Centipede blaster

This article is about the mechanoid. For for the weapon that it carries, see heavy charge blaster.

Centipede blasters are a variant of centipede that wield the heavy charge blaster

Acquisition

Centipede blasters can be gestated by a mechanitor at a Large mech gestator once the Ultra mechtech research project has been completed. They require 255 Steel, 355 Plasteel, 8 Components, 1 High subcore and 6 gestation cycles taking 1,800 ticks (30 secs) each to initiate. They take up bandwidth from their linked mechanitor.

Dead, friendly centipede blasters can also be resurrected at the large mech gestator using the "Resurrect heavy mechanoid" bill. This requires the corpse of the friendly Centipede blaster, 100 steel, and 1 gestation cycle taking 1,800 ticks (30 secs) to initiate.

Summary

Main article: Centipede

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.

Centipedes have a Psychic Sensitivity of 75%, reducing the duration of certain psycasts. However, most other mechanoids have a psychic sensitivity of 50%, making centipedes more vulnerable than their contemporaries.

Combat

Centipedes are always equipped with a heavy charge blaster. It fires very similarly to a minigun, firing inaccurate but powerful spray of bullets. In comparison, the blaster has more AP and deals 50% more damage per shot, but has a much longer cooldown than the wieldable minigun. They 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. They have a melee hit chance of 62%, equivalent to a pawn with a Melee skill of 4.

As an ally

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

As an ally

In general, centipedes are the tanks of the mechanitor's arsenal - slow, with decent to great firepower, but incredibly bulky. This is due to 2 key factors:

High raw bulk. Centipedes have good armor, but a massive health scale of 4.32. Centipedes have much higher bulk than 4 bandwidth of any lighter mech combined, even considering the tunneler's shield belt.
Superior physiology. Most light mechs are bipedal, with 1 torso and 2 legs. Centipedes have 6 body rings, all with a roughly equal chance of being shot. While the head is more likely to be hit, due to its higher health scale, a single headshot won't kill a centipede like it would a lancer.

And like all mechanoids, centipedes are disposable - able to be repaired and resurrected for a rather cheap cost. A centipede placed in the front of your line can take a doomsday rocket launcher that would otherwise kill or dismember multiple colonists, and come out largely intact. While war queens may be better in the tank role, centipedes have "regular" armament. See the Comparisons section for more detail.

Comparisons (ally)

Compared to other centipedes

Compared to centipede gunners, blasters cost 100 plasteel more and are unlocked at Ultra mechtech. The heavy charge blaster has ×150% damage per shot, but fires bursts ×64.6% slower, and fires 1 less shot. Overall, the minigun actually has slightly more raw DPS. The blaster has a shorter warmup than minigun, but a much longer cooldown. In addition, the blaster is slightly more accurate and has +7% AP, but 4 tiles less range.

This results in the gunner having more sustained DPS than the blaster, while the blaster has a faster time to kill. In many killbox setups, time to kill can be very important. If all your colonists, armed with charge rifles, are generally killing raiders within the charge rifle's 60 ticks (1 sec) warmup time, then either centipede should only shoot if an enemy gets lucky and survives all your colonist's attacks. In this case, centipede blasters will be the preferred option, due to the lowered warm up and higher per-shot damage. In contrast, the gunner's higher average DPS is preferred if mechs are constantly firing, such as in the aforementioned minigun kill setups. For the same reasons, gunners are better when fighting outside of a killbox, like when against sappers and breachers.

Compared to mech commanders

War queens are more durable than any centipede, both in health and health per bandwidth. Centipedes have 77% the health and very slightly less armor (−3% Sharp / Blunt armor rating) than the war queen. This bulk is further bolstered by its war urchins, which can act as valuable distractions. If a doomsday rocket launcher is aimed at a war urchin, then little is lost. Centipedes are cheaper, require less research, and take 1 less bandwidth. They also come with (more) standard armament - which can be useful for its firepower. A possible niche is to use 1 war queen as a distraction, then have a squad of centipedes, with dual purpose of damage dealers and secondary tanks.

The diabolus has a radically different niche to the centipedes. Its hellsphere cannon can blow up your killbox, but can be an equally devasting weapon against your enemies. A diabolus is only slightly bulkier than a centipede. Therefore, you should build diaboli if its cannon is desired, or centipedes if the cannon is not desired.

Gallery

Age 0-99 Centipede blaster facing east
Age 0-99 Centipede blaster facing north
Age 0-99 Centipede blaster facing south

Age 100+ Centipede blaster facing east
Age 100+ Centipede blaster facing north
Age 100+ Centipede blaster facing south

Version history

1.4.3523 - The base centipede, which could wield both the charge blaster and inferno cannon, was split into blaster, burner, and gunner.
Biotech DLC - Introduced ability to create and control centipedes.

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

Centipede blaster

Contents

Acquisition

Summary

Combat

As an ally

Analysis

As an ally

Comparisons (ally)

Compared to other centipedes

Compared to mech commanders

Gallery

Version history

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