Enemy Units
MasochistHistory What did the colonists think and feel when they first saw one of these things approach their homes. Surprise? Fear? Wonder? The unknown knocking on their doorstep and the promise of something else. Then the pain, destruction and senseless death. These people were not soldiers, they were families. And this thing is not an exotic alien ship, it's a killer. - Journal of Thomas Husk, Captain of the Carpathia Strategy Beware of relying on towers with long reloads such as Particle Lasers and Minos Cannons, especially as they can overkill the same Masochist. Reinforcements, Milton and Lure are also excellent ways of helping your defenses against Masochists. CapacitorHistory And then there is the pattern of behavior these units demonstrate. It is obvious that whatever intelligence is sending these is doing so with no intention of self-preservation. They are small and fast enough to get past our interceptors and rush the colony. Some small mercy is the weapon they possess, which I suspect is just a modified EM projector of some kind. It is not very damaging, but can still kill multiple humans in one shot, electrifying walls and floors. - Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy ReaperHistory Reaper unit's construction is simple yet rugged. No EM shielding. Minimal armor plating. Redundancies are built to maintain main weapon functionality. Main weapon is a type of energy "particle lance" which has similarities to some of our plasma systems. Details of this will be transmitted back to Darius Robotics. Metallurgical analysis inconclusive, as with most units. Tactical recommendation: Ensure destruction before given chance to swarm assets. - Milton_Carpathia_pc3 // Heuristic Analysis // 1dadc62772a5f6684e41cd6bfae9f978 Strategy ScarabHistory Tactical recommendation: Advise higher firepower concentration before swarms reach mission critical assets. Updating report for Darius Robotics. Analysis continues. - Milton_Carpathia_pc3 // Heuristic Analysis // 9d51bb99655fb416d853875b21534f6a Strategy MartyrHistory Of course, it would be great if we could reverse engineer one of the units. Our universal constructors could create something of a similar build quality. Except, there are two problems. The first is the complexity of the picoscale components means that they are inevitably damaged beyond recovery in every wreck so far. Second, we are missing some exotic components that I have not yet identified. What we have recovered Milton has encrypted and already forwarded to Darius Robotics. I feel no shame in admitting that I envy whoever gets one of these devices working. -Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy DestructorHistory Primary objective to eliminate hostile before entering range of assets. Secondary objective to capture or recovery intact unit for study. Plasma weaponry of interest to Darius Robotics. Analysis continues. - Milton_Carpathia_pc3 // Heuristic Analysis // ab179b9743d389ebee2870de2698e065 Strategy Corrupted HealerHistory It is posthuman. At least, I am pretty sure it was posthuman. This type of gravity-channeling and the repair systems being used were something I remember seeing during the program. Very different from the other units. My theory is that these were Persephone's that she either brought with her or built when the invasion started. Whatever we are fighting got hold of them and reprogrammed them. At least, that's the only logical conclusion, even if the computer systems were not fried, I am not going to risk plugging it into even a quarantined system on the Carpathia. One last thing I noticed is the jury-rigging of a weapons system on it. Not intended to fit on the chassis and probably not a real threat by itself. The real problem with these things is their ability to restore ablative armor almost instantaneously using a nanite stream from an onboard constructor module. - Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy Falling StarHistory - Unknown colonist log from the last day of Ciacco colony Strategy Alternatively, using Ion Disrupters to disable their shields next to a Corrosion Mortar works very well as the damage-over-time causes the Falling Star to detonate safely out of range of your defenses. EradicatorHistory - Exert from the Journal of Post-Human Weaponmaster Archimedes Strategy Ion Disrupters, Nova Cannons or an upgraded EMP blast will drop their shields and leave them vulnerable to attack. Alternatively, stacking Pulse Cannons can ignore their shields and destroy the hull directly. Hooded TurbineHistory Fortunately, this is where Milton's constructs can help. The current working strategy is to keep them bottled up when they attack. With enough EMP damage their shields do eventually fall and at that point we can take them out. The bigger impact is psychological. Some of our gunners are getting jumpy about these things. - Journal of Thomas Husk, Captain of the Carpathia Strategy The Colony Pulse upgrade is also very useful incase Pulse Cannons are unable to fully destroy them. Combining both Corrosion Mortars with an Ion Disrupter is an excellent pair for high damage-over-time while the shield has been depleted. Mobile NullifierHistory The mobile nullifiers use what, for the sake of the captain, can be understood as jammers. They block all our orbital tactical tools, even Milton is not able to get past it with a submind. How it does that is the interesting part of that. My working theory is a kind of localized quantum waveform resonance that counters non-localized entanglement. On the bright side this has a debilitating effect on induced gravity meaning that the nullifiers are slow to move. - Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy Rolling HiveHistory The Hive itself is a highly armored and shielded deployment platform designed to allow our enemies to launch air assaults to and from any location. - Exert from the Journal of Post-Human Weaponmaster Archimedes Strategy When attempting to counter the Wasp's be careful because their path will change over time as the Hive moves. Flak cannons are a cheap and reliable way to take out the relatively weak Wasps, and the wide area of effect of their attacks handles large numbers of Wasp's better. But the Falcon's limited range means that as the Hive moves, they may not be able to target the Wasp's any longer. Icarus SAM's longer range will allow them to be more forgiving of the Hives movement, but they will be overwhelmed if too many Hives are producing Wasps at once. Rail Guns without the Shotgun upgrade are also a cheap way of killing small numbers of Wasps as they spawn. Floating FactoryHistory If Milton and Polina are right these things are using a universal constructor. Not that having a UC explains how these things are getting all their resources for building things. It took far too long for us to notice that the invaders we were seeing had come from in front of the line. Just one of these things damn near built an entire swarm for itself before we could redeploy the Carpathia's emergency turrets. Now all I can think about is what other surprises do our friends have for us come the morn. - Journal of Thomas Husk, Captain of the Carpathia Strategy TaskmasterHistory The main difference between these and the other units are of course what it uses its energy stores for. A quad multi-gimbled array at the fore of the construct creates a specially attuned channel of energy between it and its targets. It supplements the energy reserves in other units, allowing them to maintain weapons and defensive systems whilst increasing power to the gravity-channeling engine pads. Sadly, the scarcity of these units has hampered our ability to glean more. Although with some time I think we can reverse engineer the principle mechanism they use, perhaps even modifying some components from the recovered capacitors. Maybe Husk will sign off on a little side project. It is even possible we could learn how to transfer more power to our own turrets from the Carpathia. Just need to be cautious of increased equipment degradation. - Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy Clutch of EggsHistory Deviating from their use of gravity channeling this unit's appendages are quite something. Instead of servos and traditional mechanical engineering they use a kind of synthetic musculature with ligaments. Nothing biological but certainly trying to mimic something naturally evolved as close as is possible. This is also technology similar to what Darius Robotics already possesses but I am sure our superiors will want samples which we have taken for future study. - Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy HatchlingHistory Instead of a plasma weapon or just robotic mandibles, the hatchlings have a kind of acidic bile chamber in their abdomen. More amazingly the corrosive being produced in this… component… organ? I am going with organ. Anyway, it is biological but produced by these incredibly productive microbes, not unlike stomach bacteria, except they make this bile substance. I am no xenobiologist but with the help of Milton we are learning more about these microbes on an almost hourly basis. These are engineered, but why? No definitive answers yet. I am going to consult Persephone's messages again. Maybe I missed something. - Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy HarridanHistory They seem content to leave our colonies alone as long as we stay away from their area, but are fiercely aggressive if we come too close. Oddly, all specimens examined so far have been male. - Notes of Dr. Vanessa "Persephone" Seo Strategy PunisherHistory Our turret teams are calling the "Punishers" bombers, but they are not strictly speaking bombers. They have radar and lidar suites positioned very clearly for horizontal, in flight, sensor input. It is all situational, but it looks like these are hybrid fighter/bomber units. Able to turn their weapons to other aircraft or ground targets. The question is, who are they fighting in the air? The colonists had nothing like that, not even an old MiG and with gravity channeling our friends here are far more maneuverable. Best working hypothesis? These were obviously not made for attacking us. So, whoever they are have been fighting some other war. And here I am with more questions than answers again. Who were they fighting? Why are they here killing civilians? What do they want? - Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy SparrowHistory Air-to-air capabilities unclear. Querying Darius Robotics restricted database confirms several options available. Milton construct adaptation also possible. Final advisement is to maximize anti-air capabilities to increase preservation hope for Carpathia and secondary colonial assets. - Milton_Carpathia_pc3 // Heuristic Analysis // ae6a29d140f193ac8b2a567a54eb4bbe Strategy HarbingerHistory Putting my team to task they have come up with some upgrades to our anti-air defenses. Hopefully our opponent's ability to field these things is limited. This is all going to damn slow and I get the feeling that Darius knew more than he was letting on about what we would be facing out here. A single ship, even one as armed as the Carpathia, is just not good enough. I know there were other colony ships we could have retrofitted, speed the evacuation along. What is he not telling me? - Journal of Thomas Husk, Captain of the Carpathia Strategy VultureHistory The crew has already started calling them "Vultures" and they've been taking out our turrets for the rest of their horde all day. Nasty little things. But it proves I'm right. They're toying with us. Why not attack us like this before? Why now? It's because we got confident, I got confident, and they reminded us of that. I won't leave people out in the field like that again. - Journal of Thomas Husk, Captain of the Carpathia Strategy Gliding CraneHistory Obviously, we tried to get some power into one of the engines and perform some limited tests. This did not go well. It tore free from its harness and nearly killed two people before the power feed disconnected. We now know these engines are more powerful than we first thought, but we are still need sometime to work out the right interface. - Except from the lab notes of Polina Zhukov Strategy OvermindHistory Tactical needs necessitate early engagement, focus on breaking heavy shielding and armor before target gets in range of vulnerable assets. Construct shell has significant function in this role. Advanced shielding technology is of interest in Darius Robotics. Secondary objective to recover intact generators from wrecks. Analysis continues. - Milton_Carpathia_pc3 // Heuristic Analysis // d8b2cc5e958ce2bd0bb2ce57a9cd09be Strategy RetributorHistory Our one advantage was that this thing is slow, real slow. Gave us time to hit it with everything we've got. Eventually a single strike from the Carpathia itself cracked the leviathan open. We must've hit something vital inside, a violent explosion sent a shockwave and shrapnel from its cracked armor. I dread to think what kind of damage it could and would have inflicted had it made to the shelters. - Journal of Thomas Husk, Captain of the Carpathia Strategy Nest of the QueenHistory The Nest of the Queen improves on this process by only teleporting raw materials. The Nest operates as a floating factory, creating complex structures out of the raw materials. In this design, reconstruction failures can be isolated to a few molecules of rejected material and signal failures may slow production, but don't impact the ships that are being created. The downside of this design is the enormous platform required to manufacture the ships. The Nest of the Queen is less a warship, and more of an industrial machine with a massive welding laser attached to the front. Originally this was intended to allow the Nest to mine resources on its own, though it works as well on buildings or other ships Strategy Heart of the PhoenixHistory - Phoenix possessed substantial armaments greater than all prior threats. Final transmission logged. Analysis concluded. Executing backup cycle. - Milton_Carpathia_pc3 // Heuristic Analysis // cda8baeee73088681d9c4be1ef0af316 Strategy Ensure it's not killed in range of only a few defenses and careful killing it with Disruption Beam else you may lack the firepower to take the Egg down before it respawns. Shields can be dropped with an Upgraded EMP and the Nova Cannon's Field Leak upgrade can also prove very useful as the Phoenix has fast regeneration. If the Phoenix is able to get past your defenses, use Temporal Shift to buy more time. |