Lancer

Lancers are a type of fast-moving mechanoid, with strong mid-long range firepower.

Summary

As mechanoids, every lancer 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).

Dead lancers may be shredded at a machining table or crafting spot for 15 steel, though these values are affected by mechanoid shredding efficiency as well as any missing parts on the lancer.

As an enemy

Mechanoids can raid the player's base through events, and are found in most poison ships, psychic ships, and mech clusters.

Lancers are fast-moving attackers. They will seek out colonists until they can fire, in which they will stay at maximum range to fire. While defending stationary threat (like a psychic ship), mechanoids will only continue to case if a colonist is a close enough. They will not move around to seek cover, or avoid incoming fighters. They tend to run ahead of slower mechanoids like centipedes, and won't stop to catch up. Their armor is not especially good, so lancers aren't difficult to take out.

Combat

Lancers come equipped with the charge lance, which can deal 30 damage per hit from a range of over 29 tiles, making them a threatening foe.

Lancers have a shooting accuracy of 96%, equivalent to a pawn with a Shooting skill of 8. They have a melee hit chance of 62%, equivalent to a pawn with a Melee skill of 4.

Armor

Armor

As an ally

Main article: Mechanoid creation

Lancers are medium mechanoids, and require High Mechtech to be researched.

They are created from a large mech gestator with 75 Steel, 75 Plasteel, 4 Components, 1 Standard subcore, taking up 3 bandwidth from a mechanitor. They take 1,800 ticks (30 secs) to initally craft, and then it must gestate for 2 cycles. Mechanoids can be fully repaired at the cost of power and nothing else. A dead lancer can be resurrected for 50 steel and 1 gestation cycle so long as the corpse is extant.

Mechs under player control require power: lancers 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 (400W), for 50% power/day, creating 15 wastepacks whenever the recharger's waste is filled up.

Analysis

As an enemy

Main article: Defense tactics#Lancers

The DPS of a lancer might be weak compared to a centipede or scyther, but their slow-firing charge lance deals tremendous one-shot damage, enough to take out exposed limbs and organs in 1 hit. They don't fire very often, but when they do, it hurts.

Lancers are vulnerable to spike traps, with only a few required to kill them. They should be priority targets during the early game, as your pawns will likely lack armor to prevent dismemberment.

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

As an ally

Lancers are analagous to human colonists. They move at similar speeds (and are slightly faster), have a similar health, and even use a human weapon. While they don't have quite the same firepower as a centipede (let alone bulk), lancers move much faster, allowing them to be used in strategies alongside ordinary colonists. As a lancer feels no pain and is easily repaired, they should be on the frontlines, and can be used in generally riskier positions than their organic counterparts.

Tesserons are another ranged, fast, medium-size mechanoid. Lancers are better against high armored targets, like other mechanoids, or when targets arrive in low numbers: whenever seperated, killed quickly in a killbox, or when their actual quantity is low. Meanwhile, a tesseron's beam graser excels at hitting clumped up groups, such as tribals. The legionary is another fast mechanoid, but is clearly meant for shield utility rather than raw combat.

Health

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

Player lancers can be recharged with regular power. However, enemy mechanoids don't require power at all, and even gestated variants can get "free" power when entering dormancy. It is unknown where their power comes from.

Body Parts (Summary)

Lancers, 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)^[1]	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)

↑ 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.

Trivia

A real life “Lancer” is a soldier who is armed with a Lance, and while the Lancer isn’t armed with a traditional lance, the charge lance variant they wield gives them their “Lancer” status.

Gallery

Age 0-99 Lancer facing east
Age 0-99 Lancer facing north
Age 0-99 Lancer facing south

Age 100+ Lancer facing east
Age 100+ Lancer facing north
Age 100+ Lancer facing south

Version history

In 1.1 they now have 200% heat armor, essentially making them completely immune to fire damage. Since the charge lance was nerfed, they also suffered from a range reduction.
1.4.3555 - Bandwidth cost increased from 2 to 3.

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.

[1]

Lancer

Contents

Summary

As an enemy

Combat

Armor

As an ally

Analysis

As an enemy

As an ally

Health

Biology

Diet

Body Parts (Summary)

Trivia

Gallery

Version history

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