War queen
 | This article relates to content added by Biotech (DLC). Please note that it will not be present without the DLC enabled. |
War queen
An ultra-heavy mech with a built-in mech gestator. Fed with appropriate resources, the war queen can form small war urchin combat mechs within its massive carapace and deploy them into combat. Even more than other mechanoids, the war queen resembles a giant, living insect. All war mechs can be terrifying, but humans tend to find the war queen disturbing on a deeper level.
Base Stats
- Type
- Mechanoid
- Market Value
- 1600
- Flammability
- 0%
Apparel
- Armor - Sharp
- 75%
- Armor - Blunt
- 25%
- Armor - Heat
- 200%
Pawn Stats
- Bandwidth
- 5
- Move Speed
- 1.6 c/s
- Health Scale
- 5.2
- Body Size
- 4
- Mass
- 240 kg
- Pack Capacity
- 140 kg
- Carrying Capacity
- 300 kg
- Filth Rate
- 1
- Comfortable Temp Range
- -100 °C – 250 °C (-148 °F – 482 °F)
Melee Combat
- Attack
- Head
4 dmg (Blunt)
6 % AP
2 second cooldown
0.2 chance factor - Average DPS
- 1.24
Creation
- Crafted At
- Required Research
- Ultra mechtech
- Gestation Cycles
- 12
- Resources to make
600 + 
300 + 
3 + 
1 + 
1
A war queen is a mechanoid commander added by the Biotech DLC. It drops the powerfocus chip, required to research further mechanitor technology.
Occurrence
You can summon a hostile war queen with a mechanitor and a mechband antenna, and destroys the antenna. Therefore, each summon requires 50 Steel, 
4 Components for the antenna, and Standard Mechtech already researched. However, war queens are not exclusive to summoning, as strong enough mechanoid raids may feature one or even multiple.
When summoned, it will be accompanied by other mechanoids. The amount of other mechanoids depends on how many times you have summoned a War queen before, but is independent of wealth, time, or colony progress. They will crash down in a ship after a random amount of time ranging from a few in game hours to days. They will not attack immediately, but will instead act like a raid and "prepare" before launching their assault.
Summoning:
- 1x War queen with heavy shield unit, 5x pikeman, 2x scyther
- 1x War queen with heavy shield unit, 7x militor, 2x centipede (burner)
- 1x War queen with heavy shield unit, 5x pikeman, 2x tesseron, 3x tunneler
- 2x War queen with heavy shield unit, 8x militor, 4x lancer, 2x centipede (burner)
- 2x War queen with heavy shield unit, 5x pikeman, 5x lancer, 3x legionary, 3x centipede (burner)
- 2x War queen with heavy shield unit, 14x scyther, 4x centipede (burner), 1x centurion
- 2x War queen with heavy shield unit, 8x centipede (burner), 18x scorcher
- 3x War queen with heavy shield unit, 6x scyther, 6x lancer, 3x legionary, 8x centipede (burner), 1x centurion
Like the other mechanoid bosses, after being summoned 8 times, the next summon will be the same as wave 3. The wave count is per playthrough, not per colony or map. If the war queen is summoned once on one map, summoning another on a second map will bring the second wave. The Archonexus colony reset does reset this progression.
Acquisition
War queens can be gestated by a mechanitor at a Large mech gestator once the Ultra mechtech research project has been completed. They require 600 Steel, 300 Plasteel, 3 Advanced components, 1 Nano structuring chip, 1 High subcore and 12 gestation cycles taking 1,800 ticks (30 secs) each to initiate. They take up 5 bandwidth from their linked mechanitor.
Dead, friendly war queens can also be resurrected at the large mech gestator using the "Resurrect ultraheavy mechanoid" bill. This requires the corpse of the friendly War queen, 150 steel, and 1 gestation cycle taking 1,800 ticks (30 secs) to initiate.
Summary
As mechanoids, every war queen is immune to fire, Flame and Heat damage, and temperature extremes, despite having Comfortable Temperatures defined. They have 100% Toxic Resistance and Toxic Environment Resistance, making them immune to toxic buildup, rot stink and other toxic effects. They do not need to eat, rest, and have no mood. They will be stunned by EMP attacks for a time proportional to the EMP damage inflicted and will "adapt" and rendered immune to further EMP strikes for 2,200 ticks (36.67 secs). War queens have a 70% EMP resistance, meaning they are stunned for 70% less time.
Defeating a hostile War queen rewards the player with a Powerfocus chip. Studying one is required to research High Mechtech, and they can also be used to create various mechanitor gear.
Combat
- Equipped with a charge blaster turret.
- Spawns war urchins; the queen can make up to 3 war urchins at a time. Each war urchin costs 25 steel to make. The war queen generates with 600 steel.
- This steel is not recovered upon killing the queen or shredding her at a Machining table
- May come with an energy shield. 300 HP, recharges at a 0.5 rate.
- MeleeDoorDamageFactor = 1.5
When used by the player, deploying a batch of urchins has a 15 second cooldown.
Player urchins cannot be operated manually, nor can they be zoned; they just behave like ally pawns from NPC factions.
As an ally
It costs 25 steel to create each war urchin. Dead war urchins can be shredded at a machining table for up to 10 steel, so the actual cost of single urchin is closer to 15 steel, assuming you can retrieve their corpses intact.
Analysis
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As an enemy
Despite their description in a Biotech preview, rushing the war queen is generally not the best strategy. The war queen will only begin to deploy urchins when she is within range of an enemy, so it can be advantageous to let her come to you. Furthermore, the war queen can only build a finite number of urchins, so it is quite viable to hunker down and win a battle of attrition. Aiming for the queen can help, but you'll need to use EMP and rush it down very quickly, lest the swarm takes you out. Letting all the urchins be deployed allows for more steel to be recovered, as they can be shredded after, but any remaining steel inside the queen is lost.
The real threat isn't so much the war queen as the escorts she spawns with. The first summon comes with 5(!!) pikemen, and later fights only get harder. Pikemen in particular can snipe from a long range, making it extra difficult to interrupt the constant flow of war urchins. You might want to construct a close quarter combat arena in order to counter this.
As an ally
The war queen is the single most durable mech you can gestate, boasting the highest health scale and 2nd highest armor in the game. Even if the war queen never fires, it makes for an amazing distraction. This is further enhanced by the war urchins it can deploy. If a doomsday rocket launcher hits a war urchin, little is lost. War urchins aren't nearly as durable, but due to their small body size, they are hard to hit.
In terms of raw firepower, the war queen is lacking, especially for an ultra-heavy mech. Instead, it relies on the swarm of urchins. Individual urchins are not effective against large enemy forces, so you may want to bunch them up. In order to bunch up your urchins, deploy them inside a room where its doors are forbidden. Once all the urchins are ready, unforbid the doors and unleash the swarm. This can be an effective but expensive way to deploy a lot of firepower.
Health
Gallery
Age 0-99 War queen facing east
Age 0-99 War queen facing north
Age 0-99 War queen facing south
Age 100+ War queen facing east
Age 100+ War queen facing north
Age 100+ War queen facing south
Version history
- Biotech DLC Release - Added.
- 1.4.3531 - Increased EMP resistance from 45% to 70%. Fix: War urchins are not newborn when created by a war queen.
- 1.4.3555 - Now immune to psychic lances.
- Mechanoids | Core
- Centipede (Blaster, Burner, Gunner) • Lancer • Pikeman • Scyther • Termite
- Combat
- Centurion
• Legionary • Militor • Scorcher • Tesseron - Command
- Apocriton • Diabolus • War queen (War urchin )
- Labor
- Agrihand • Cleansweeper • Constructoid • Fabricor • Lifter • Paramedic • Tunneler
- Cluster
| Buildings - Condition causer • Count-down activator • Mech assembler • Mech capsule • Mech drop beacon • Mech high-shield • Mech low-shield • Mech node • Proximity activator • Unstable power cell
- Turrets
- Auto charge turret • Auto inferno turret • Auto mortar • Mini-slugger turret
- Creation | Pawn
- Mechanitor
- Buildings
- Mech gestator • Large mech gestator • Mechband antenna • Mechband dish