Revision as of 05:42, 26 October 2022

Mechanoids - Autonomous intelligent robots built for domestic, industrial or military purposes. Only available to advanced cultures because such complex AI is needed to control them.
— RimWorld Universe Quick Primer

Mechanoids are deadly autonomously intelligent robots that form a faction called a Mechanoid Hive.

Summary

All mechanoids from a mech hive are permanently hostile to the colony. They do not eat and are immune to toxic fallout and temperature extremes, despite having a Comfortable Temperature range. As machines, they are vulnerable to EMP attacks, though will "Adapt" for 2,200 ticks (36.67 secs) (regardless of source), making them immune to all further EMP strikes. Hostile mechanoids do not fear for their life, unable to feel pain and will not seek to take cover.

Mechanoids can be found sealed in ancient ruins in all biomes, which spawn inside mountains or outside on the landscape. They may also raid the player's base through events and can also be found in most poison ships, psychic ships, and mech clusters. They may sometimes appear dormant in Ancient Complex and guarding any relic with Ideology DLC.

Hostile mechanoids are not bound by power limits. While mechanitors from the Biotech DLC can create their own allied mechanoids, they are unable to tame or convert hostile ones. Friendly mechs may become feral and join a mech hive if left Uncontrolled (such as having too little bandwidth) for too long, and can't be re-converted.

Mechanoid Types

Mechanoid forces are specialized by their unit types, with each unit performing a single role. Basics summaries are available here, see the individual pages for further details and analysis.

Core

Scyther

Main article: Scyther

The melee boogeymen of Mechanoids. Fast and extremely dangerous up close, large numbers can and will overwhelm single enemies. Melee blocking, use of chokepoints, and focus fire while they close in are useful tactics. Mechanoid raids consisting entirely of large numbers of scythers are fairly common.

Lancer

Main article: Lancer

Armed with charge lances, they have medium range and modest overall DPS. However, their high shot damage presents a rare, but significant risk of losing organs (including vital ones!). Therefore, exposure should be limited. Like many non-scythers, melee combat is very effective if can get close enough.

Pikeman

Main article: Pikeman

Acting as the sniper, their needle gun doesn't do too much damage. Their main role is to allow mechanoids to engage at range - use bends in chokepoints to force them into range, or simply advance and kill them.

Centipede

Main article: Centipede

Centipedes are tanks and crowd controllers. They are incredibly durable, but rather slow. They can wield charge blasters or miniguns for raw, inaccurate damage, or flame cannons to distract pawns. Mortar Fire and melee combat are decent options for actually damaging the centipede due to it's slow movement speed and large size. Alternatively, a psychic insanity lance against a centipede turns a danger into a significant asset, though note that mechanoids are immune to inferno cannons.

Termite

Main article: Termite

While not particularly dangerous on their own, their thump cannon can destroy most walls in a single shot, leaving your colonists open to damage from other mechanoids. Depending on the exact strategy employed against the raid as a whole, these might be the highest priority, or of negligible concern.

Biotech Mechanoids

Militor

Main article: Militor

A small combat mechanoid armed with a low-power, 12-range mini-shotgun. One of the weakest mechanoids, they serve as early-game threats and are scary through their numbers.

Scorcher

Main article: Scorcher

A mechanoid that specializes in incendiary attacks. Its flame burst attack has little reach, but once it closes on a group of defenders it can ignite and disrupt them with blasts of searing flame.

Legionary

Main article: Legionary

A combat support mechanoid with a wide range bullet shield and long-range needle gun. Designed to support other mechanoids from long range, the legionary is vulnerable to anyone who can get inside its shield.

Tesseron

Main article: Tesseron

A medium-range combat mechanoid. The tesseron's sweeping beam attack pierces shields, ignites pawns, and deals great damage, but can't be fired up close.

Centurionn

Main article: Centurion

An incredibly durable ultra-heavy mech, with a large shield capable of defending allies. It also has point-defense turret, which can fire while moving.

Mechanoid Commanders

Diabolus

Main article: Diabolus

An ultra-heavy mechanoid with an ultra-powerful hellsphere cannon. It takes time to charge up, but devastates surrounding buildings and walls in a large radius. Also has a flame burst for use against nearby foes, and a general purpose turret.

War Queen

Main article: War queen

An ultra-heavy mech with a built-in mech gestator. Fed with appropriate resources, the war queen can form small war urchin combat mechs within its massive carapace and deploy them into combat.

War Urchin

Main article: War urchin

A small, deployable combat mechanoid usually manufactured inside an ultra-heavy war queen mech. War urchins are expendable fighters designed to swarm-attack enemies. They are mounted with short-ranged spiner guns and have a non-rechargeable power source.

Apocriton

Main article: Apocriton

A mechanoid commander designed to coordinate and motivate other mechs during long extermination campaigns. Its most obvious power is its ability to resurrect recently-killed mechs by supercharging their self-repair processes. Less obviously, it is intelligent and psychically present, radiating hatred into the minds of anyone in a wide radius. While all mechanoids have a dim psychically-present intelligence, only the apocriton and a few others truly feel hatred for their victims and understand the suffering they inflict.

Lore

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Cryptosleep Revival Briefing
↑ Backstory of Markus 'Keuneke' Keuneke
↑ Backstory of Ang 'Codex' Gao
↑ Quest descriptions
↑ Orbital mech cluster targeter description
↑ Ship part (defoliator) description
↑ Megascarab description

Pawns

Pawn Type	Combat Power	Armor (S/B/H)	Gear Health (%)	Avg. Gear Quality	Weapon Budget	Available Weapons	Age Range	Move Speed	Additional Info
Scyther	150	40% / 20% / 200%	100	-	-	Melee (Blades)	Any	4.7 c/s	-
Lancer	150	40% / 20% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	Charge lance	Any	4.7 c/s	-
Centipede	400	72% / 22% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	Heavy charge blaster / Inferno cannon	Any	1.9 c/s	-
Pikeman	110	40% / 20% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	Needle gun	Any	2.5 c/s	-
Termite	110	56% / 22% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	Thump cannon	Any	2.1 c/s	-
Militor	75	20% / 10% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	mini-shotgun	Any	3.8 c/s	-
War urchin	75	20% / 10% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	spiner	Any	4.2 c/s	-
Legionary	150	40% / 20% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	MechanoidGunLongRange	Any	4.3 c/s	-
Tesseron	150	40% / 20% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	beam graser	Any	4.7 c/s	-
Scorcher	110	40% / 20% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	mini-flameblaster	Any	4.5 c/s	-
Apocriton	600	75% / 40% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	toxic needle gun	Any	3.2 c/s	-
Tunneler	400	80% / 40% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	power claw	Any	1.9 c/s	-
Centurion	250	75% / 25% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	charge blaster turret	Any	1.6 c/s	-
War queen	600	75% / 25% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	charge blaster turret	Any	1.6 c/s	-
Diabolus	600	75% / 25% / 200%	100	Normal	9999	hellsphere cannon	Any	2.4 c/s	-

Trivia

Although all mechanoid-only weapons are 'Spacer' in terms of tech level; the hidden mechanoid faction itself is actually 'Ultra' tech level - one above 'Spacer', and the second highest tech level in the game, below 'Transcendent'.