Flare

The Flare is a light, fast flying unit used primarily for harassment, scouting and low-cost interception. It appears as a basic air-frame unit available in mid-game tech and behaves as a hit-and-run attacker that prefers striking infrastructure and soft targets. The Flare carries a small item capacity for wireless transport tasks and is inexpensive to produce, making it useful both offensively (disruption, kamikaze payload delivery) and defensively (interception of fragile enemy units).

The Flare fires a three-shot burst of basic bullets with an effective range of 9.5 tiles and a burst firing behavior of roughly 2x at ~2.25–2.5 shots/sec depending on build details; each bullet deals 9 damage. It is extremely fast (originally converted to tile/sec values in earlier builds) and has very low health (currently 70, the lowest of any non-core unit). Its AI causes it to circle detected targets and maintain a set distance when attacking, and it targets both ground and air units in current builds. Item capacity has changed across versions and is used to move items wirelessly when combined with a Micro Processor.

Practical use and interactions:

• Harassment: Send swarms to disrupt enemy power grids and production. Flares preferentially harass power generators and other exposed infrastructure; diverting them into concentrated defenses or sacrificial Combustion Generators can protect more valuable blocks (note: a generator must be powered to attract them as of recent builds).
• Offensive payloads: Load Flares with Blast Compound, Pyratite, or Spore Pods to turn their wrecks into explosive/incendiary hazards on death. Since their bullets lack high block damage, the post-death payloads are the primary destructive effect. This is effective against medium-threat bases but loses efficacy against heavily fortified cores with long-range anti-air.
• Anti-air/dueling: A single Scatter or a player ship can reliably destroy Flares. They are vulnerable to area-damage turrets and units that can shoot air. Flares can still duel other fragile air units (e.g., Horizon, Mace, Atrax) when those units cannot retaliate effectively.
• Wireless transport: Use a Micro Processor to bind and script a Flare for simple shuttle tasks—fetching items from a core or container and delivering to remote factories such as Overdrive Domes. The main advantage is saved space rather than throughput; distance reduces effective throughput.
• Economy and limits: Flares are cheap and quick to produce, suited for swarm tactics. Because of their low durability, they are best employed en masse for disruption or as disposable carriers for dangerous payloads.

Design and history notes: The Flare was added based on the Wraith Fighter and underwent multiple balance changes: item capacity and speed adjustments, size increases, health and range tweaks, AI updates to add circle-target behavior, and weapon changes to a 3-shot burst. Prior to V7 the Flare actively targeted only ground units despite bullets being able to damage air targets. The Flare is named after the solar phenomenon and has an associated Steam achievement "Vengeance" (earned when a Flare destroys an enemy Scatter).