Diabolus

Diabolus

An ultra-heavy mechanoid with an ultra-powerful hellsphere cannon. Made for siegebreaking, its hellsphere cannon takes time to charge up a shot, but can melt concrete and vaporize bone. The diabolus dissipates the hellsphere cannon's waste power in a heat column mounted on its back, which can pulse to ignite flammable objects nearby.
This mech's name comes from a thousand-year-old poem written by a Haspian monk who survived the erasure of his monastery. His religiously-tinged work describes a razor-bodied fiend pulsing with flesh-searing heat as it crushed scorched bodies under massive claws. The few who have faced a diabolus and survived tend to agree with this depiction.

Base Stats

Type

Mechanoid

Market Value

1600 

Flammability

0%

Armor

Armor - Sharp

75%

Armor - Blunt

25%

Armor - Heat

200%

Pawn Stats

Move Speed

2.4 c/s

Health Scale

450% HP

Body Size

4

Mass

240 kg

Pack Capacity

140 kg

Carrying Capacity

300 kg

Filth Rate

1

Comfortable Temp Range

-100 °C – 250 °C (-148 °F – 482 °F)

Melee Combat

Attack

Head
18 dmg (Blunt)
27 % AP
2.6 second cooldown

Average DPS

4.29

Creation

Crafted At

Required Research

High mechtech

Resources to make

300 + 300 + 2 + 1

Technical

weaponTags

HellsphereCannonGun

A Diabolus is a mechanoid added by the Biotech DLC.

Summary

As mechanoids, every diabolus 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).

Diaboluses have a 60% EMP resistance, meaning they are stunned for 60% less time.

As an enemy

You can summon a hostile Diabolus with a mechanitor and a powered comms console. Therefore, summoning one requires the Microelectronics research. However, they are not exclusive to summoning, as strong enough mechanoid raids may feature one or even multiple.

When summoned, it will be accompanied by other mechanoids. The amount of other mechanoids depends on how many times you have summoned a Diabolus before, but is independent of wealth, time, or colony progress. Eventually, you'll have to face multiple Diaboluses at the same time. They will crash down in a ship after a random amount of time ranging from a few in game hours to days. They will not attack immediately, but will instead act like a raid and "prepare" before launching their assault. At the moment, it seems that the maximum size is reached after summoning Diabolus 8 times.

Defeating a hostile Diabolus rewards the player with a signal chip. Studying one is required to research Standard Mechtech, and they can also be used to create various mechanitor gear, or even your own Diabolus.

Combat

An enemy Diabolus alternates between two long range attacks:

1. Hellsphere cannon. When using this attack, Diabolus will create a red circle around a target. After several seconds^[Details], the circle explodes, leaving a large circle (radius 4.9) of fire. The radius of the blast is a bit larger than the circle, so you may want to err on the side of caution. Thankfully, it only has a range of 19 tiles, and can't be used too close^[Details]. Unlike other ranged weapons, once initialized it will continue to be fire, even if the Diabolus is engaged in melee in the meantime. Engaging in melee will prevent future shots being initialized, but will trigger the flame burst discussed below.

• It deals 800 Vaporizing damage, which is increased to 3200 damage against impassable structures, and has 100% accuracy at all ranges^[Cover?]. It calculates hits using the target's heat armor, but also has a massive 100% AP, meaning extremely few pieces of armor have any hope of stopping it. In ideal circumstances, a pawn has only a 72% chance of surviving a shot to the torso.

2. Charge blaster turret. This fires a single shot, at long range and for relatively low damage, but with almost no startup time. It can be fired while moving. Cover is useful, assuming the Hellsphere Cannon isn't aimed at it.

When engaged in melee, the Diabolus will trigger a special ability. It surrounds itself in explosive fluids and then ignites them creating a massive fireball around it. This attack deals heavy damage, and there is almost no time to disengage and run to safety.^[Details]

An enemy Diabolus won't actively try to breach walls, although it will destroy buildings and objects if no pawns are accessible.

Summoning:

1. 1x Diabolus, 3x militor
2. 1x Diabolus, 4x militor, 2x pikeman
3. 1x Diabolus with heavy shield unit, 7x militor, 2x pikeman, 1x tesseron
4. 2x Diabolus with heavy shield unit, 10x militor, 3x legionary, 1x centurion
5. 2x Diabolus with heavy shield unit, 10x militor, 5x scyther, 3x centipede (gunner)
6. 2x Diabolus with heavy shield unit, 15x militor, 8x pikeman, 4x centipede (gunner), 1x centurion
7. 2x Diabolus with heavy shield unit, 15x militor, 10x lancer, 5x centipede (gunner)
8. 3x Diabolus with heavy shield unit, 15x militor, 10x tesseron, 6x centipede (gunner), 1x centurion

Like the other mechanoid bosses, after being summoned 8 times, the next summon will be the same as wave 3. The wave count is per playthrough, not per colony or map.^{[Archonexus?]} If the Diabolus is summoned once on one map, summoning another on a second map will bring the second wave.

As an ally

The Diabolus is an ultra-heavy mechanoid, and require High Mechtech to be researched.

They can be created from a large mech gestator with  300 Steel,  300 Plasteel,  2 Signal chips,  1 High subcore, taking up 5 bandwidth from a mechanitor. After taking a small amonut of work to craft, it must gestate for 12 cycles to form. They recharge in a large mech recharger, creating 25 wastepacks whenever the recharger's waste is filled up.

In combat, the Diabolus will automatically use their pulse turret, unless disabled. They will automatically aim the hellsphere cannon, though it has a limited range, can't be used too close, and still takes a long time to charge up. However, it can be used even if attacked in melee range. The cannon will still light the terrain on fire and will destroy structures. They may also initiate a flame burst, which takes 3 seconds to warm up and cannot be used for 1 hour afterwards.

Analysis

As an enemy

Kiting and spreading out is key to taking out the Diabolus. The biggest threat is by far its Hellsphere cannon, which can instakill almost anyone and anything. For reference, a pawn with the Tough trait, Fire resistant gene, a legendary Devilstrand Duster, Formal vest / Corset, and Button down shirt still has a 28% of immediately dying from torso damage. Players should instead prioritize avoiding the shot in any way possible, either by moving pawns out of the way, staying out of range, or by being too close to target with the cannon.

With fire vulnerable pawns, it is highly advised to NOT use melee attacks to avoid the close-ranged burst. Sufficient fire protection (devilstrand clothing, phoenix armor , impids's fire resistance) can help tank the flames, and your own mechanoids are completely immune to fire. Firefoam makes your pawns immune to being lit on fire, but heat damage still applies.

If melee isn't an option, you should instead manually move pawns away from the blast radius, always allowing yourself the option to move. Split up your pawns, which will allow more of them to focus on shooting instead of running. You can even use your own militors to lure the cannon or flame burst; their range is short enough to justify staying close, anyway. It only has 1 non-flame attack, so even a cleansweeper can stall for some time.

Be extra careful about fire; if not from the diabolus' blasts, then from the wildfires caused by them, or by the tesserons alongside it. Pawns lit on fire can't be controlled, so you can't order them out of the blast range, which is nearly certain to be fatal. Also be wary of the Fleeing Fire mental break, caused by being a child or having the pyrophobia gene; while short, it is still just as dangerous with a diabolus. A firefoam pop pack is very helpful.

Despite their resistance, diaboluses are still vulnerable to EMP attacks. However because of the EMPs reduced uptime, you may want to use EMP damage tactically. Stunning the diabolus interrupts the hellsphere cannon, so EMPs can be timed to prevent the cannon from firing and potentially save a pawn's life. If the diabolus is still adapted while firing, and therefore temporarily immune to further EMP stuns, then this strategy cannot be used. EMP should thus be used sparingly, rather than fired at will.

• Once diaboluses spawn with shields, it is often better to use EMPs to break the shield rather than interrupt a blast. This will kill the diabolus faster, which prevents more hellsphere shots overall.

When you should fight

The first diabolus battle is a major hurdle for any mechanitor. For a solo mechanitor playthrough, a mechanitor armed with an assault rifle, 4-5 militors, and a small crew of labor mechs like agrihands are enough to take out the first diabolus, with the following strategies:

• Spread out. Have each militor close enough to the diabolus, and labor mechs very close/in melee range. Ideally, only 1 mech is in the hellsphere blast at a time.
• Have your mechanitor & militors focus fire each enemy militor until they die. The faster the small mechs die, the less damage you'll sustain. Have labor mechs melee seperate targets, so that they each don't fire.
• With the diabolus inefficiently firing hellspheres / flame bursts at your mechnoids, take it down. The pulse turret can still hurt, especially for the mechs, but it should die.

Alternatively, running the diabolus down 30-40 wood spike traps is enough to do the trick. A triple rocket launcher can be handy, but don't harm your own mechs!

With a multi-pawn colony, you can have each pawn wield a long-range weapon like the bolt-action rifle or assault rifle. Whenever you get into the hellsphere cannon's range, back off. You can combine this with the aformentioned mech strategies to be more successful. With just the pulse turret to worry about, the diabolus becomes about as strong as 2 pikemen.

As an ally

Slow and with a little more health & armor than a centipede, diaboluses are best used against stationary threats like sieges, mech clusters, and other mech commanders.

Watch out for the hellsphere cannon accidentally destroying items, including the chips dropped by all 3 mechanoid commanders.

Health

Specify body type when known.

Body part	Health
Head	113
Skull	113
Brain	45
Nose	45
Neck	113
Jaw	90
Eye (left, right)	45
Ear (left, right)	45
Body	180
Kidney (left, right)	68
Lung (left, right)	68
Liver	90
Heart	68
Spine	113
Stomach	90
Limbs (left, right, fore, hind)	135
Appendage (left, right, fore, hind)	90

Version history

• Biotech DLC Release - Added.
• 1.4.3531 - Increased EMP resistance from 30% to 60%.
• 1.4.3555 - Now immune to psychic lances.

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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