unit-precept

Precept is a heavy frontline ground unit that serves as a durable damage-dealer and wall-breaker. It fires a slow, high-damage piercing cluster shot that spawns four frag bullets on impact, giving it a long effective reach for shredding grouped defenses and chipping at structures placed close to walls. Precept appears as a mid-to-high tier combat unit and is commonly used to protect more fragile attackers or to lead assaults where survivability and focused damage are required.

The main weapon fires at 0.75 shots/sec (1.33 s reload) with a rotation speed of about 1.625°/tick. Its primary projectile deals 90 damage, applies 50 area damage over roughly 2.5 tiles, and has 2x pierce, reaching about 24.5 tiles before fragmenting. On impact it creates 4 frag bullets (each ~35 damage, 3x pierce) that travel an additional ~9.37 tiles; the maximum combined range is around 33.9 tiles. The design makes the Precept effective at breaking turrets and clustered defenses while retaining good single-target potency.

Precept has significant survivability advantages: it possesses high armor (11 armor reported in some sources) and, since Build 152, is immune to Burning and Melting. It is also noted to have reduced negative effects from harmful terrain and liquids (a floor effect multiplier and “less affected by liquid drag” were added in later builds). Another mechanical detail added in updates causes Precept to instantly destroy a power node upon contact, preventing simple path-blocking by spamming nodes.

Practical notes and tactics:

• Use Precepts as the frontline of an assault column: their pierce and fragmenting shot excel at taking out turrets hugging walls and at dealing damage through clustered targets.
• Because of high armor and immunity to Burning/Melting, Precepts shrug off many lower-tier attacks; however, they remain vulnerable to very high raw damage and to spammed unit missiles which exploit their low firerate.
• Avoid exposing your supply lines to Precept fragmentation: their frags can destroy ammo lines and thin defenses. Defending players should construct at least a second layer of large walls to prevent frag bullets from wrecking internal structures.
• Turrets that rely on rapid-fire low-damage shots or spawn frags (e.g., Diffuse, Afflict) are inefficient against Precepts. High single-shot damage turrets such as Sublimates, Titans, and Lustres are recommended to kill them quickly.
• Precepts pair well with mid-tier escorts (for example following Locus units) to form a transition into heavier arms; they can protect more fragile units like Anthicus on the front lines.
• Their range and survivability are not sufficient to reliably defeat very high-damage long-range units (e.g., cyanogen Sublimates) without sustaining serious casualties.

Historical/technical notes:

• Introduced in Build 136. Subsequent builds adjusted size and rotation speed, added frag pierce, modified movement on terrain and water drowning behavior, and granted immunity to Burning/Melting. The instant destruction of power nodes on contact was also added in a later build.
• Along with Vanquish, Conquer and Atrax, Precept is one of the units with immunity to Burning and Melting. Some sources also note a hidden/stat behavior regarding instant power-node destruction added to prevent path-blocking exploits.