Centipede

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

Summary

As mechanoids, centipedes are immune to fire, toxicity, and temperature extremes, despite having a Comfortable Temperature. They do not need to eat, rest, and have no mood. They will be stunned by EMP attacks and will "adapt" for 2,200 ticks (36.67 secs), starting from the stun, rendering them immune to further EMP strikes. Mechs do not count as a pawn for determining raid points, but still contribute towards wealth.

Centipedes have a Psychic Sensitivity of 75%, reducing the effect of some psycasts.

Centipedes will spawn as Centipede blasters, Centipede burners, and Centipede gunners, depending on what weapon they have. Respectively, they are equipped with a charge cannon, inferno blaster, and minigun. ^{[In core?]}

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 inferno cannon, heavy charge blaster, 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

Centipedes 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 1 high subcore, 8 components, 255 steel, 255 plasteel. Centipede blasters require the Ultra Mechtech research and take 100 more plasteel. They take 1800 ticks to initally 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 resurected 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.

As an ally

Centipedes are incredibly slow, which must be taken into account when devising your tactics. Because of their high bulk, centipedes are best at the front of defensive formations, blocking shots and dealing lots of crowd-relevant damage.

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^[1]	Target Chance^[2]	Subpart of	Capacity^[3]	Effect if Destroyed/Removed
First body ring	194.4	1	100%	14%	N/A^[4]	Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Head	129.6	1	15%	8.3%	First body ring	-	Death Will never take permanent injury.
Artificial brain	43.2	1	5%	0.75%	Head	Data Processing	Death Will never take permanent injury.
Sight sensor	43.2	2	8%	1.2%	Head	Sight	−25% Sight. −100% if both lost. Will never take permanent injury.
Hearing sensor	43.2	2	8%	1.2%	Head	Hearing	−25% Hearing. −100% if both lost. Will never take permanent injury.
Chemical analyzer	43.2	1	8%	1.2%	Head	-	Will never take permanent injury.
Second body ring	172.8	1	71%	11%	First body ring	Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Reactor	86.4	1	5%	3.6%	Second body ring	Power Generation	Death. Will never take permanent injury.
Third body ring	151.2	1	80%	11%	Second body ring	Moving Manipulation	Death −16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Fluid reprocessor	64.8	1	5%	2.80%	Third body ring	Fluid Reprocessing	Death if both lost −50% Fluid reprocessing Will never take permanent injury
Fourth body ring	129.6	1	75%	12%	Third body ring	Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Fluid reprocessor	64.8	1	6%	2.60%	Fourth body ring	Fluid Reprocessing	Death if both lost −50% Fluid reprocessing Will never take permanent injury
Fifth body ring	108	1	66%	14%	Fourth body ring	Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury
Sixth body ring	86.4	1	50%	14%	Fifth body ring	Moving Manipulation	−16.6% Moving −16.6% Manipulation Will never take permanent injury

↑ Coverage determines the chance to hit this body part. It refers to the percentage of the super-part that this part covers, before its own sub-parts claim their own percentage. For example, if the base coverage of the super-part is 100%, and the coverage of the part is 20%, 20% of hits would hit the part, and 80% the super-part. If the part had its own sub-part with 50% coverage, the chances would be 10% sub-part, 10% part, 80% super part.
↑ Target Chance is the actual chance for each part to be be selected as the target when each part's coverage has been taken into account(I.E. Neck covers 7.5% of Torso but Head covers 80% of Neck so it actually has only a 1.5% chance to be selected). This is not pure hit chance, as different damage types propagate damage in different ways. See that page for details.
↑ Note that capacities can affect other capacities in turn. Only the primary effect is listed. See specific pages for details.
↑ This is the part that everything else connects to to be considered 'connected'.

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 sourec.

Version history

0.4.460 - Added
? - 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, and 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

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

[1] Coverage determines the chance to hit this body part. It refers to the percentage of the super-part that this part covers, before its own sub-parts claim their own percentage. For example, if the base coverage of the super-part is 100%, and the coverage of the part is 20%, 20% of hits would hit the part, and 80% the super-part. If the part had its own sub-part with 50% coverage, the chances would be 10% sub-part, 10% part, 80% super part.

[2] Target Chance is the actual chance for each part to be be selected as the target when each part's coverage has been taken into account(I.E. Neck covers 7.5% of Torso but Head covers 80% of Neck so it actually has only a 1.5% chance to be selected). This is not pure hit chance, as different damage types propagate damage in different ways. See that page for details.

[3] Note that capacities can affect other capacities in turn. Only the primary effect is listed. See specific pages for details.

[4] This is the part that everything else connects to to be considered 'connected'.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

Centipede

Contents

Summary

As an enemy

Combat

Armor

As an ally

Analysis

As an enemy

As an ally

Health

Biology

Diet

Version history

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