User Manual

What's in here

What VECTOR is for

A nuclear, chemical, or biological event is rare, fast, and unforgiving. The people who do well are the ones who decided what to do before it happened: where to shelter, what supplies to keep, and the exact order of actions in the first hour. VECTOR is where you make those decisions and write them down while you have time to think clearly.

You do not need to memorize anything. You work through the modules once during calm times, print the results, and put the paper in your binder. The screen is for planning. The paper is for the event, when the power may be out and the screen may be dark.

What's on your screen

The window has three parts: a top bar, a list of modules down the left, and the working area in the middle. Here is the layout.

• A — Top bar. COMMAND SUITE returns to the WATCHMAN home menu. The gear (⚙) opens Settings, where you can switch between dark and light color modes.
• B — Module list. Click any item to open it. The active one is highlighted green. The numbers (06, 07) show a small badge when the Area Intel Map has pushed items to them.
• C — Working area. This is where you read reference material or fill in your plan. It scrolls.

Your first 15 minutes

Do these five things in order the first time you open VECTOR. You will end up with a real plan and a printed binder.

1. Skim Module 01. Open Threat Classification and read the tabs at your own pace. You are building a mental map of the threats, not memorizing them.
2. Rate your shelters. In Module 02, add each place you might shelter and answer the simple questions. VECTOR calculates a Protection Factor and tells you how to improve each one.
3. Inventory your supplies. In Module 03, type your on-hand counts next to the recommended quantities. Red items are your shopping list.
4. Read the protocols. In Module 04, read the Nuclear and Chemical action sequences so the first-hour steps are familiar.
5. Print the binder. Go to Generate Docs and click PRINT COMPLETE BINDER. Hole-punch it and you are done.

Threat Classification

This is the reference library. It has six tabs across the top: Nuclear, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Radiation Physics, and Fallout & Decay. Nothing here is filled in by you; it is built-in knowledge you read and refer back to.

• Nuclear covers weapon types, the four effects (blast, thermal, prompt radiation, EMP), and blast-ring distances.
• Chemical covers nerve, blister, blood, and choking agents with their signs and first actions.
• Biological covers the agents most relevant to planning, such as anthrax and plague, and how they spread.
• Radiological covers the RDD (dirty bomb) and contamination without a nuclear blast.
• Radiation Physics and Fallout & Decay explain dose units and the Rule of 7s, which governs how fast fallout becomes survivable.

Shelter Assessment

This module answers one question for each place you could hide: how much does it cut your radiation dose? That number is the Protection Factor (PF). A PF of 10 means inside you receive one tenth of the outside dose. A PF of 40 is a serious fallout shelter. An earth-covered shelter can reach several hundred.

Adding a shelter

1. Click + ADD SHELTER ASSESSMENT. A card opens.
2. Give it a name (for example "Basement" or "Interior bathroom").
3. Pick the wall and roof material and their thickness, how far below ground it is, whether it is an interior room, and how well it seals. Count the windows and doors.
4. VECTOR instantly shows the Protection Factor, a plain-language rating, and a list of improvements.

The Best Shelter bar at the top always shows your highest-rated location, so you know where to send people first.

KI & Medical Supplies

This is your NBC supply checklist. It comes pre-loaded with recommended quantities for a group, grouped into categories: potassium iodide, radiation treatment, decontamination supplies, radiation PPE, chemical/biological PPE, medications and antidotes, and detection equipment.

Using it

• Type your real On Hand count in each row. The status dot and percent update as you type.
• Red means a critical shortfall (under 25 percent), amber means low, green means adequate.
• For items with a shelf life, set the Expiration month. Items expiring within six months turn red so you can rotate them.
• The Rec'd column is editable too; adjust it to your group size.
• + CUSTOM ITEM adds anything not on the list. ↻ DEFAULTS restores the recommended quantities without touching your on-hand counts.

The summary bar across the top gives you an at-a-glance readiness percentage, your critical/low/adequate counts, KI stock level, and whether you have a working radiation monitor.

Response Protocols

Four tabs, one per threat type: Nuclear / Fallout, Chemical, Biological, and Radiological. Each is an ordered checklist of actions, grouped by how urgent they are.

• Urgency bands are color-coded: immediate, within 15 minutes, within the hour, ongoing, and decision points. Do the immediate items first, top to bottom.
• Each step has a short why line and a doctrine source so you can trust it.
• Tap the box to check a step off. A progress bar shows how far through the sequence you are. This is most useful during a drill.
• ␡ RESET ALL clears the checkboxes so you can run the drill again.

Decontamination

Decon means getting the hazard off of people, food, water, equipment, and your shelter. The module has reference procedures on four tabs (Personnel, Food & Water, Equipment & Shelter, Waste Disposal) plus an Event Log.

• Each procedure expands to numbered steps with safety notes. Click a procedure header to open it.
• The Event Log records each decon you perform: date/time, type, how many people, the method, and the outcome (clean, partial, or still contaminated). Click + LOG EVENT to add a row.

EMP / Infrastructure Intel

This is an inbox. When you are working in the Area Intel Map and you push an infrastructure item (a substation, power line, pipeline, and so on) to VECTOR, it lands here for EMP and geomagnetic-disturbance threat assessment. You do not type anything in; items arrive from the map. A badge on the sidebar shows how many are waiting.

If the inbox is empty, that simply means nothing has been pushed yet. Use the VECTOR button on a facility in the Area Intel Map to send one here.

Chemical Hazard Sites

Another inbox, for fixed chemical hazards near you. When you push a hazmat facility from the Area Intel Map (EPA TRI, RCRA, or RMP), it appears here with its risk level, chemicals on site, distance and bearing from your area, and any worst-case release radius.

Printing your binder

Open Generate Docs from the sidebar. The big button at the top, PRINT COMPLETE BINDER, builds one continuous document with a cover sheet and every section, each starting on its own page. That is the one to use for your 3-ring binder.

Below it are six individual sections you can print one at a time:

• Shelter Assessment Report — your Module 02 shelters and their Protection Factors.
• Supply Inventory & Deficit — your Module 03 inventory with shortfalls flagged.
• Response Protocol Cards — all four Module 04 checklists for posting.
• Decon Procedures & Log — the Module 05 procedures plus your event log.
• KI Dosing Card — a wallet card of potassium iodide doses by age.
• NBC Threat Quick Reference — a condensed one-page threat sheet.

Each button opens your browser's print dialog. Choose your printer to print, or "Save as PDF" to keep a digital copy. To print this manual itself, use the PRINT / SAVE PDF button at the top of this page.

Glossary of terms

Doctrine sources used throughout VECTOR: FM 3-11 (Multi-Service CBRN Operations); Cresson Kearny, Nuclear War Survival Skills; Joseph Alton, medical references; Kobler/Dutra nuclear survival material; Rawles, preparedness references. VECTOR · Module 23 · © 2026 WATCHMAN Suite, LLC.

Demo sandbox

VECTOR ships with a demo sandbox — a separate copy pre-loaded with a complete worked fallout-and-hazard plan: a below-grade concrete-block shelter (with a frame-wood backup), a full NBC supply list with realistic on-hand counts and a few deliberate warning states (Cipro and the Mark I nerve-agent kits at zero, KI stocked, Zofran expiring), threat checklists for nuclear and nerve-agent scenarios, two decontamination log entries, and two hazard records shown as pushed from the Area Intel Map (a 230 kV substation for EMP exposure and a metal-finishing plant with cyanide and chromic acid). It reads as one coherent plan so you can see how the shelter, supplies, and nearby hazards line up.

Opening and leaving. In the live module, click DEMO in the sidebar under this manual. Inside the demo, that same slot reads RETURN TO LIVE and takes you back. An amber banner across the top of the demo tells you which copy you are in at all times.

Your real data is safe. The demo keeps everything in a completely separate storage slot, including the Area Intel Map hazard inboxes. Nothing you do in the demo can touch your real VECTOR plan, and live map pushes never arrive in the demo.

Resetting. The ↻ RESET DEMO button (top bar and amber banner) discards any changes and restores the sample plan.