Bloodmantis

[zapkitty]

Bloodmantis

First appearing some time after humans begin deploying homegrown alien tech gear and stunning weapons,  this creature is actually a heavily upgraded version of the bloodspider robot... but the resemblance to the terrestrial praying mantis is such as to cause the few surviving witnesses to wonder just how closely the aliens are studying other forms of life on Earth besides humans.

Structure: The bloodmantis is based on a larger, elongated version of the bloodspider chassis supported on four limbs near the front with an additional elongated body segment rearing up from above the front area where the harvested organs are stored. This near-vertical segment has a pair of "arms" near the top and is capped off with a triangular "head" equipped with variety of sensors.

To be clear, the harvested biomass is still stored in the front of the main section just as with the bloodspider so the apparent "mouth" would be where the two segments join. The upper segment "arms" and "head" mount weapons and sensors respectively.

(Stephen King, I've learned much from you... )

Weapons: 

Bloodsabre: The two "arms" each terminate in a sizable curved monomolecular blade and the blades can fold back against the "forearms" in a manner very akin to its terrestrial counterpart, but that's also where the bloodmantis sports a nasty surprise...

Shocker Gun: ...  unlike the earthly mantis this folding action exposes the muzzles of a pair of electromagnetic projectile weapons buried in the "wrists" of the bloodmantis. These weapons hurl beads constructed of alien materials that are essentially flying Leyden jars... small capacitors charged up as they are fired from the weapon and delivering a stunning shock when they hit a target. The bloodmantis can adjust the strength of the charge imparted to each bead and thus can vary the shock as needed... from stunning a pesky Phalanx trooper to incapacitating a pesky Phalanx UGV.

And the bloodmantis is smart... it won't waste its beads on civilians when there are enemy combatants in the area.

Armed, armored and much tougher than the bloodspider... but has anyone got a better name for it than "bloodmantis"?

[Hertzila]

Overall I like it. I'm not sure if the aliens would follow the theme of researching Earths bugs but who knows what they'll do. Also this could be scary as hell. Not as scary as a huge bloodspider perhaps but scary nonetheless. PHALANX would not mind it but a lot of the civilians would.

About its smartness, I remember reading from some topic that the XVI can control robots too if there is a biological part present. That's how they would use theirs so calling just another hiveminder (with no actual brain) smart might not be absolutely correct. Just as a FYI.

Wouldn't those shockers be somewhat useless against armor? At least I've understood that PHALANX uses armor made mostly out of non-conductive stuff.

[zapkitty]

Overall I like it. I'm not sure if the aliens would follow the theme of researching Earths bugs but who knows what they'll do. Also this could be scary as hell. Not as scary as a huge bloodspider perhaps but scary nonetheless. PHALANX would not mind it but a lot of the civilians would.

... or maybe the design is a coincidence?... or perhaps an alien saw a mantis during a raid and the hive remembered it while drawing up the new 'bot?... mysterious aliens are mysterious...

About its smartness, I remember reading from some topic that the XVI can control robots too if there is a biological part present. That's how they would use theirs so calling just another hiveminder (with no actual brain) smart might not be absolutely correct. Just as a FYI.

Well, the point is that the mantis doesn't want to make the Phalanx job any easier by stunning civilians during a battlescape encounter. The rationale for it not doing that is that the mantis is concentrating on enemy units with offensive capabilities... although it undoubtedly will be happy to disassemble any civilian that gets close during the fight.

Wouldn't those shockers be somewhat useless against armor? At least I've understood that PHALANX uses armor made mostly out of non-conductive stuff.

Nope. Even Phalanx electrical weapons can take out troops in nanocomposite armor... and the alien version would be much more powerful. Powerful enough to incapacitate a UGV at full charge.

Armor definitely helps, but in-game it does not confer electrical immunity.

[Sgt. Hatter]

I dunno about this one.  While I like the idea of additional alien races and types, I can't see this one doing anything that the bloodspider doesn't, tactically speaking.

From a fluff standpoint, there's no reason for the aliens to take humans alive.  Once they develop XVI-H and are capable of subjecting humanity to the XVI hivemind by infecting them with it, this alien type would become largely irrelevant.  Why build a mantisbot when you could just modify a needler to fire XVI-H injectors?

[Hertzila]

From a fluff standpoint, there's no reason for the aliens to take humans alive.  Once they develop XVI-H and are capable of subjecting humanity to the XVI hivemind by infecting them with it, this alien type would become largely irrelevant.  Why build a mantisbot when you could just modify a needler to fire XVI-H injectors?

IIRC the XVI will still have problems infecting humans due to our immune system, so it requires a substansial blood replacement/transfusion to work. Otherwise I don't see the point in another robot designed to infect people by the aforementioned blood. This is also the place where I picked up the "XVI-controlled robots".

[Sgt. Hatter]

IIRC the XVI will still have problems infecting humans due to our immune system, so it requires a substansial blood replacement/transfusion to work.

I read the Wiki entry on The Enemy On Earth, A New Twist (early), A New Twist (late), and The Alien Strategy.

Not much is said about how much of XVI-infected blood is necessary, but this...

We don't yet know how the infection takes root, but even a few of these organisms entering the bloodstream may be enough to infect and enslave an individual entirely

... seems to indicate that XVI is quite virulent.  That's supported by this...

The infection spreads by the direct injection of infected blood into a new host. The organism fools the victim's immune system long enough to settle in the victim's bone marrow, where it starts to change all newly-created defensive cells to ignore XVI and destroy the old defensive cells.

This results in a feeling of extreme illness for the victim, lasting anywhere between 30 seconds and 30 minutes, depending on the severity of infection. This period is marked by severe vomiting, erratic behaviour, and discolouration of the skin in the form of red and grey blotches. Eventually the skin will turn entirely pink-grey as XVI eliminates the remnants of the old immune system.

... which seems to indicate that XVI is not only capable of hiding from the immune system of its host, but also attacks the immune system by reprogramming it to self-destruct.

Then there's this article...

Samples will only need to be as large as a single drop of blood, taken from a random vein to prevent tampering. Fortunately the XVI organism is large and prevalent enough that we can test these samples on the spot with near-100%-confidence results.

Which indicates that even a small amount of blood is likely to contain lots of XVI.  So while many of the organism's cells may be needed to begin an infection, the amount of blood needed to deliver a successful infection might not be much, since the virus is so prolific within any given sample.

Of course, word of God has the final say on the matter.

[zapkitty]

So, addressing the various and salient points raised:

It seemed to me that the aliens were still gathering biomass and thus tweaking the human version of XVI until very late in the game, at least so far... as the game is naturally still incomplete

As for the why of the mantis... there are arrays of robotic allies and enemies that have yet to be brought into the fray and I'm just examining what might be upgrade paths for the aliens along the way. Thus the mantis is the bloodspider... upgraded. With guns

And I believe the guns will make a tactical difference, especially when the Phalanx UGVs join the party. And unless a way to revive stunned Phalanx troopers in the battlescape arises *(you can't do that yet, right?) there's no difference between stunning and killing them, tactically speaking.

So those are my wandering thoughts, presented for inspection and dissection

[Sgt. Hatter]

And I believe the guns will make a tactical difference, especially when the Phalanx UGVs join the party. And unless a way to revive stunned Phalanx troopers in the battlescape arises *(you can't do that yet, right?) there's no difference between stunning and killing them, tactically speaking.

The Medikit is supposed to be able to revive stunned troopers, or at least those that succumb to CHOKE gas.  From the wiki...

It is however recommended that our troops be kept away from any deployed CHOKE at all times. If one of our troops does manage to come into contact with it, we've loaded our medikits with the appropriate drugs to treat and revive.

Now, whether they actually do in-game is another matter entirely.  I don't know the answer to that yet.

When it comes to recording damage to a character, I'm not quite sure if the game makes the distinction between stun damage from gas and stun damage from electric sources.  The answer's probably "no" - I know armor makes the distinction in regards to protection, but once past the armor, stun damage is stun damage, from what I can tell.  Those in the know are welcome to correct me if I'm wrong.

If I'm right, though, then a medikit should (eventually, if it doesn't already) have the ability to revive any soldier downed by stun damage, regardless of the source.