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.
A Mechanoid Hive is a permanently hostile faction composed entirely of mechanoids, deadly autonomously intelligent robots.
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 can create their own allied mechanoids in the Biotech DLC , 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
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
Armed with charge lances, they have medium range and modest overall DPS. However, their high shot damage presents a modest, but serious risk of one-shot-killing pawns by destroying body parts. Therefore, exposure should be limited and lancers prioritized as threats. Like many non-scythers, melee combat is very effective if can get close enough.
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
Centipedes are tanks and crowd controllers. They are incredibly durable, but rather slow. They can wield heavy charge blasters or miniguns for raw, inaccurate damage, or inferno cannons to light fires and force ignited pawns out of cover. Mortar Fire and melee combat are decent options for actually damaging the centipede due to it's slow movement speed and large size, and avoid bunching against any of their weapons. Alternatively, a psychic insanity lance against a centipede turns a danger into a significant asset, though note that other mechanoids are immune to inferno cannons.
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
This article relates to content added by Biotech (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
Militor
A small combat mechanoid armed with a low power, 12 range mini-shotgun. One of the weakest mechanoids, they serve as earlygame threats and support other mechanoids. They can be scary through sheer numbers - large mechanoid raids comprised only of militors occasionally spawn.
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
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
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.
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.
Tunneler
A large, somewhat durable melee mechanoid with a natural shield and smokepop. While mostly made for mining, some apocriton summon groups will arrive with tunnelers. Does not seem to appear in regular mech raids.
Mechanoid Commanders
This article relates to content added by Biotech (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
Diabolus
An ultra-heavy mechanoid with an ultra-powerful hellsphere cannon. It takes time to charge up, but devastates everything including buildings and walls in a large radius. Also has a flame burst for use against nearby foes, and a general purpose turret.
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
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
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.
Pawns
Pawn Type | Image | 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 | 45 | 20% / 10% / 200% | 100 | Normal | 9999 | mini-shotgun | Any | 3.8 c/s | - | |
Legionary | 150 | 40% / 20% / 200% | 100 | Normal | 9999 | needle gun | 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 | - | |
Tunneler | 400 | 80% / 40% / 200% | 100 | Normal | 9999 | Melee (Power claws) | Any | 1.9 c/s | - | |
Centurion | 250 | 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 | - | |
War queen | 600 | 75% / 25% / 200% | 100 | Normal | 9999 | charge blaster turret | Any | 1.6 c/s | - | |
Apocriton | 600 | 75% / 40% / 200% | 100 | Normal | 9999 | toxic needle gun | Any | 3.2 c/s | - | |
War urchin | 75 | 20% / 10% / 200% | 100 | Normal | 9999 | spiner | Any | 4.2 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'.
Version history
- 0.4.460 - Mechanoid raids added.
- Biotech DLC - Added many new mechanoids.