Centipede gunner

Centipede gunners are a variant of centipede that wield a minigun.

Acquisition

Centipede gunners can be gestated by a mechanitor at a Large mech gestator once the High mechtech research project has been completed. They require 255 Steel, 255 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 gunners can also be resurrected at the large mech gestator using the "Resurrect heavy mechanoid" bill. This requires the corpse of the friendly Centipede gunner, 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

Centipede gunners are always equipped with a 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

Minigun setup with centipede gunners in front.
N.B. Likely needs more firepower.

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.

Centipede gunners are effectively an incredibly durable pawn with a minigun. They can be used alongside regular pawns if you were already using miniguns in the first place. Miniguns are great in a dedicated kill area, mowing down a crowd of raiders without worry for accuracy. In those cases, gunners add more firepower at little worry. The main disadvantage is that mechanoids can't wield higher quality weapons. If you find value in miniguns, you'll find value with a centipede gunner. Centipedes are also very slow, which can be troublesome against targets like breachers.

In theoretical DPS, it beats mechs like lancers and tesserons per bandwidth. However, the minigun has issues in practice. It has a long warmup cycle, and often "overkills" due to the 25-bullet burst. A gunner will have to aim and cooldown for the same time no matter how quick any single target dies. If bandwidth is not an issue, then lancers are generally better for DPS/material. Of course, in situations where miniguns are good (large, compact crowds), the centipede gunner is one of the best mechs, and beats anything smaller than it.

Comparisons - as an ally

Compared to other centipedes

Compared to centipede blasters, centipede gunners cost 100 plasteel less and are unlocked at High mechtech rather than Ultra mechtech. The minigun has ×66.6% the damage per shot, but has a firing cycle ×154.7% faster, and fires 1 more shot per cycle. In total, the minigun has slightly more raw DPS. The heavy charge blaster has a shorter warmup than the 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.

Version history

1.4.3523 - The base centipede, which could wield a charge blaster or 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 gunner

Contents

Acquisition

Summary

Combat

As an ally

Analysis

As an ally

Comparisons - as an ally

Compared to other centipedes

Compared to mech commanders

Version history

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