unit-navanax

Navanax is a heavy aquatic unit that appears in late-game encounters on Serpulo and archipelago-style maps. It combines four autonomous plasma laser turrets that "melt" nearby enemy targets with an EMP cannon that fires explosive, homing projectiles. The EMP both damages and applies a wide-area status that slows and electrifies powered enemy blocks and units, while also granting a large temporary speed boost to friendly powered blocks. Navanax is uniquely able to provide speed-up boosts to blocks and to slow enemy powered infrastructure.

Navanax is very durable and fast for a sea unit (armor listed at 16 in sources), allowing it to close on defenses quickly; its weapon suite is designed around short-to-mid range volleys rather than long-range sniping. The four laser mounts are continuous-beam types: they fire in four streams at an aggregate rate that deals 324 damage/sec (27 damage per tick at 12 ticks/sec) with incendiary and pierce properties and a small self-repair on hit. The laser beams cannot be manually aimed. The EMP cannon fires two projectiles at about 0.46/sec each (per launcher); each projectile deals 60 direct damage and 70 area damage, homes to the target position, electrifies targets for ~8 seconds, and has strong interactions with powered blocks (3× damage vs powered blocks: direct becomes 180, area 210) while dealing reduced damage to units. EMP blasts repair allied structures modestly and apply a repair-suppression field (25-tile range, 1.5s duration as of later builds), which also affects unit repair towers.

Because Plastanium Walls block the actual damage of both the lasers and EMP projectiles, placing a layer of Plastanium under stronger outer walls is an effective defensive measure; EMP projectiles are absorbed by Plastanium, preventing the large area damage to power-using blocks. Note, however, that the electrified status from EMP can still propagate through Plastanium Walls in some cases, reducing the firing/repair rates of attacking units and making menders and powered turrets behave much slower while under its effect. Phase Walls will not reflect the melting lasers but can reflect EMP projectiles; reflected EMPs will electrify the Phase Wall and nearby units due to homing behavior, which can be used defensively but also risks applying the debuff to your own structures.

Tactical notes and interactions:

• Use Navanax as a support/assault breaker when you need to suppress enemy menders and slow enemy powered defenses; its EMP can let higher-DPS units (Omura, Corvus) finish breaches more reliably by limiting repair and fire rates.
• Navanax excels at clearing swarms and reducing enemy output thanks to the electrified debuff (firerate multiplier around 0.7 reported), making it a strong defensive unit in late survival waves when placed in waterways.
• Its lasers deal massive short-range block damage, so avoid letting it reach outer walls; layered Plastanium defenses beneath stronger walls and concentrated blast/cryofluid-based close defenses (Swarmers, Cyclones with Tsunami support) are recommended counters.
• Navanax benefits friendly powered turrets and blocks (Foreshadow, Segment, Meltdown) by speeding them up; this can dramatically increase turret fire rates but requires the Navanax to be coastal and to land EMP hits on your own blocks, so positioning is critical.
• Boosting manufacturing or conveyors with Navanax is possible but inefficient: factories that do not consume power do not receive the same benefits, and overboosting reactors or mixers without matching support can destabilize your power network.
• Mobility limitation: Navanax cannot be transported by Oct, so its operational range is constrained by waterways—useful on ocean/archipelago maps but less practical on maps without connected rivers.

Historical and miscellaneous:

• Navanax was added in Build 127 and has received multiple balance tweaks (laser and EMP damage/rate adjustments, speed conversion to tiles/sec, capacity changes). A repair suppression ability and interactions with unit repair towers were introduced in later builds.
• The unit is named after the marine gastropod Navanax inermis; the automatic nature of its lasers may be thematically linked to that creature's chemoreceptive hunting.