AI War:Spider Bot

Extremely effective at damaging the engines of enemy ships.

Base Stats

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Ship Cap	Ammo Type	Armor Type	Immunities	Damage Bonuses
192	Shell	Light		6 Light, 6 Swarmer, 6 Ultra-Light, 6 Close-Combat

Mark	Damage	Attack Range	Reload	Health	Armor	Speed	Engine Health	Single Ship DPS	Ship Cap DPS	Ship Cap HP	Abilities
I	20	10,000	5 sec	510	1	72	100	4 dmg/sec	768 dmg/sec	97,920	Engine Damage 60
II	40	10,000	5 sec	1,020	3	72	100	8 dmg/sec	1,536 dmg/sec	195,840	Engine Damage 120
III	62	10,000	5 sec	1,540	4	72	100	12 dmg/sec	2,381 dmg/sec	295,680	Engine Damage 180
IV	82	10,000	5 sec	2,050	6	72	100	16 dmg/sec	3,149 dmg/sec	393,600	Engine Damage 240
V	102	10,000	5 sec	2,550	7	72	100	20 dmg/sec	3,917 dmg/sec	489,600	Engine Damage 300

Mark	Knowledge	Metal Cost	Crystal Cost	Total Cost	Energy Cost	Build Time	Cap Metal Cost	Cap Crystal Cost	Cap Total Cost	Cap Energy Cost	Cap Build Time
I	--	0	240	240	30	00:00:02	0	23,040	23,040	2,880	00:03:12
II	2,500	0	500	500	60	00:00:05	0	48,000	48,000	5,760	00:08:00
III	4,000	0	1,000	1,000	60	00:00:09	0	96,000	96,000	5,760	00:14:24
IV	Adv Fac	0	1,500	1,500	60	00:00:13	0	144,000	144,000	5,760	00:20:48
V	Core Fab	0	2,000	2,000	60	00:00:17	0	192,000	192,000	5,760	00:27:12

Note: Spider Mk V used to be called the Anti-Starship Arachnid (patch 5.027)

How to use in your fleet

Engine damage is one of the less common aspect of AI-war gameplay. A Ship's base speed is determined by a ratio of their engine health over max-health, with a minimum of 1.

Spider Bots are capable of first-strike against many ship-types and stop them from making any more progress into your territory. This is very useful when planning defenses in which AI ships have to travel a large distance to reach their targets, especially in combination with the teleporting attack of Military Command Stations. With a cap of Spider-I plus Spider-IIs and a reload of 5 seconds, a player can theoretically completely disable early waves within a minute (a different targeting algorithm is in place, although this assertion should be tested). A volley or two should also disable the engines of an average starship or guardian. As engine health does not rise with mark-level, a full complement of Spider Bots will just as easily stop that core Raid-Engine wave as a mark-I wave.

NB: The ship-type distributions being random, engine damage actually decreases in utility with the addition of Neinzul and Spire expansions. A v5.029 non-comprehensive engine health list is included here:

• Inf (immune) - Raid Starships, melee ships, teleporting ships, Snipers, Neinzul ships, and all Neinzul Enclave Starships.
• 600,000 - Spire Destroyer.
• 300,000 - Bomber Starships, Riot Control Starships-III (10,000*Mark), Spire Frigate
• 100,000 - Many Starships, most Guardians, Spire fleet-ships, AI-Neinzul Hybrids
• 3,000 - Plasma Siege Starships
• 2000 - Zenith Electric Bombers
• 1000 - Sentinel Frigates
• 800 - Etherjets, Zenith Chameleons
• 200 - Fighters, Bombers, Tachyon Microfighters, Space Tanks, Space Planes
• 150 - Armor Ships
• 100 - Other fleet-ships, Zenith Auto Bombs(!), Decloakers
• 50 - Raptors

How to counter when in the AI fleet

Enemy Spider Bots are generally annoying, being pernicious enough to disable a small bunch of your fleet across every planet. Aside from emphasising ship-types which are resistant or immune, best practice is to send in a squad of Engineer-IIIs on FRD (engine damage can be repaired just like health damage).

Ironically, their own engines can be readily disabled by your own ships.

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