Abilities Lost: Corrosive Acid, Long Range Sight, Bombard, Acid Spray, Acid Shroud
This new strain of the boiler focuses on extreme distance attacks at the cost of extreme vulnerability in the face of close combat. The Artillerist strain loses much of the boiler’s acid and neurotoxin capabilities, and instead gains two new tails. One tail is capable of extreme tensile strength and the other acts as a burrowing fulcrum/anchor.
New Ability: Dig In
The Artillerist must dig into the spot they wish to fire from. Their second tail will clear ground underneath them, which they will burrow down into to stabilize themselves. This renders them immobile. Due to hunkering down, they gain a slight amount of armor. If the Artillerist wishes to move, they have to use the ability again to dig themselves up, which can take some time. Alternatively, the Artillerist can rip themselves up from the ground, ripping their burrowing tail off in the process. They must wait 5 minutes for it to regenerate and take a sizeable chunk of damage when doing so.
New Ability: Toggle Extreme-Distance Sight
A modification of the base strain’s sight, the Artillerist can see much more at longer ranges than the standard boiler. They gain a Queen Eye-like viewing mob that’s anchored a screen and a half away from their current position. Their eye can only move 4 tiles away from the tile it spawns on, creating a 5 x 5 tile box they can look around through.
Obviously, as the Artillerist’s vision will be so far away, they will be incapable of perceiving their nearby surroundings, leaving them vulnerable to flanks.
New Ability: Hurl
The Artillerist collects a stone from its surroundings and loads it into its primary tail. After a windup, the Artillerist hurls the stone and its selected tile. As it is not a explosive shell or boiler glob, the boulder does most of its damage on the tile it lands on, spitting out stone sharpnel in a 3 by 3 on the point of impact. Instead of traveling over the screen, it comes down with the same animation system in use by the mortar and OB systems. Due to the nature of this ability, it has to respect ceiling protections, with the same penetration as the mortar.
Due to the windup and minimum splash, it will be difficult to target moving targets with hurl, making it primarily useful for destroying static emplacements or fortifications. Though if you get lucky and nail someone with the boulder, they better be wearing their helmet!
New Ability: Stone Throw
Not nearly as powerful as its hurling ability, the Artillerist can also pick up smaller stones and throw them at nearby targets when not dug in. Primarily, this ability is a secondary ranged option when the terrain would not allow for hurling. This stone projectile moves fast and packs some wallop, but doesn’t carry the same near-lethal consequences as hurled stones. It has a much shorter windup.
All in all, the Artillerist is a long-distance artillery unit for the Hive that focuses on heavy, direct damage to small areas as opposed to the boiler’s medium range AoE gas attacks.