Mechanoid hive

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"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

Centipede

Centipede

Heavy combat mechanoids that glide on dozens of tiny legs. Their thick carapace and firepower makes them very effective against bunched-up static defenders. They are somewhat vulnerable to mobile hit-and-run tactics.

Base Stats

Type

Mechanoid

Market Value

1200 

Flammability

0%

Armor

Armor - Sharp

72%

Armor - Blunt

22%

Armor - Heat

200%

Pawn Stats

Combat Power

400

Move Speed

1.9 c/s

Health Scale

432% HP

Body Size

3.0

Mass

180 kg

Pack Capacity

105 kg

Carrying Capacity

225 kg

Filth Rate

1

Life Expectancy

2500 years

Comfortable Temp Range

-100 °C – 250 °C (-148 °F – 482 °F)

Melee Combat

Attack

Head
17 dmg (Blunt)
25 % AP
2.6 second cooldown

Average DPS

4.05

Centipedes are heavily armored, slow mechanoids designed as siege units.

They have 3 variants, each with their own armament:

• Centipede blaster armed with a heavy charge blaster.
• Centipede burner armed with an inferno cannon.
• Centipede gunner armed with a minigun.

Summary

As mechanoids, every mechanoid hive is immune to fire, Flame and Heat damage, and temperature extremes, despite having Comfortable Temperatures defined. They have 100% Toxic Resistance and Toxic Environment Resistance, making them immune to toxic buildup, rot stink and other toxic effects. They do not need to eat, rest, and have no mood. They will be stunned by EMP attacks for a time proportional to the EMP damage inflicted and will "adapt" and rendered immune to further EMP strikes for 2,200 ticks (36.67 secs).

Centipedes have a Psychic Sensitivity of 75%, reducing the duration of certain psycasts. However, most other mechanoids have a psychic sensitivity of 50%, making centipedes more vulnerable than their contemporaries.

Dead centipedes may be shredded at the machining table or crafting spot for  30 steel and  10 plasteel, though these values are affected by mechanoid shredding efficiency as well as missing parts on the centipede.

As an enemy

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 and psychic ships. Centipedes are often supported by scythers or lancers, though they usually outpace the centipedes by a great margin and won't stop to wait for them.

Combat

Centipedes are always equipped with either an heavy charge blaster, inferno cannon, or minigun, but are also able to engage in (less effective) melee combat with colonists.

Melee Attacks	Damage Amount	Cooldown
Blunt	11.7	2.6 sec

Centipedes have a shooting accuracy of 96%, equivalent to a pawn with a Shooting skill of 8. Note that the inferno cannon has a forced miss radius that their shots will always land within, and so their accuracy has no bearing on their lethality with that weapon. They have a melee hit chance of 62%, equivalent to a pawn with a Melee skill of 4.

Armor

Armor

As an ally

Mechanoid hives are heavy mechanoids. They are created from a large mech gestator, taking up 4 bandwidth from a mechanitor.

Centipede burners and gunners require the High Mechtech research, and are created with  255 Steel,  255 Plasteel,  8 Components,  1 High subcore. Centipede blasters require the Ultra Mechtech research and take 100 more plasteel. They take 1800 ticks to initially craft, and then it must gestate for 6 cycles. Mechanoids can be fully repaired at the cost of power and nothing else. A dead centipede can be resurrected for 100 steel and 1 gestation cycle so long as the corpse is extant.

Mechs under player control require power: centipedes use 10% of their power per day while active. If set to dormant self-charging, they instead recharge for +1% power / day, without pollution. They recharge in a large mech recharger (constant 400W), for 50% power/day, creating 20 wastepacks whenever the recharger's waste is filled up.

Analysis

Centipedes are slow-moving and highly resistant to sharp damage, which includes bullets, so they require many shots to take down with guns. Centipedes are always equipped with an inaccurate, but powerful ranged weapon, with a range of 27 tiles.

As an enemy

Centipedes have two major weaknesses: they are slow, and are ineffective against melee and scattered forces. They will target doors, walls, base production tables and furniture.

Scythers and lancers are much faster than Centipedes, so they are easy to separate. Once separated, a pawn with a default movement speed using a long-ranged weapon (sniper rifle or charge lance) should be able to safely take a shot and move away before the Centipede is able to respond.

Centipedes in melee range are much less of a threat, provided pawns can safely close the distance. Shield belts or simply spreading out your pawns will draw their fire. Jumping (from jump packs, locust armor, the skip psycast, or the longjump gene) lets you come in quickly. With multiple centipedes, all must be engaged so none can use their weapons. Micromanagement should make sure that weaker fighters are targeted first, so that better ones can fight for longer before passing out from bruise pain.

Centipedes are good at crowd control, but struggle against single or widely scattered targets. One effective way of distracting fire from them (if they are not equipped with the inferno cannon or supported by lancers) is to simply let a colonist with a shield belt stand in front of other colonists; the centipedes will focus fire on the shielded colonist, allowing your other colonists to fire at the centipedes while taking less damage.

• Other Tactics

If you can spare the resources, uranium slug turrets can be effective against Centipedes, as they outrange them greatly and their shots are powerful enough to pierce their thick armor. Their tendency to stay at range keeps them roughly within the slug turret's effective range.

Centipedes are prime targets for psychic insanity lances. A berserk Centipede will draw the attention of other mechanoids, and will continue to attack its compatriots until it or the others are dead. As the inferno cannon does no damage to other mechanoids, use it against those equipped with the heavy charge blaster. As Centipedes are very well armored, it will generally result several in dead mechanoids, depending on the composition of the mechanoid force.

Assault rifles outrange centipede blasters and burners by three tiles. Due to the slow movement of the centipede, this allows for kitting. To kite a centipede, wait for you pawns to fire, then as soon as they fire, move back a few tiles.

As an ally

In general, centipedes are the tanks of the mechanitor's arsenal - slow, with decent to great firepower, but incredibly bulky. This is due to 2 key factors:

• High raw bulk. Centipedes have good armor, but a massive health scale of 4.32. Centipedes have much higher bulk than 4 bandwidth of any lighter mech combined, even considering the tunneler's shield belt. In effective HP, centipedes are only beaten by the diabolus and war queen, which both take 5 bandwidth and require boss mech chips to create.
• Superior physiology. Most light mechs are bipedal, with 1 torso and 2 legs. Centipedes have 6 body rings, all with a roughly equal chance of being shot. This prevents death from torso loss. While the head is more likely to be hit, due to its higher health scale, a single headshot won't kill a centipede like it would a lancer.

Centipedes are incredibly slow, which must be taken into account when gestating a centipede and using it in battle. This makes them poor against breacher and drop pod raids, which can attack from any angle. Their main value is their incredible durability, so they are good in all sorts of blocking tactics. Centipedes are best at the front of defensive formations, blocking shots and dealing significant crowd-relevant damage. Note that player mechanoids can use cover, making them even better than their enemy counterparts.

In terms of firepower, both centipede blasters and gunners offer good DPS / bandwidth, however they are not nearly as mobile as mechs like militors and lancers. In addition, as their weapons have high cooldowns, they are not as flexible in combat. Note that 4 militors technically out-damage 1 centipede, but militors have only 12 tiles of range.

One really good use for centipedes is for tanking doomsday (or triple) rocket launchers. If a raid carries these and its a breach, it can be very deadly, as a rocket can wipe out and entire colony in one shot. Placing a centipede in front of your colonists is useful because a centipede can survive multiple doomsday shot and still be mostly fine, the centipede is also good at tanking other enemy fire.

Centipede variants

• Centipede blasters and gunners are very similar in practice, with minigun-like weapons that fire a burst of shots. The centipede blaster has a much faster warmup than a gunner but a much slower cooldown, which makes it great in a killbox where single-file enemies are expected to die as fast as possible. In addition, the blaster has a higher AP.
• Centipede gunners are cheaper, have a superior "true" DPS and has higher range. This makes centipede gunners best in target-rich environments, like in "kill-zones" where a minigun would be preferred over a charge rifle.
• Centipede burners fire an explosive bolt, much like a molotov cocktail. This offers a much different weapon profile. Against single targets, the burner is very inaccurate, due to the Forced Miss Radius of its inferno cannon. Fire can cause pawns to run around wildly, but is poor for actual damage. Note that enemy mechanoids are immune to fire, so a centipede burner would just act as a damage sponge.

Every Centipede in a mixed standard Mech raid, or in a Mech Breach Raid, will always be a Centipede Blaster. Inferno and Minigun Centipedes only appear in all Centipede threats and in Mech Clusters.

Health

Biology

Centipedes consist entirely of mechanical parts, and are mostly composed of very large 'rings' that make their appearance similar to that of a real-life centipede. Despite being somewhat sluggish (in movement and appearance), they are immensely durable and can absorb a significant amount of fire before they are killed. Like pirates, they have a hostile appearance to every faction in the world (including ancients and insectoids).

Centipedes have six body rings, several sensors for hearing, sight, and smell, and an artificial brain that drives them. Interestingly enough, they lack any sort of communication parts and always spawn with their communication indicated as 'None', or no ability to. The only other external body part a centipede has other than its rings is its head, making it very difficult to actually kill a centipede.

List of body parts:

Part Name	Health	Quantity	Coverage	Target Chance	Subpart of	Internal	Capacity	Effect if Destroyed/Removed
First body ring	45	1	100%	14%	N/A		Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Head	30	1	15%	8.3%	First body ring		-	Death Will never take permanent injury.
Artificial brain	10	1	5%	0.75%	Head		Data Processing	Death Will never take permanent injury.
Sight sensor	10	2	8%	1.2%	Head		Sight	−25% Sight. −100% if both lost. Will never take permanent injury.
Hearing sensor	10	2	8%	1.2%	Head		Hearing	−25% Hearing. −100% if both lost. Will never take permanent injury.
Chemical analyzer	10	1	8%	1.2%	Head		-	Will never take permanent injury.
Second body ring	40	1	71%	11%	First body ring		Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Reactor	20	1	5%	3.6%	Second body ring		Power Generation	Death. Will never take permanent injury.
Third body ring	35	1	80%	11%	Second body ring		Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Fluid reprocessor	15	1	5%	2.80%	Third body ring		Fluid Reprocessing	Death if both lost −50% Fluid reprocessing Will never take permanent injury
Fourth body ring	30	1	75%	12%	Third body ring		Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Fluid reprocessor	15	1	6%	2.60%	Fourth body ring		Fluid Reprocessing	Death if both lost −50% Fluid reprocessing Will never take permanent injury
Fifth body ring	25	1	66%	14%	Fourth body ring		Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Sixth body ring	20	1	50%	14%	Fifth body ring		Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury

Diet

Centipedes are machines, and machines don't need to eat - but they do need some source of power.

In the Biotech DLC, centipedes use standard electric power from a large mech recharger, creating toxic wastepacks in the process. However, enemy mechs get their power from a unknown source, and even player mechs can enter dormant self-charging from an independent power source.

Body Parts (Summary)

Part Name	Health	Quantity	Coverage	Target Chance	Subpart of	Internal	Capacity	Effect if Destroyed/Removed
First body ring	45	1	100%	14%	N/A		Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Head	30	1	15%	8.3%	First body ring		-	Death Will never take permanent injury.
Artificial brain	10	1	5%	0.75%	Head		Data Processing	Death Will never take permanent injury.
Sight sensor	10	2	8%	1.2%	Head		Sight	−25% Sight. −100% if both lost. Will never take permanent injury.
Hearing sensor	10	2	8%	1.2%	Head		Hearing	−25% Hearing. −100% if both lost. Will never take permanent injury.
Chemical analyzer	10	1	8%	1.2%	Head		-	Will never take permanent injury.
Second body ring	40	1	71%	11%	First body ring		Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Reactor	20	1	5%	3.6%	Second body ring		Power Generation	Death. Will never take permanent injury.
Third body ring	35	1	80%	11%	Second body ring		Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Fluid reprocessor	15	1	5%	2.80%	Third body ring		Fluid Reprocessing	Death if both lost −50% Fluid reprocessing Will never take permanent injury
Fourth body ring	30	1	75%	12%	Third body ring		Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Fluid reprocessor	15	1	6%	2.60%	Fourth body ring		Fluid Reprocessing	Death if both lost −50% Fluid reprocessing Will never take permanent injury
Fifth body ring	25	1	66%	14%	Fourth body ring		Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Sixth body ring	20	1	50%	14%	Fifth body ring		Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury

Version history

• 0.4.460 - Added
• Beta 19/1.0 - Now dies when downed.
• ? - Health scale increased from 2.0 to 4.32
• ? - No longer spawns with miniguns.
• 1.4.3523 - Centipedes, which previously could spawn with either an inferno cannon or heavy charge blaster, are now split into three subtypes based on their armament: inferno cannons are now carried by Centipede burners, heavy charge blasters are now carried by Centipede blasters, and the reintroduction of miniguns carried by Centipede gunners.
• Biotech DLC - Introduced ability to create and control centipedes.

• 

  Old texture prior to at least 24 December 2018 or earlier

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Mechanoids

Mechanoids | Core

Centipede (Blaster, Burner, Gunner) • Lancer • Pikeman • Scyther • Termite

Combat

Centurion • Legionary • Militor • Scorcher • Tesseron

Command

Apocriton • Diabolus • War queen (War urchin )

Labor

Agrihand • Cleansweeper • Constructoid • Fabricor • Lifter • Paramedic • Tunneler

Cluster | Buildings

Condition causer • Count-down activator • Mech assembler • Mech capsule • Mech drop beacon • Mech high-shield • Mech low-shield • Mech node • Proximity activator • Unstable power cell

Turrets

Auto charge turret • Auto inferno turret • Auto mortar • Mini-slugger turret

Creation | Pawn

Mechanitor

Buildings

Mech gestator • Large mech gestator • Mechband antenna • Mechband dish

</noinclude>

Biology

Centipedes consist entirely of mechanical parts, and are mostly composed of very large 'rings' that make their appearance similar to that of a real-life centipede. Despite being somewhat sluggish (in movement and appearance), they are immensely durable and can absorb a significant amount of fire before they are killed.

Centipedes have six body rings, several sensors for hearing, sight, and smell, and an artificial brain that drives them. Interestingly enough, they lack any sort of communication parts and always spawn with their communication indicated as 'None', or no ability to. The only other external body part a centipede has other than its rings is its head, making it very difficult to actually kill a centipede.

Diet

Centipedes are machines, and machines don't need to eat - but they do need some source of power.

Currently, it is unknown what power source or other source of energy the Centipede uses.

Combat

Centipedes are mechanized heavy siege units, and as such are equipped with either an inferno cannon or a heavy charge blaster, but are also able to engage in melee combat with colonists.

Melee Attacks	Damage Amount	Cooldown
Blunt	11.7	2.6 sec

Centipedes are much less dangerous in melee range. If you have well-protected brawlers and are able to lock down all centipedes in melee range, that is highly beneficial. They won't be able to spray bullets everywhere. Eventually even well-protected brawlers will go down from pain due to multiple bruises, but it should not be fatal, and meanwhile they (and your gunners) should be able to more effectively deal damage to the centipedes.

Body Parts (Summary)

Centipedes are actually very simplistic and robust in design, with not that many parts overall. Their obvious weakness is that they're able to be severed in two, rapidly reducing their ability to move (which may eventually kill them).

• Note: Centipedes have a health scale of 2.0 - meaning their parts have twice the health of body parts listed in the files.

Body Part Name	Health (× Health Scale)	Base Health	Quantity	Coverage (per part)	Group	Function / Required for following System	Effect if Destroyed/Removed
First Body Ring	200	100	1	?	Core Part	Functioning in general	Machine Failure
Mechanical Head	60	30	1	8.0%	Head	Houses Artificial Brain, Sensors	Machine Failure
Artificial Brain	60	30	1	20%	Inside Head	Data processing	Machine Failure
Sight Sensor	20	10	2	15%	Head	Sight	Loss of sight/Blindness
Hearing Sensor	20	10	2	5.0%	Head	Hearing	Loss of hearing/Deafness
Smell Sensor	20	10	1	10%	Head	-	-
Second Body Ring	170	85	1	75%	Inside first ring	Moving, Manipulation	Loss of moving/manipulation ability
Third Body Ring	140	70	1	80%	Inside second ring	Moving, Manipulation	Loss of moving/manipulation ability
Fourth Body Ring	110	55	1	75%	Inside third ring	Moving, Manipulation	Loss of moving/manipulation ability
Fifth Body Ring	80	40	1	66%	Inside fourth ring	Moving, Manipulation	Loss of moving/manipulation ability
Sixth Body Ring	200	100	1	50%	Inside fifth ring	Moving, Manipulation	Loss of moving/manipulation ability

Pikeman

Pikemen are slow, low health Mechaniods that deal moderate damage that will be be added in 1.1. They can be found sealed in ancient ruins in all biomes, either spawned inside mountains or outside on the landscape. They may also raid the player's base through a random raid-type event and can also be found in most poison ships and psychic ships. Like other mechanoids, pikemen are sentient machine-like creatures which do not need to eat, cannot be tamed or trained, and are always hostile to the colony. Pikemen have moderate resistance to sharp damage and very small resistance to blunt damage being able to be taken down by Fist at close range, making them trivial to disable if one can get close enough to them.

Combat & Strategy

With their incredibly long range and moderate damage they can be hard to fight melee, as simply getting the pawn to get close enough is a struggle on its own.

Lancer

Lancer

"A human-sized combat mechanoid with huge optical sensors on its face for aiming weapons at long range. While effective at distance, it is weaker in melee combat. Veterans of mechanoid wars know that often, the safest thing to do against a lancer is to charge."

Base Stats

Type

Mechanoid – Characters

Armor

Armor - Sharp

40%

Armor - Blunt

20%

Pawn Stats

Move Speed

4.9 c/s

Health Scale

100% HP

Production

Melee Combat

Attack 1

Left fist
12 dmg (Blunt)
18 % AP
120 second cooldown

Attack 2

Right fist
12 dmg (Blunt)
18 % AP
120 second cooldown

Average DPS

0.06

Lancers are a type of fast-moving mechanoid with strong long-range firepower that deals 30 damage per hit. They can be found sealed in ancient ruins in all biomes, either spawned inside mountains or outside on the landscape. They may also raid the player's base through a random raid-type event and can also be found in most poison ships and psychic ships.

Like other mechanoids, lancers are sentient machine-like creatures which do not need to eat, cannot be tamed or trained, and are always hostile to the colony. Lancers have a moderate resistance to sharp damage and a small resistance to blunt damage but somewhat low health, making them trivial to disable at range with sufficient firepower. Lancers are vulnerable to spike traps, with only a few hits required to kill them.

Dead lancers may be disassembled at the machining table for 20 steel, 5 plasteel and 1 component, though these values are affected by mechanoid disassembly efficiency. ead lancers may be disassembled at the machining table for 20 steel, 5 plasteel and 1 component, though these values are affected by mechanoid disassembly efficiency.

Combat & Strategy

Main article: Defense tactics#Lancers

Lancers will quickly charge until they are at range, in which they will stay at maximum range to fire. They will not move around to seek cover, or avoid incoming fighters.

Lancers play a supportive role, providing firepower at range to pick off lone colonists while centipedes mow down groups and scythers charge your gunners.

As the description says, charging lancers can be a viable way to take them down, once you have taken care of the initial scyther charge.

Biology

Lancers, although mechanical and not very human-looking, are actually almost the same in structure as a typical human (minus the organs). However, they're more durable than humans, don't feel pain and do not fear for their life - they don't even use cover. This can make them very dangerous to fight against when under-armed. They have two arms, run on two legs, and (surprisingly) have a neck and make vocal communication. Why a machine would use standard human-like air-based vocalization is unknown at this time - especially when Centipedes are completely unable to manually communicate.

Diet

Much like Centipedes, it's unknown what exactly drives a Lancer, but it's likely it would be similar to whatever powers the Centipede.

Combat

Lancers will quickly charge until they are at range, in which they will stay at maximum range to fire. They will not move around to seek cover, or avoid incoming fighters.

Body Parts (Detailed)

Modification bills are performed by colonists assigned to Crafting.

Artificial Brain

Required for overall function and function of any Mechanoid. Without this, a Mechanoid is simply an empty husk of mechanical parts.

Scyther

Mechanoid Scyther

Biology

Scythers, although mechanical and not very human-looking, are actually almost the same in structure as a typical human (minus the organs). However, they're more durable than humans, don't feel pain and do not fear for their life - they don't even use cover. This can make them very dangerous to fight against when under-armed.

Like Lancers they have two arms, run on two legs, and (surprisingly) have a neck and make vocal communication. Why a machine would use standard human-like air-based vocalization is unknown at this time - especially when Centipedes are completely unable to manually communicate.

Diet

Much like Centipedes and Lancers, it's unknown what exactly drives a Scyther, but it's likely it would be similar to whatever powers the Centipede.

Combat

Scythers attack with a blade attached to each arm, which does 20 damage per hit, which is significant and is quickly dangerous, even to brawlers.

Melee Attacks	Damage Amount	Cooldown
Cut	20	2.0 sec

The name "Scythers" is derived from the vicious scythe-blades they wield as melee weapons, which are frighteningly effective at dismembering careless colonists that stray too close.

In fact, they have the highest melee DPS of any pawn in game, minus a colonist equipped with dual scyther blades or a Masterwork/Legendary plasteel longsword.

Body Parts (Summary)

Scythers, again, are practically humans in biology, although they lack many of the human organs and bones.

Body Part Name	Health (×1.5 Health Scale)	Base Health	Quantity	Coverage (per part)	Group	Function / Required for following System	Effect if Destroyed/Removed
Mechanical Thorax	40	40	1	?	Core part	Functioning in general	Machine failure
Mechanical Neck	30	30	1	8.0%	Top of Thorax	Communication (vocal), connector of thorax and head	Machine failure
Mechanical Head	30	30	1	75%	Neck	Houses Artificial Brain, Sensors	Machine failure
Artificial Brain	30	30	1	15%	Head	Dataprocessing	Machine failure
Sight Sensor	10	10	2	15%	Head	Sight	Loss of sight/Blindness
Hearing Sensor	10	10	2	5.0%	Head	Hearing	Loss of hearing/Deafness
Smell Sensor	10	10	1	10%	Head	-	-
Arm	30	30	2	10%	Thorax	Manipulation	Loss of manipulation ability/Unable to work (if both lost)
Hand	20	20	2	20%	Arm	Manipulation	Loss of manipulation ability
Fingers	7	7	10	5.0%	Hand	Manipulation	Loss of manipulation ability (minor)
Leg	30	30	2	10%	Thorax	Moving	Unable to move
Foot	20	20	2	20%	Leg	Moving	Loss of moving ability
Toes	10	10	10	5.0%	Foot	Moving	Loss of moving ability (minor)

Body Parts (Detailed)

Modification bills are performed by colonists assigned to Crafting.

Artificial Brain

Required for overall function and function of any Mechanoid. Without this, a Mechanoid is simply an empty husk of mechanical parts.

Body Rings

Everything is built off of the Centipede's first body ring - the head, and second body ring are connected to the first ring, while the rest of the rings chain off from there (second ring connected to third, third connected to fourth, etc.).

Body rings enable the Centipede to move and work, as there are many tiny, tiny legs that are connected to the body rings (not listed under body parts).

Sensors

Sight sensors for seeing, hearing sensors for hearing, and smell sensors for smell.

It's worth noting that smell has no purpose in-game, so destroying a smelling sensor doesn't harm a Mechanoid overall since they do not feel pain.

References

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'.