Centipede

Centipedes are mechanoids which do not eat, cannot be tamed or trained, and are always hostile to the colony. They can be found sealed in ancient ruins in all biomes, 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. They will target doors, walls, base production tables and furniture.

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.

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.

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.

Combat & Strategy

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 equipped with a heavy charge blaster or an inferno cannon, both of which have a range of 27 tiles.

Slow movement speed is a significant weakness of this enemy, providing an effective way to take them down. 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 a Centipede is able to respond.

Melee swarms are possible with little risk of long-term injuries, provided pawns can safely close the distance. Shield belts, drawing their fire from a different direction, Jump packs , letting pawns jump into melee range with almost no chance of being hit, a combination of both using locust armor , or simply using walls and terrain to block projectiles are all good ways to move in. Centipedes with the heavy charge blaster must be simultaneously engaged in melee to make sure none of them 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.

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.

Psychic insanity lances can be used to draw the attention of other centipedes, this doesn't just stop them from firing at your pawns but it will generally continue to attack its compatriots until it or the others are dead. These should be used on centipedes equipped with a heavy charge blaster, as the inferno cannon does no damage to other mechanoids. Centipedes should be prioritized as a target for the insanity lance because of their ability to tank for longer periods than any other mechanoids, providing both you and it more time to take down the others. This will generally result several in dead mechanoids and, depending on the composition of the mechanoid force, even their total destruction.

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.

Armor

Armor

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.

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.

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)^[1]	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

↑ Coverage determines the chance to hit this body part. It is dependent on which group the body part is part of, so, for example, you can't shoot someone in the toe and hit them in the brain.

Version History

0.4.460 - Added

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

[coverage-1] Coverage determines the chance to hit this body part. It is dependent on which group the body part is part of, so, for example, you can't shoot someone in the toe and hit them in the brain.

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