If you’re trying to unlock every ending in IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator, you’ll need to approach the final mission in a few different ways. There are four endings in total, and while three of them are pretty straightforward, the Betrayal ending takes much more planning.
In this guide, I’ll go through all four endings and explain exactly what shells you need, where to aim, and how to handle the more difficult Betrayal route. The good news is that the first three endings can be triggered with just a single shell.
So, if you want to collect all four ending achievements without wasting time figuring out the artillery calculations yourself, here’s everything you need to know.
IRON NEST Heavy Turret Simulator Endings – How to Get All 4
You always start in the southwest corner of the map at A1 0:0.
For the first three endings, you only need to fire one shell toward the city center. You don’t have to hit the exact center, so the easiest target is the northwest corner of L5.
Use:
- Bearing: 66°
- Distance: 12 km
With different numbers of powder charges, the gun angles are:
- 6 charges: 24°
- 5 charges: 28°
- 4 charges: 36°
- 3 charges: 48°
- 2 charges: 60°
- 1 charge: Out of range
For the easiest setup, I recommend using 6 powder charges, rotating the turret to 66°, and setting the barrel angle to 24°.
Once you have that setup, you can use the appropriate shell for the ending you want.
Ending 1: Peace
The Peace ending is the easiest one to get.
You only need one non-lethal shell. Any of these will work:
- Star Shell (STAR)
- Smoke Shell (SMK)
- Propaganda Shell (PRPG)
Load one of these shells and fire it toward the city center using the firing setup explained above.
You only need one shell. As soon as it lands, the ending will trigger immediately.
Getting this ending unlocks the “A City in Celebration” achievement.
Ending 2: Submission
For the Submission ending, you need to use a chemical warfare shell.
Any one of these shells will work:
- Tear Gas Shell (TEAR)
- Phosgene Gas Shell (PHGN)
- White Phosphorous Shell (WP)
- Cyanogen Gas Shell (CYAN)
Again, you only need a single shell.
Aim toward the city center using the same 66° bearing, 12 km distance, and 24° barrel angle with 6 powder charges.
Once the shell lands, the ending will trigger immediately.
This ending unlocks the “A City Subdued” achievement.
Ending 4: Destruction
Despite being listed as Ending 4, the Destruction ending is also very easy to trigger.
You only need to fire one regular explosive or damaging shell into the city center.
You can use any of the following:
- High Explosive Shell (HE)
- Armor Piercing Shell (AP)
- Incendiary Shell (INCN)
- High Capacity High Explosive Shell (HCHE)
- Drill Shell (DRIL)
- Low-grade Explosive Shell (LE)
- Parachute-delayed Cluster Shell (PCLM)
- Armor Piercing High Explosive Shell (APHE)
- Thermal Incendiary Shell (THRM)
- Earthquake Shell (EQKE)
The Earthquake Shell is unlocked from this mission.
You can also use the Atomic Shell (ATMC) if you really want to go that far.
Fire your chosen shell into the city center. Once it lands, allied artillery will begin bombarding the city.
You don’t need to fire another shell after that. The ending will trigger shortly afterward.
One funny detail is that the newspaper will show an atomic bomb explosion image regardless of whether you actually used the ATMC shell.
The Destruction ending unlocks the “A City Silent” achievement.
Ending 3: Betrayal
The Betrayal ending is easily the most complicated of the four, so I recommend doing it first if possible.
The reason is simple: when you first reach this mission, you may have enough credits to purchase everything you need. If you reload the mission after getting another ending, you’ll only start with 700 credits, which makes the route much harder because the Atomic Shell alone costs 666 credits.
For the easier version of the Betrayal ending, you need:
- 1 Atomic Shell (ATMC)
- 5–7 Scout Planes
- 4–6 Armor Piercing High Explosive Shells (APHE)
- 1–3 High Capacity High Explosive Shells (HCHE)
- At least 25 Powder Charges
Reveal the Map First
When the mission begins, aerial reconnaissance will already reveal much of the map.
However, we’re not interested in attacking the enemy. For this ending, we need to find and destroy our allied units.
You can reveal almost the entire map with 5 Scout Planes by using:
- 0° heading from B1
- 0° heading from D1
- 0° heading from F1
- 0° heading from R1
- 0° heading from T1
If you have enough credits for 7 Scout Planes, you can cover the entire map with:
- 0° heading from A1
- 0° heading from C1
- 0° heading from E1
- 0° heading from G1
- 0° heading from R1
- 0° heading from T1
- 90° heading from H9
I recommend scouting the map carefully before firing anything.
Be Careful With the First Friendly Hit
This is the most important part of the Betrayal ending.
As soon as your first shell hits a friendly unit, you are immediately labeled a traitor. The counter-battery timer starts, and you lose access to the purchasing system.
Because of that, buy everything you need before firing your first shell.
A useful setup is to load the first two shells into the guns and then fill the reserves with six shells for each gun. That gives you 14 shells total, which should be more than enough.
Prioritize Artillery and Spotting Units
Once you’ve become a traitor, your main priority should be destroying the enemy artillery and spotting units.
Artillery units are particularly important because they affect the counter-battery timer.
Most, although not all, artillery units require AP shells. I recommend using APHE, as its increased effective range can sometimes let you destroy multiple targets with a single shot.
Don’t waste your time trying to destroy every infantry or mechanized unit immediately. Focus on the units that threaten your survival and the ones that help the enemy locate and attack you.
Use the Atomic Shell on High Command
The exact location of most units is random.
There are two important exceptions:
- Iron Nest: Always at A1 0:0
- High Command: Always at B4
The Atomic Shell has an effective range of roughly 3 km in radius.
A good place to fire it is around D5 3:5. This should destroy the units around High Command as well as most of the units in the E/F columns.
Using the ATMC this way can give you a huge head start.
After the Atomic Shell lands, you should have a counter-battery timer of at least around 5 minutes, giving you enough time to systematically destroy the remaining important units.
Continue prioritizing:
- Artillery units
- Spotting units
- Groups of unarmored units
For groups of unarmored units, HCHE can be particularly useful because its large blast can eliminate several targets at once.
How to Calculate Your Firing Angle
You need to work quickly during this part of the mission.
Instead of constantly adjusting the gun manually, you can calculate your barrel angle based on the distance and number of powder charges.
Use this formula:
Barrel angle (°) = Distance (km) × 12 ÷ Number of Powder Charges
For each powder-charge amount, this becomes:
- 1 powder charge: Distance × 12
- 2 powder charges: Distance × 6
- 3 powder charges: Distance × 4
- 4 powder charges: Distance × 3
- 5 powder charges: Distance × 2.4
- 6 powder charges: Distance × 2
I recommend using 6 powder charges whenever possible. This makes things much faster because the shell travels more quickly and you spend less time moving the barrel up and down.
You don’t actually need to destroy every single friendly unit. At some point, the victory/failure screen will appear and the ending will trigger.
Completing this route unlocks “The Road Not Taken.”
Betrayal Ending With Only 700 Credits
If you reload the mission after completing another ending, things become much harder.
You only start with 700 credits, which means you cannot afford the 666-credit Atomic Shell and still have enough money for everything else you need.
The general strategy remains the same, but you’ll have to destroy the friendly units without the massive ATMC explosion.
Use EQKE and HCHE Instead
Fortunately, you can still make this work with High Capacity High Explosive (HCHE) and Earthquake (EQKE) shells.
The Earthquake Shell becomes available after you’ve obtained any of the four endings.
Both shells have large blast radiuses, making them useful for destroying multiple clustered units.
Before firing, scout the map and plan your attack.
Load one gun with an EQKE shell and aim it at the High Command. One shell should be enough to destroy both command units.
Use the other gun with either HCHE or EQKE against artillery and spotting units.
If several of these units are close together, prioritize those groups first. Destroying multiple units with one shot can buy you valuable extra time.
You can ignore less important targets such as infantry and mechanized units until later.
Prepare Everything Before Firing
Once you’ve worked out your firing solutions, load and aim both guns so they’re ready.
Then go to the purchasing station and fill your supplies with the shells and powder charges you need.
When you’re ready, quickly fire the first two shells.
If you’ve destroyed High Command and at least one artillery or spotting unit, you should have roughly three minutes before the counter-battery fire becomes a serious problem.
At this point, you won’t be able to relocate Iron Nest because you’ve lost access to the purchasing station, so you need to focus entirely on your gunnery.
Stay calm and systematically destroy the remaining friendly artillery units.
The ending should trigger once all of the artillery units have been destroyed.
An Easier Betrayal Strategy Using Smoke Shells
There is another trick that can make the Betrayal ending considerably easier.
You can use Smoke Shells (SMK) against friendly units to make them group together.
The important part is that firing an SMK at friendly units does not trigger the counter-battery attack, as long as you don’t target High Command.
This gives you time to prepare your targets before committing to the actual attack.
Use Smoke Shells to group friendly units together, then follow up with one or two APHE or EQKE shells to destroy several of them at once.
Just remember not to fire the Smoke Shell at High Command, since that can trigger the counter-battery attack.
This method can save a lot of time and ammunition, especially when you’re attempting the Betrayal ending without the Atomic Shell.
All Four Ending Achievements
If you’re going for 100% completion, these are the four ending achievements you need:
- A City in Celebration — Get the Peace ending.
- A City Subdued — Get the Submission ending.
- A City Silent — Get the Destruction ending.
- The Road Not Taken — Get the Betrayal ending.
The first three are very simple because they only require one shell aimed at the city center. The Betrayal ending is the one that requires serious preparation, scouting, ammunition management, and quick artillery calculations.
My biggest recommendation is to do Betrayal first if you have enough credits, since having access to the Atomic Shell makes the entire process much easier. If you’re already working with the 700-credit reload, use the EQKE + HCHE strategy, and take advantage of Smoke Shells to group friendly units before destroying them.