Nuke a City Rebirth and Research
When to reset, what you keep, and which Research upgrades to buy first.
Rebirth is the prestige door in Nuke a City, not a game-over screen. You delete a run on purpose so the next one prints cash faster. The statue shows up after plot expand, with an early shop tag near 1.5 million. Interact when you are ready to pay that cost and accept the wipe. Research is the permanent layer you buy with points from each reset. This page is timing, losses, spend order, and the code reminder. For which Research nodes beat the others, use the research tier list. For the cash loop that feeds the statue, use How to Make Money Fast.
When to rebirth (the plateau test)
Rebirth when upgrades stop moving the next launch. Practical signs: dropper levels cost more than several full 100 EXP rockets, the nuclear pad is already the only machine you bother feeding, and the next shop row would take a session you do not want to play. Players who wait for a pretty base usually stall. Players who reset the first time they can afford the statue often come back weaker because they never stacked a nuclear dropper. Hit a plateau, not a panic. If one more launch still buys a meaningful fill upgrade, take the launch. If the next upgrade is vanity, walk to the statue. A longer spend checklist lives on upgrade priority.
What you lose and what you keep
Confirming rebirth wipes machines, cash, fuse progress, and the base layout. The free manual dropper comes back. Plot expand purchases and fancy looks go away. Rocket level and explosive looks reset with the run; community peaks around rocket 19 and look 24 are trophies of a long cycle, not keepers. You gain Research points. Players commonly report about five points per rebirth. Those points buy permanent Research: money multipliers, walk speed, more explosives, later totems and potions. Points and purchased Research survive. Everything bolted to the dirt does not. If that sentence makes you hesitate, you are not ready, or you still have a crate sitting unopened.
Research priority: money multipliers first
Open Research after the wipe and spend on money multipliers before anything cute. Multipliers shorten every future launch, which shortens the time to the next statue. Walk speed is a quality-of-life node that helps you ferry explosives and reach Control faster; buy it after the first multiplier ranks, not instead of them. Extra explosives increase how many warheads the factory can stage. Totems and potions are later tools: they spike a run, they do not replace a missing multiplier. If a node does not make cash or fill faster, it waits. The research tier list is the ranked version of this paragraph when the tree grows new branches.
Totems, potions, and the statue habit
Totems and potions show up once you have enough Research depth to stop living on raw multipliers. Use them on a run that already has a nuclear dropper placed, not on the free pad at spawn. A potion on a weak tick is a wasted bottle. A totem during a fat EXP cycle is why people rebirth again the same day. Do not hoard points waiting for a perfect node if multipliers are still unranked. Do not dump every point into walk speed because the plot feels large. The statue is a loop: build nuclear, launch at 100 EXP, plateau, redeem codes, rebirth, buy multipliers, repeat. About five points a cycle means you plan several rebirths, not one forever-base.
Redeem codes before you confirm the reset
Rebirth does not wait for your crate. If BOOM or any newer code is unclaimed, open ABX or the shop bottom and redeem first. Playtime Points and crates should land while the current base still exists, then you decide whether to pop boosts on this run or the next one. Popping a crate and immediately rebirthing throws the boost into a wipe. Sitting on an unredeemed code and then resetting is worse: you walk into spawn without the gift. Live lists stay on the Codes Hub. Nuclear Fun also posts on Discord. Type codes in the correct case with no extra spaces.
After the flash
You will spawn looking poor. That is the point. Place the free dropper, rush toward plot expand and the nuclear pad again, and let Research multipliers do the lifting. Do not rebuild fountain, fuse, and poison as a matching set unless the machine ranking still says they help. Most post-rebirth time should go into nuclear fill, 100 EXP launches, and the next statue. Offline growth still works, so you can reset at the end of a session and come back to a filling explosive. If the new run is not faster than the last one, you spent Research on the wrong nodes or you rebirthed before the nuclear pad was online.
The statue is a door, not a scoreboard. If you still have unused crate time or an unspent BOOM crate sitting in the shop, walk away from the prompt. Research only pays when the next run is shorter than the last one, and that starts with multipliers, not souvenirs. Come back to this page after each reset until the order is muscle memory.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common questions.
When should I rebirth in Nuke a City?
When upgrades no longer change the next 100 EXP cycle and the nuclear dropper is already your real factory. Do not reset the first time you can see the statue if one more launch still buys fill speed.
What does rebirth delete?
Machines, cash, fuse progress, and the base layout. Research points and purchased Research stay. Rocket level and explosive looks reset with the run.
How many Research points do I get?
Players commonly report about five points per rebirth. That is why multipliers come first and why one reset is not a full tree.
What should I buy in Research first?
Money multipliers, then walk speed and extra explosives. Totems and potions wait until a nuclear dropper is back online. Ranked nodes are on the research tier list.
Should I redeem codes before rebirth?
Yes. Claim codes such as BOOM from ABX or the shop bottom before you confirm the statue, and do not pop crate boosts into a wipe.
Is the rebirth statue expensive?
Early shops list it near 1.5 million. That tag is a first-cycle ballpark. Later runs with multipliers reach it faster, which is the whole reason to reset.