unit-quad

The Quad is a Tier 4 air support unit that appears in late-game waves and multiplayer play. It carries large payloads of items and medium-sized ground units, drops area-effect plasma bombs on ground targets that both damage enemies and repair allied structures, and can be ordered to build, repair, and assist from command mode. Quads cannot hit air targets and detect ground targets at a range of 17 tiles; their bombs have an effective diameter of about 10 tiles and deal ~220 area damage per hit while also applying a 15% repair effect to nearby allied blocks. It is among the fastest Tier 4 units and shares the lowest Tier 4 health with the Quell.

Because its bombs pass through walls and explode on conveyors, factories, and other soft infrastructure, the Quad excels at shredding periphery logistics and base infrastructure rather than dueling hardened defenses or air units. It can pick up reactors, vaults, turrets, tanks of liquids, and other movable blocks to convert them into improvised weapons—examples include lifting a Thorium Reactor out of its coolant to create a devastating nuke-like drop, or ferrying a Vault full of Blast Compound to maximize crash damage. The payload capacity was increased and tuned across updates; in current builds it carries a 3×3 block payload and can hold a substantial number of items (values changed across versions).

Practical notes and tactics:

• Quads should be killed quickly on assault waves because their bombs bypass walls and will blow apart conveyors and factories; they are especially dangerous if allowed to land or orbit near critical infrastructure.
• High-armor point defenses like Scatter struggle to stop them; effective counters include ground interceptors such as Swarmer, Cyclone, Spectre, and cheaper Fuses. Antumbra units can slow them and fire without retaliation in some engagements. Force Projector can completely nullify their bomb damage.
• In PvP the fastest defense is often to obtain Plastanium and Phase Fabric and build your own Quads; alternatively perimeter Fuses and the Foreshadow (with Surge Alloy) can deter Tier 4 raids.
• Use Quads offensively to ferry and drop single powerful ground units onto enemy cores or to deliver volatile blocks (reactors, blast compound, liquid tanks) to cause massive secondary damage. Dropping a heavy block directly over a Core often wrecks or destroys it.
• When assigned to repair, Quads behave like Horizons: they fly past the target and circle back, dropping their repair bombs in sweeping passes. This can both heal and soak up damage, but their repair throughput is inconsistent and usually inferior to dedicated repair units like Poly or Mega.
• Quads can also support by carrying turrets or Vaults and building forward emplacements outside the no-build zone; in custom maps they may use their payload to insert ground units behind defenses, so perimeter anti-ground measures and responsive units (Arkyid, Antumbra) are prudent.
• Version history notes: added in Version 6.0; bomb radius and damage were reduced early on, item/payload and speed were adjusted in later updates, and a targeting priority was added to prefer factories after batteries. Recent builds let Quads auto-target detected enemies and expanded their command capabilities.

Lore and trivia: the Quad’s design appears derived from older player-upgrade ships (Trident), its name references the Latin prefix “quad-”, and it appears as a playable character in Animdustry with an ability that nods to its support/area role.