IRON NEST GUIDE UNOFFICIAL FIELD INTELLIGENCE

SYS ONLINE · VERIFIED 2026-08-17

VER
1.0 — FULL RELEASE
ROADMAP
◆ SINGLE-SOURCE VERIFIED
LAST VERIFIED
2026-08-17
MULTIPLAYER
◇ CONFIRMED · NO DATE

FIELD DATA // SHELL TYPES

IRON NEST Shell Types — All 21 Shells and What to Fire at What

UNOFFICIAL REFERENCE · Values read from build 24750322 — Version 1.0 (1622), Patch #5, August 15, 2026 · Extracted August 17, 2026

Quick answer

IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator 1.0 has 21 shell types. That number is read directly out of game build 24750322, which is Version 1.0 (1622) — the current live build. If you have seen 7, 9, or "30+" elsewhere, all three refer to something real but different: 7 was what the demo shipped with, 9 is how many a partial list names, and 30+ is the target the developers have talked about publicly. Choosing a shell does not change where it lands — every shell in this build shares the same muzzle speed and the same powder-charge ladder — it changes what happens when it gets there.

Every number on this page is a raw field value from the game build. They are internal engine values, so this page prints them as they are and does not convert them into metres, seconds, or damage points.

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How to read these values

Evidence labels used on this page
Label What it means
BUILD DATA Read directly from game build 24750322 and cross-checked. The value is reliable; its unit is not necessarily known.
IN-GAME TEXT The game's own English interface wording. Authoritative for how the game describes something; it is not a numeric promise.
SITE-GROUPED A grouping or ordering this site made by reading the in-game wording. It is not a rule that exists in the game.
COMMUNITY A claim from the community or a third-party database that the developers have not confirmed.
UNVERIFIED This site has no reviewable evidence for it yet, and says so.

Three limits apply to everything below:

1. These are engine-internal values. damage runs 0–2, impactRadius runs 0.07–3.0, and baseSpeed is 0.7 for every shell. Those are numbers the game uses internally. This page prints them unchanged and never presents them as damage points, kilometres, or metres per second.

2. This page is not based on our own playtesting. Its boundary is publicly traceable material plus fields read out of the game build.

3. Shell code is the key here. On the punchcard side of the game data, the internal identifiers repeat and some carry trailing spaces, so this page keys everything on the shell code instead.

All 21 shell types

Evidence: BUILD DATA · IN-GAME TEXT

The What the game says it does column quotes the description the game shows when you buy that shell at the Requisition console, word for word. The damage and impactRadius columns are raw build values — see how to read these values. Cost is the requisition price of that shell's punchcard, from the same build data as the requisition console reference.

Table contract — columns and order:

Table contract — columns and order
Code In-game name What the game says it does damage (build value) impactRadius (build value) Cost Uses
AP AP Shell "Armour-piercing shell, minimal bursting charge. Minimal blast radius." 2 0.15 10 Unlimited
HCHE HCHE Shell "High-capacity high-explosive shell. Thin-walled, maximum bursting charge. Large blast radius." 1 0.55 18 Unlimited
SMK SMK Shell "Covering smoke shell. Non-lethal, allied units advance toward the impact point." 1 1.0 2 Unlimited
STAR STAR Shell "Parachute-delayed illumination shell. Lights the target area for scouting." 0 0.5 2 Unlimited
ATMC ATMC Shell "Experimental fissile-core shell. Theorised sustained chain-reaction. Effects untested." 2 3.0 666 1
EMPT — No in-game description exists for this entry. 1 1.0 — —
All 21 shell types
Code In-game name What the game says it does damage (build value) impactRadius (build value) Cost Uses
AP AP Shell Armour-piercing shell, minimal bursting charge. Minimal blast radius. 2 0.15 10 Unlimited
APHE APHE Shell Armour-piercing shell, medium bursting charge. Medium blast radius. 2 0.25 15 Unlimited
ATMC ATMC Shell Experimental fissile-core shell. Theorised sustained chain-reaction. Effects untested. 2 3 666 1
CLMN CLMN Shell Cluster shell, six HE bomblets scattered on impact. Effective against infantry and vehicles. 1 0.5 17 Unlimited
CYAN CYAN Shell Cyanogen gas shell. Lethal to units in the open. Fortified units unaffected. 1 0.75 28 Unlimited
DRIL DRIL Shell Blind-loaded practice shell. Concrete-filled, inert. Minimal effective radius. 1 0.07 3 Unlimited
EMPT — No in-game description exists for this entry. 1 1 — —
EQKE EQKE Shell Armour-piercing shell, deep-penetrating delayed subterranean burst. Large blast radius. 2 0.55 26 Unlimited
FLCH FLCH Shell Flechette shell. Large area of effect. Lethal only to infantry on foot in the open. 1 0.62 20 Unlimited
HCHE HCHE Shell High-capacity high-explosive shell. Thin-walled, maximum bursting charge. Large blast radius. 1 0.55 18 Unlimited
HE HE Shell Medium-capacity high-explosive shell. Medium blast radius. 1 0.25 10 Unlimited
INCN INCN Shell Incendiary shell. Ignites a fire on impact, medium radius. Chance to spread. 1 0.25 12 Unlimited
LE LE Shell Medium-capacity low-grade explosive shell. Small blast radius. 1 0.15 8 Unlimited
PHGN PHGN Shell Phosgene choking gas shell. Units flee the cloud. If suppressed, they die in it. 1 0.62 10 Unlimited
PLCM PCLM Shell Parachute-delayed cluster shell. Six HE bomblets. Staggered impacts 10 seconds apart. 1 0.15 15 Unlimited
PRPG PRPG Shell Propaganda leaflet shell. Suppresses enemy troops under the glory of Castile. Chance to induce desertion. 1 0.5 7 Unlimited
SMK SMK Shell Covering smoke shell. Non-lethal, allied units advance toward the impact point. 1 1 2 Unlimited
STAR STAR Shell Parachute-delayed illumination shell. Lights the target area for scouting. 0 0.5 2 Unlimited
TEAR TEAR Shell Chloroacetophenone gas shell. Suppresses units, and reveals any hidden ones. 0 0.75 8 Unlimited
THRM THRM Shell Thermal incendiary shell. Ignites a fire on impact, large radius. High chance to spread. 1 0.35 22 Unlimited
WP WP Shell White phosphorus shell. Units flee the cloud, or die if suppressed. Chance to ignite fires. 0 0.75 10 Unlimited

The six rows above are the representative sample fixed by this copy contract. The published table contains all 21 rows and is generated from the build data — see the table body contract in this file's header.

Three things the table needs said out loud:

EMPT cannot be bought. It exists in the shell data with damage 1 and impactRadius 1.0, but there is no punchcard for it and no in-game description text for it either. How you would obtain it is not something this page will guess at.

PLCM and PCLM are the same shell. The shell entry is coded PLCM; its punchcard is identified PCLMShell. The letters are transposed in the game's own data, not by us. This page uses the shell code PLCM.

STAR is the one shell flagged to be ignored in the shots-fired count. Of the 21 entries, only STAR carries the build flag ignoreInShotsFired = true. Read literally, that means STAR rounds do not count toward the shots-fired statistic — which several medals score on. We are reading a field name here rather than a documented rule, so treat the exact behaviour as unconfirmed until it is tested in-game. SITE-GROUPED UNVERIFIED

Choosing a shell by target

Evidence: IN-GAME TEXT grouped by this site · SITE-GROUPED

Start here: the shell you pick does not change your firing solution. All 21 entries in this build share the same baseSpeed (0.7), the same maximum powder charges (6), the same default charge (3), one projectile per shell, and — checked byte for byte — the same charge-to-range table. A member of the official Discord has said the same thing in different words, and the third-party database that publishes a charge-to-range ladder describes it as shared across all shells. Three independent directions, one answer: bearing, elevation and charge are the same whatever you load. Only the effect at the impact point changes.

The groups below are ours. The game has no shell category or target-suitability field — we grouped the shells by reading their in-game descriptions, and we are showing you the wording so you can check the grouping yourself. Nothing here is a ranking.

  1. Armour and hardened targets

    three shells describe themselves as armour-piercing: AP (minimal bursting charge, minimal blast radius), APHE (medium bursting charge, medium blast radius) and EQKE (deep-penetrating, delayed subterranean burst, large blast radius).

  2. Buried or bunkered targets

    EQKE is the only shell whose in-game text mentions bursting underground: "deep-penetrating delayed subterranean burst."

  3. Area destruction and structures

    HCHE is thin-walled with the maximum bursting charge and a large blast radius; HE is medium-capacity with a medium radius; LE is a low-grade explosive with a small radius.

  4. Infantry and vehicles

    CLMN scatters six HE bomblets on impact and says it is "effective against infantry and vehicles." PLCM delivers the same six bomblets but parachute-delayed, with "staggered impacts 10 seconds apart." FLCH has a large area of effect but its text is explicitly exclusive: "lethal only to infantry on foot in the open."

  5. Cover matters for some shells

    read these two conditions together. CYAN is "lethal to units in the open" and states that "fortified units unaffected." FLCH carries the same open-ground restriction. Against that, PHGN and WP describe units fleeing the cloud and dying only "if suppressed" — a different condition entirely.

  6. Setting fires

    INCN ignites a fire on impact with a medium radius and a "chance to spread"; THRM does the same with a large radius and a "high chance to spread."

  7. Suppression, flushing out and exposing

    TEAR "suppresses units, and reveals any hidden ones." PRPG suppresses and carries a "chance to induce desertion." PHGN and WP make units flee the cloud.

  8. Illumination and screening (non-lethal)

    STAR "lights the target area for scouting." SMK is non-lethal, and its text describes a behaviour rather than an effect: "allied units advance toward the impact point." That is worth reading twice before you fire one.

  9. Not for killing

    DRIL is a "blind-loaded practice shell. Concrete-filled, inert." EMPT has no description and no punchcard.

  10. Experimental

    ATMC is described as an "Experimental fissile-core shell. Theorised sustained chain-reaction. Effects untested." It has the largest impactRadius in the build (3.0), the highest punchcard price (666), and it is limited to one use. We are quoting "effects untested" rather than filling in what it does.

Caliber and powder charges

This section is about the gun in IRON NEST. It is not about real artillery calibres — if you arrived here from a search about 155 mm or historical guns, this is a different subject.

Caliber: 800mm is the community figure, and the developers have not confirmed it. COMMUNITY UNVERIFIED Third-party databases and the community consistently use 800mm, and the community treats it as settled, but no official source states it. The official FAQ gives the machine's dimensions — roughly 20m × 30m × 50m — and does not give a calibre. We are not putting an unconfirmed number in this page's title or structured data, and neither should anyone quoting us.

The powder-charge ladder is shared by every shell. BUILD DATA Each shell supports 6 powder charges with a default of 3. The charge table in the build steps through six ranges with upper bounds of 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30. Those bounds are internal build numbers with no unit declared in the data, so this page does not convert them into kilometres. What matters is the structure: all 21 shells carry an identical charge table, byte for byte. That is the second independent piece of evidence for the conclusion at the top of choosing a shell — the caliber does not decide the effect and the shell does not decide the range; charge does.

About impactRadius. UNVERIFIED Comparing build values against demo-era third-party figures suggests the unit may be kilometres — AP reads 0.15 against a published 0.14 km, HE 0.25 against 0.27 km, HCHE 0.55 against 0.63 km — but all three pairs differ, so this is our inference and not a confirmed unit. Treat impactRadius as a relative figure until it has been measured in-game.

One thing impactRadius is definitely not: an illumination radius. A widely-copied guide gives STAR a 12.74 km illumination radius; STAR's impactRadius in the build is 0.5. Those are two different quantities, two orders of magnitude apart.

What changed since the demo

Evidence: BUILD DATA, two builds cross-checked

The demo build (23991575) contained 9 shell types. Build 24750322 contains 21: 15 added — APHE, ATMC, CLMN, CYAN, DRIL, EQKE, FLCH, INCN, LE, PHGN, PLCM, PRPG, TEAR, THRM, WP — and 3 removed: PGAS, TGAS and PYRO. The arithmetic closes: 9 − 3 + 15 = 21.

That matters because a lot of shell lists in circulation predate 1.0 and do not say which build they describe. Three things tell you a list is out of date:

1. It still lists PYRO, TGAS or PGAS. None of the three exist in build 24750322.

2. It lists 7 shells and presents that as the complete set. Seven was the demo-era count. A list from that period gives seven prices; not one of them matches the 1.0 build values.

3. It treats MSTD as something you can buy. In 1.0 the MSTD punchcard exists but is priced 9999, which is how this build marks a card as not purchasable, and there is no MSTD entry in the shell data at all.

We are describing which number belongs to which build, not scoring anyone's work. Any list is accurate for the build it was written against; the problem is that almost none of them say what that build was. For what the demo covered, see the IRON NEST demo page.

Are shell types unlocked?

Yes, punchcards unlock through progression — but the conditions are not documented.

What we can show: the build contains an end-of-mission string reading "Punchcards Unlocked", and the save structure keeps a list of unlocked cards and their states. BUILD DATA Since shells are bought as punchcards, that means shell availability grows as you play rather than being open from the start.

What we cannot show: which cards unlock when, in what order, or what each one requires. UNVERIFIED We have no reviewable source for the unlock conditions, and we are not going to reconstruct a table from guesswork. Community remarks point the same direction — one player mentions unlocking the ability to run recon, another says DRIL comes later — but they are individual reports, not a mechanism. COMMUNITY

If you have a save or a recording that shows an unlock condition firing, tell us and we will add it with your evidence attached.

Version, sources and how these values were read

Version anchor. Build 24750322 is Version 1.0 (1622), shipped as Patch #5 to the public branch on August 15, 2026, and it is the latest live build as of August 17, 2026. Every BUILD DATA value on this page was extracted on August 17, 2026 from that build.

Why we publish the build id. Shell counts of 7, 9, 21 and "30+" all appear on the first page of search results, and none of the pages carrying them say which build they describe. A date tells you when someone wrote a page; a build id tells you which game the numbers came from. When the build changes, this page's values are stale by definition and we re-extract rather than patch.

One check worth stating. On August 17, 2026 we found and fixed a flaw in our own extraction: it had been reading only one of the game's asset files. That fix changed our punchcard and medal counts. It did not change the shell count — the build contains 21 shell definition assets, and after the re-run the shell data was byte-for-byte identical. The 21 on this page survived the correction that broke our other numbers.

Source layers used on this page: game build fields (primary); the game's own English interface text (primary, quoted); the official FAQ, for machine dimensions; the official community server, for the developer-side statement that shell choice does not affect flight time or elevation; third-party databases and community threads, used only to show that external figures disagree — never as a source of fact.

Corrections. If a value here does not match your build, send us the build id and what you see. Corrections that come with a build id get applied fastest.

Sources

Build data and version anchor: Shell definitions, punchcard data, the demo data directory and the game's own English text are the primary build sources; the official announcement and FAQ anchor the version.

Official community and third-party checks: The official community server, third-party guides and Iron Nest DB are used only where the copy names them as community-level or conflicting evidence, never as a source of fact.

FAQ

How many shell types are in IRON NEST?

21, in build 24750322. Seven was the demo count, "30+" is a developer target, and shorter lists are usually partial.

Does the shell type change flight time or elevation?

No. Every shell in this build shares the same muzzle speed and the same charge-to-range table, and the official community server has said the same. Your firing solution does not change with the load.

What is the SMK shell?

SMK is the smoke shell. The game describes it as a "covering smoke shell. Non-lethal, allied units advance toward the impact point."

What caliber is the IRON NEST gun?

The community and third-party databases use 800mm. The developers have not confirmed it, and the official FAQ gives the machine's dimensions without giving a calibre.

Which shells were removed after the demo?

PGAS, TGAS and PYRO. A list containing any of them was written against the demo.

Can you unload a loaded shell?

No — the only way to clear the breech is to fire it. There is no eject control and no reopenable breech. This is consistent across a third-party how-to, three separate Steam threads, and a feature request on the official server; the developers have not formally confirmed it, and a feature request only proves the feature is absent today.

What happens when you run out of shells?

The game tells you to use the Requisition station to get more. How that works, what each shell costs and how credits are earned is covered on the requisition console reference.

Is MSTD in 1.0?

The MSTD punchcard exists in the build but is priced 9999, this build's marker for "not purchasable", and there is no MSTD shell entry. Treat it as demo-era content.