight characteristics. Reducing fuel load or flying with more reasonable weapon configurations greatly improves performance. When flying near maximum thrust to weight ratio it is best to remember to expend glidebombs, missiles or rockets from a distance before flying directly into the range of infrared missiles and anti-aircraft cannons where maneuverability and flares will be the primary means of defense.
The name "Brawler" comes from the word for a person that often engages in noisy, violent fights. The type of scenario where someone is used to throwing punches and being punched frequently. The name fits the rugged A-19 well. The sorties I have flown in singleplayer, and multiplayer have highlighted the survivability of this aircraft. The Brawler has often absorbed so much damage - missing flight surfaces, riddled in holes, sometimes missing an engine - and the aircraft has remained controllable enough to either land back at base or fly back to friendly territory and eject safely. Either undamaged or heavily damaged, the A-19 feels like it is one of the most easily to control fixed-wing aircraft in the game so far.
Though, in high end peer vs peer engagements with air superiority fighters, long-ranged surface-to-air missiles (SAM) and flotillas of warships at sea, the A-19 does struggle. Terrain masking, effective use of short-range infrared air-to-air missiles, its large volume of infrared flares and self-protection ECM jammer are a must in the large battles that regularly grace Nuclear Option.
Overall, the A-19 Brawler is rapidly becoming one of my favorite aircraft in Nuclear Option. This was a good, non-redundant aircraft addition to the game at this time.
New Units Compatible with Low Intensity Engagements
As seen in the base game missions and a good number of the missions created by user on the Steam Workshop, Nuclear Option is by definition a large scale, force on force combat flight game. 100+ units on both sides clashing with main battle tanks, fast jets, carrier fleets and strategic nuclear weapons is a daily occurrence. Many of the "starter" aircraft like the CI-22 Cricket counter insurgency aircraft and UH-90 Ibis utility helicopter become ineffective in huge battles such as those. Update 0.32 has introduced multiple light vehicles and air defenses more conducive with lower threat environments where aircraft from rank 1 through 3 are still viable.
Manually aimed 23mm anti-aircraft guns and infrared man-portable air defense systems with sandbags built around them. These units are harder to detect from the air and often are only found shortly before or after they started firing upon aircraft. These types of basic short-range air defense are prolific in insurgent groups and paramilitaries.
The newly introduced Modular Support Vehicle Series provides a system of modular vehicles. Each vehicle can fulfill different roles. While the most notable units are related to air defense or indirect fire, the sub-roles include flat beds, fuel trucks, mine resistant ambush protected vehicles and similar units. These lightly armored vehicles offer more options to create low intensity scenarios.
Ballistic Missile Trucks and Thoughts on Indirect Fire Units
Since my first month with Nuclear Option back in 2023, I have strongly felt like indirect fire units are a part of the game that has been lacking. Not to the level that the gameplay feels empty or disjointed, but more in the way that it just feels like the variety of ground units that are already in the game seems like they would be perfect for the addition of even one ground based indirect fire unit with a reasonable engagement range.
To clarify, up to update 0.31, there are warships with deck cannons that provide bombardment, the Dynamo-class Destroyer can launch dozens of long-range anti-surface missiles and just recently unmanned ground vehicles with grenade launchers capable of engaging targets within 2km with no line of sight. However, none of that is quite what I am thinking of. I am talking about the most common types of battlefield artillery. Units like self-propelled artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, mortars, land-based anti-ship missile launchers, mobile land attack cruise missile trucks - that sort of thing.
Update 0.32 took a step in that direction by adding the MSV Ballistic Missile Launcher; a truck-like wheeled vehicle based ballistic missile launcher. Think in the style of 9K720 Iskander or WS2600. The new Nuclear Option vehicle is a non-player-controlled unit that can drive or be set as a static unit. The unit comes in two variants, capable of launching either a pair of conventional warhead ballistic missiles or nuclear tipped ballistic missiles. There are immediate and significant limitations, however. The unit only launches missiles when the active mission reaches the Strategic Nuclear Weapons threat level and when it fires its pair of missiles it cannot be resupplied by any means.
This makes the new MSV Ballistic Missile Launcher a limited use, one-time use unit. While its current configuration it is great as a looming threat that needs to be found at the start of a low-threat level mission, but in missions that start with medium and high-level aircraft available from the stat, the missiles will fire immediately and that's that. Having this new unit is a net positive, but more traditional artillery units that could be used to weaken armored columns or maneuver to decimate rear line structures are still a must have.
R9 Stratolance Fire Control System
The Fire Control command system is perhaps one of the most important updates for land based R9 Stratolance surface-to-air missile system to date. In the game, these SAM sites are the longest reaching threats to aircraft. Capable of striking aircraft up to 50 kilometers away.
Before Update 0.32 all R9 Stratolance mobile erector launchers connected to a HLT / MSV Radar unit will fire upon the same airborne threat (aircraft, helicopter, missile). While still dangerous, this meant that a single aircraft could intentionally fly into the weapon engagement envelop of an R9 SAM site and draw its fire, potentially opening the site up to attack by another aircraft. Or in cases of missile saturation attacks the SAM site would deal with threats one unit at a time.
The addition of a Fire Control command vehicle distributes targets between each missile launcher, allowing the R9 SAM site to attack multiple air targets at once. This new ability lets all launchers engage threats independently. Now able to both attack aircraft and defend against any hostile incoming bomb or missile at the same time, the R9 Stratolance SAM site had very similar capabilities to real world SAM sites like the IRIS-T SLM, NASAMS or S-400. If the Fire Control vehicle is destroyed then the R9 SAM site reverts to its standard behavior of launching all missiles at a single air threat.
Any mission with a fully equipped R9 Stratolance SAM site - launchers, radar, fire control, and munition trucks - will be exponentially more challenging. This is a solid update that adds a new layer of gameplay specifically for suppression of enemy air defenses.
Trending Ever Upwards R9 Stratolance Fire Control System
Once again Shockfront Studios has provided another positive major update for Nuclear Option. While I only discussed the high-profile sections of the update, know there were many other core changes done to the game. See the full changelog for the update for all details.
In the meantime, take a look at the development roadmap available on the main menu of the game to see where they are going with the game next:
About the Writer
Co-founder of Skyward Flight Media. After founding Electrosphere.info, the first English Ace Combat database, he has been involved in creating flight game-related websites, communities, and events since 2005. He explores past and present flight games and simulators with his extensive collection of game consoles and computers. [Read Staff Profile]
.
.png)