Void Infestor

Speed | 14 m/s

The **Void Infestor** is a monster added in the *Survivors of the Void* update.

## Skills & Behavior

Void Infestors do not naturally spawn in the world; instead, there are 2 special ways they can appear: 0-4 Void Infestors will spawn after interacting with a Void Cradle, and when defeating a  Elite monster, a single Void Infestor will appear from its corpse.

Unlike other monsters, Void Infestors' health decays over time, and they will die within 30 seconds even if no damage is dealt.

After appearing, a Void Infestor will move quickly and erratically, making it difficult for any Survivors to hit it.

### Primary: Infest

The Infestor makes flying leap towards its target. Upon contact and if the target is a non-player, non-mechanical entity, the Infestor latches onto it and the victim becomes Voidtouched. These Voidtouched characters become hostile to Survivors and monsters alike, even if they were previously allied when uninfested.

If the character the Infestor touches cannot be infested, the attack simply deals 100% damage with a proc coefficient of 1.0 and stuns the victim if possible.

After defeating a Voidtouched monster, the Void Infestor will leave the monster's corpse, and it can infest another target if it is not defeated. Note that the Infestor entering and the Infestor exiting the host are not the same entity, with the latter having full health.

This skill has a cooldown of 5 seconds.

### Behaviors

1. **Flee**: the Infestor must be within 25m from its target. This is preparatory to attempting to infest the target.
2. **Use primary**: the Infestor must be within 25-80m from its target and have line of sight. The Infestor will reselect a target after this.
3. **Chase off nodegraph**: the Infestor must be within 10m from its target and have line of sight. This does not seem to be a selectable behavior because fleeing at short distances takes priority.
4. **Chase**: no requirements. If the primary is on cooldown, the Infestor will keep switching between fleeing and approaching as it crosses the 25m distance barrier.

## Notes

* Due to the Voidtouched Elites' ability to apply , Void Infestors are particularly dangerous and can end up killing a Survivor very quickly if they are let loose.
	+ This is especially the case for allies that are summoned by items such as the  or . These allies are extremely powerful and, when infested, can kill a player in mere moments.
* There is no obvious audio indicator for if an ally becomes infested, so players should keep an eye on their allies if they lose sight of a Void Infestor.
* Infestors will not attempt to infest "mechanical" allies like drones,  turrets ( or ), or  or umbrae of  and .

## Lore

```
POTENTIAL INFESTOR SIGHTING REPORTS

REMINDER: ALL REPORTS ARE TO BE COLLECTED AND SHARED AMONG THE CREW IMMEDIATELY.

REMINDER: ANY CONTACT WITH INFESTORS RENDER TEAMMATES UNSALVEAGABLE. SHOOT ON SIGHT.

-- 1/23 --

Have you noticed the beasts near the outpost acting strangely?  There's been constant in-fighting the past few days, and some of them in particular have been acting erratically.  It never lasts long - the families tend to surround them and tear them to shreds before I can get much of a good look.  Do you think there's something wrong with the individuals? Or are those families detecting some kind of disease and stamping it out?  We've recovered only one of the corpses, and it looks like your basic lemurian, other than its mangled limbs and smashed in skull.  I've contacted Tharson to let him know that it'd be worth checking out,  I sure as hell know I'm not going to head into those enclaves while this wild civil war is going on.  Maybe this is just what lemurians get like when they have rabies, though its the first instance I've ever seen of something like rabies out here.

-- 1/25 --

Familial in-fighting has gotten significantly worse.  Often the bouts last for much longer than only one kill now, and the factions seem to change erratically, as if driven by some sort of twisted bloodlust.  A group of 4 will be thrashing an individual to death, only to to turn their hatred toward another in the group soon afterwards.  This is the first time I've seen small groups totally wipe themselves out, only for the last one standing to hobble away on shattered legs.  I don't dare fire from my post, they don't seem interested in us and I'd like to keep it that way.  As far as I'm concerned, these neighbors of ours could drive themselves into extinction and it'd be a good day for me.  Atleast then I could sleep without worrying about the tent burning down every night.

-- 2/?? --

> AUDIO RECORDING RECOVERED FROM SITE 4A

Okay... okay...  Here, damned thing just record!  Just record!  Okay... light on?!  Good - okay.  Listen, this is [REDACTED], I want whoever finds this or finds me or my corpse or [REDACTED]'s corpse to know that I didn't go crazy.  Oh god... Okay, I just murdered [REDACTED].  Atleast, I think it was [REDACTED], it's very confusing.  Something like [REDACTED] was hobbling around the outpost at night - he moved like he didn't have bones or something - it doesn't matter.  I shouted out to him and he turned to fire his weapon toward me in the dark.  I dropped him dead and ... look I can't - if... if we're going to start doing this I just - I have to get out of here.  I just want you to know I'm not crazy.

-- End of Recording --

> Involved parties have been removed from record.

## Version History

Survivors of the Void
* (Undocumented) Added New Monster: Void Infestor

## Trivia

* The "596f757220707269736f6e" in this monster's logbook entry is hexadecimal for "Your prison".
* In keeping with the deep-sea theme of the Void and the monsters related to it, the Void Infestor's visual design seems to draw inspiration from ocean life, especially crustaceans and other arthropods. Infestors in particular bear a striking resemblance to giant isopods (family Cirolanidae).
	+ Another possible inspiration for the appearance and behavior of the Infestor is *Orthione griffenis,* a more derived and parasitic species of isopod that latches on to and feeds from the gill chambers of crayfish.
* When a Void Infestor infests a body, it immediately dies and gives the Voidtouched Elite equipment to the enemy. When the Voidtouched enemy dies, a new Infestor with full health is spawned at the enemy's location.
	+ The new Infestor will only spawn if the Voidtouched enemy has run out of lifes, i.e., no remaining  or .
* An Infestor spawned from a Void Cradle does so with the special procedure that also spawns Special Bosses and as such has unique scaling. However, an Infestor spawned from a Voidtouched enemy only spawns at level 1 with no unique scaling. This makes Infestors spawned by the latter method much easier to kill.
	+ Since both spawning methods are special, Infestors do not inherit any items from the Artifact of Evolution.
* With the Artifact of Chaos enabled, it is possible for a Void Infestor to infest another Infestor and make it Voidtouched. If this Voidtouched Infestor infests a new enemy, the Voidtouched Infestor will die (thus respawning the Infestor that had infested it) and the enemy will become Voidtouched.
	+ Since the Infestor's attempt to infest an entity is technically an attack, a Voidtouched Infestor can inflict Collapse on the entity it infests.
* If a player or enemy holding the  kills a Voidtouched enemy, they will gain the Voidtouched buff. If the holder of the Wake of Vultures dies before the buff expires, they will spawn a Void Infestor even though they were never infested by one.
* Infestors do not discriminate against Voidtouched enemies and can infest them. If an Infestor infests an enemy that is already Voidtouched, the Infestor will simply die with no noticeable effect.
* When a Voidtouched  or  dies, its descendants inherit its equipment (and thus its Elite type). Therefore, killing a single Voidtouched Gup and its descendants results in a total of 7 Infestors spawning.
	+ The Infestors may not necessarily infest new enemies, as they may target the Voidtouched Geeps and Gips.