Spiroct

Spiroct is a tier-3 ground combat unit that appears on Serpulo. It is a durable, self-healing walker that attacks by firing twin sapping laser beams; each attack both damages enemies and restores a percentage of that damage to the Spiroct as health. The unit is capable of stepping over most terrain and can drown. Spiroct is intended primarily as a defensive or support unit rather than a front-line raiding unit against similarly tech-leveled bases.

Spiroct fields two concentric laser weapons: an outer pair with higher damage and faster firing, and an inner pair with lower damage but stronger life steal. The outer lasers fire at 2 × 2.14 shots/sec, deal 23 damage per hit and restore 50% of damage dealt as health; the inner lasers fire at 2 × 1.66 shots/sec, deal 18 damage per hit and restore 80% of damage dealt as health. Both lasers pierce and apply a sapped status for about three seconds, which increases damage dealt to the target and in turn increases the amount Spiroct heals while attacking sapped units.

Spiroct’s base stats changed over several builds: its footprint grew to 1.87 × 1.87 blocks, range dropped to 8 blocks (laser length unchanged), health increased to 1000, and movement speed was raised to approximately 4.05 tiles/second. It carries up to 60 items and no longer has a build speed (it cannot construct). A previous command limit was removed. The unit can be targeted via command mode and will not suffer from burning or melting immunities now removed in past updates.

• Use Spirocts defensively or as meatshields that sustain themselves while whittling down enemy ground squads. Their life-steal makes them extremely resilient if left to attack repeatedly.
• Avoid using Spirocts to assault enemy bases at the same tech tier; common turrets and anti-unit defenses counter them effectively. Cheap turrets like Scorch are very effective because Spiroct lacks built-in defense against sustained turret fire, and slag-producing units that create hazardous terrain for other units are not a factor for Spiroct.
• Liquid turrets that apply wet and shocked conditions (for example, Arc combined with water) synergize to multiply damage and keep Spiroct suppressed. Shallow Water projectiles from Wave and Tsunami turrets can also keep Spiroct at bay.
• Spiroct performs well versus other tier-3 ground units because sapping increases both incoming damage and the unit’s healing; it can walk over smaller units to surround them and exploit mobility. Against higher-tier units, use mobility to force difficult facing/rotation or focus-fire with specific targeting in command mode when fighting AI-controlled units like Zenith.
• The sapped status only applies to units, which means Spiroct benefits most in unit-on-unit combat rather than attacking buildings (where the healing benefit does not occur).

Spiroct’s name derives from the Spiroctenus genus of African araenomorph spiders. It has historically had notable changes to immunities and stats across updates and currently holds the highest health among tier-3 Serpulo ground units.