Precept

Precept is a heavy front-line ground unit that fires slow, high-damage piercing cluster rounds and is designed to absorb incoming fire while advancing on enemy positions. It appears as a tiered combat unit used to lead assaults and protect more fragile allies, trading mobility and rate of fire for high single-shot damage, area fragmentation, and strong armor. Precepts are notable for their immunity to Burning and Melting and for mechanics that let them instantly destroy power nodes on contact.

The Precept's primary weapon is a low-fire-rate pierce cannon that fires a large main projectile which deals 90 damage with 50 area damage (roughly 2.5 tiles) and 2× pierce. Each main round spawns four frag bullets on detonation; each frag deals 35 damage with 3× pierce, extending the weapon's effective reach. Weapon statistics: the cannon fires at 0.75 shots/sec (1.33 s reload), has a rotation speed of 1.625°/tick, main-bullet effective range about 24.5 tiles (52.5 tiles/sec speed, 0.46 s lifetime), frag-bullet range about 9.37 tiles (37.5 tiles/sec speed, 0.25 s lifetime), and a combined maximum reach near 33.87 tiles. The frag bullets’ added pierce makes the volley especially effective at shredding clumped structures and bypassing thin defenses.

Precepts have substantial durability and armor (noted as 11 armor), making them highly resistant to damage from lower-tier units and many common turret and unit attacks. Their low rate of fire and heavy single-shot profile make them particularly vulnerable to massed missile spam and mobile harassers that can exploit firing gaps. They are effective at chipping and destroying turrets placed directly behind walls due to piercing and fragmentation.

Practical usage and interactions:

• Use Precepts as front-line tanks to shield softer, high-damage attackers (for example, Anthicus) and to spearhead breaks through chokepoints. Their armor and area damage let them survive while teammates follow up.
• Avoid relying on rapid-fire or frag-spawning turrets such as Diffuse and Afflict to counter Precepts because those turrets’ low base damage is heavily reduced by the Precept’s armor. High raw-damage turrets (Sublimates, Titans, Lustres) and concentrated fire overcome the unit fastest.
• Defending against fragmentation: Precept frag rounds can destroy your own ammo/lines; build at least a second layer of large walls to protect critical infrastructure.
• Mobility and range limits: Precepts have moderate range but low firerate; kiting tactics and spammable unit missiles exploit their firing downtime.
• Pairing and progression: Precepts serve as a natural step up from Locus units and can replace or supplement Vanquish-class choices when a durable front-line presence is desired.
• Terrain and special effects: Precepts are less affected by liquid drag and other harmful terrain; drown time in water scales with hit size and was increased in later builds. They also instantly destroy power nodes on contact, preventing simple path-blocking by node-spam.

History and notable changes: Precept was introduced in Build 136. Subsequent updates adjusted its size, rotation speed, and frag behavior; immunities to Burning and Melting were added, drowning behavior and floor-effect multipliers were tuned, and the frag bullets received additional pierce. Precept, together with Vanquish, Conquer and Atrax, are among the few units immune to Burning and Melting.

The Precept excels when used as a heavily armored anchor that forces defenders to commit high-damage resources to stop it; it underperforms against large numbers of fast, low-damage attackers that can outmaneuver and exploit its slow firing cadence.