unit-stell

Stell is a tier-1 ground attack unit that functions as a cheap, armored melee–range attacker built for raw damage and swarm tactics. Introduced in Build 136 and later adjusted in Build 147 with a slight range increase, Stells are simple to use: produce them in numbers, push through walls or funnel them to attack enemy structures and supply lines, and overwhelm defenses by attrition.

A Stell fires a basic projectile with a firing rate of 1.2/sec (0.83 s reload) and a rotation speed of 2.2°/tick. Its projectile is a BasicBulletType dealing 30 damage, traveling at 30 tiles/sec, with a lifespan of 0.66 s and an effective range near 20–19.5 tiles after tuning. The unit itself is heavily armored for its tier (armor value 6) and sports around 850 health, allowing it to survive early-game turrets long enough to disable defenses when supported by other tier‑1 units.

Practical notes and tactics:

• Use Stells in mass to smash through light defenses and cut off turret supply lines; they excel at destroying turrets and static infrastructure when sent in swarms.
• Their armor makes them favorable in mirror matchups against other Stells and lets them trade well versus most tier‑1 attackers; consequently, using your own Stells to counter incoming Stells is often optimal.
• Stells have poor mobility and are not micro‑friendly—overwhelm opponents with numbers rather than relying on individual control. Building more fabricators to sustain production is recommended.
• Walls significantly slow or block Stells; any wall can delay a Stell swarm. When deploying them from your base, provide Blast Doors or openings so they can enter and exit freely.
• Against stronger, higher-tier defenses (Titans, Afflicts) or well‑developed turret lines, Stells alone become ineffective; transition to tier‑2 units (once tungsten or equivalent resources are available) or combine with heavier support.
• Defensive structures like Breaches (tier‑appropriate breach turrets) can handle Stells if the attackers are restrained by walls; turtling with strong static defenses remains an effective counter if you can afford the expense on certain maps (notably Erekir, where turret cost is high).
• In specific map encounters, such as assaults on the left Core Citadel, Stells barely outrange certain turret arrangements (two ozone Sublimates and a beryllium Breach), so plan approaches carefully—disrupting the enemy arkycite/arkycite supply can slow their higher-tier production and change the engagement dynamics.

Stell is straightforward in concept but situational in execution: cheap, armored, and damage-focused, it rewards massed production and supply-line targeting while suffering against prepared, higher-tier defenses and when blocked by fortifications.