Devourer

Devourer

A massive monster with a gaping toothed maw and a stubby, snake-like body. The devourer can leap several times its body length to swallow a person whole. Powerful stomach acids rapidly digest the still-living victim. The remains are regurgitated soon after.

Base Stats

Type

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Devourers are an entity added in the Anomaly DLC.

Summary

Combat

Devourers are rather unconventional combatants, as they prefer not to attack normally. Instead, they will choose a target, lunge at it, and instantly swallow it whole. It is possible to avoid being swallowed by using a Jump pack, Longjump legs, or similar ability during the Devourer's lunge attack. The Devourer will then prioritize a different target upon landing^[verify]. A devourer cannot swallow any pawn with a body size greater than 3.5. Once the devourer has consumed its target, it will not move so long as it is full, making it vulnerable to retaliation. The swallowed pawn will be digested over time at a rate related to their body size, receiving acid burns. The rate at which a creature is digested is linearly interpolated between three different points - 10 seconds to digest a pawn with a body size of 0.2, 30 seconds for a pawn with a body size of 1, and 60 seconds for a pawn with a body size of 3.5. The devourer is capable of swallowing and digesting mechanoids. If a devourer catches fire, or is affected by Vertigo Pulse, it will immediately regurgitate whatever it is swallowing. The devourer's swallowing attack has a cooldown of one hour.

Devourers are quite destructive, and will smash up player-owned buildings if they cannot find any pawns to attack.

Yield

The devourer yields 4 bioferrite and 800W per day.

Analysis

Combat

When fighting devourers in close range, especially in great numbers, it is practically guaranteed that at least one of your fighters will get swallowed. However, apart from the damage from acid burns, there are no long-term drawbacks to a pawn being swallowed, assuming they are promptly liberated. In fact, full devourers are easier to deal with, as they will not attack or flee while digesting. For these reasons, there are two basic strategies for engaging devourers: Picking them off at range and staying safe, or getting close and taking their punishment.

If you plan on taking the devourers head-on, and there are a large number of devourers attacking, then it would be a good idea to try and split them off while also keeping your fighters close together. This way, fewer fighters end up being swallowed at any given time, and more fighters are available to retaliate against digesting devourers.

Devourers are generally slower than humans, who have a base movement speed of 4.6 tiles/second. This makes kiting viable, but still dangerous. Care must be taken to stay out of the devourer's lunging range, as they can close the distance instantly. If any fighter ends up being swallowed while several devourers are in combat, you will have to choose whether to leave them for dead or abandon the kiting maneuver and rescue them.

If you have a mechanitor in your colony, a valid strategy would be to inundate the devourers by sending in a wave of labor mechanoids and allowing them to be swallowed, then sending in your actual fighters. Scorchers can be highly effective in forcing devourers to regurgitate swallowed pawns or mechs. The high rate of fire of scorchers, as well as their low resource and bandwidth cost, make them cost-efficient counters to the devourer's most dangerous attack. Similarly, pawns armed with hellcat rifles or incinerators can be used on Devourers that are actively digesting. Tesserons can also be effective at lighting devourers on fire, and have considerably longer range than scorchers. Additionally, the devourer is incapable of swallowing the larger mechs. For example, if you use a Diabolus or a War Queen to tank, you can force the devourer to stay in melee combat while other mechanoids or colonists shoot at it. Some medium sized mechs, such as the Pikeman or Scyther, can be swallowed and go through a full digestion cycle without dying, allowing them to be swallowed a second time. If they do go through that cycle and survive, they still take significant damage and are likely to lose a body part.

Alternately, devourers can be countered with attack animals. Spammable animals like dogs are numerous and expendable enough to be used as a distraction, similar to labor mechanoids. Larger animals like elephants work even better; they're too big to be swallowed and are too sturdy for devourers to kill with their feeble melee attacks.

It is also recommended to have at least one colonist behind the main lines with a weapon capable of lighting fires, like an Incinerator or Molotov cocktails, to force Devourers to regurgitate colonists if any are at risk of being digested before your fighters can down it.

Trivia

Similar to mech raids, devourers may spawn from ocean and river tiles even if a raid normally would not be able to spawn due to deep ocean water. This can be a nasty surprise for players who prioritized defenses against normal raids coming in from the map edge. ^[verify].

Gallery

Normal

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  East

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  North

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  South

Digesting

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  East

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  North

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  South

Dessicated

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  East

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  North

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  South

Version history

• Anomaly DLC Release - Added.

Triva

The Devourer is most likely inspired by Saccopharyngiforms, or more specifically the gulper eel. Just like the Devourer, the gulper eel lunges at prey to swallow it whole.

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