Meltdown

## Purpose

### Description

Charges and fires a persistent laser beam at nearby enemies. Requires coolant to operate.

## General

### Build Cost

1200  Copper
350  Lead
300  Graphite
325  Silicon
325  Surge Alloy

## Input/Output

### Input

30  Water/sec: 100% fire rate
30  Cryofluid/sec: 225% fire rate

## Research

### Research Cost

52000  Copper
13000  Lead
11000  Graphite
12000  Silicon
12000  Surge Alloy

The **Meltdown** is a turret on Serpulo. It fires a persistent piercing laser beam at enemies in periodic intervals, which inflicts large, area-of-effect damage to enemies. It uses no items for ammunition, only power, but must be cooled by either Water or Cryofluid to function.

## Laser Time

The 0.66/sec firing rate indicates that the Meltdown spends 2/3rds of its time cooling down. The laser lasts 3.83 seconds and thus spends around 7.66 seconds cooling down after the laser stops.

The laser always lasts the same amount of time, but boosters reduce the cooldown period. With Cryofluid and an Overdrive Dome, the cooldown period is around 1.3 seconds. Interestingly, Meltdown only ever consumes liquid during its cooldown period, so since it consumes cryofluid at the same rate as water but spends less time cooling down, it consumes less cryofluid than water.

## Usage

* Of the 4x4 turrets, Meltdown has the best performance in close quarters. It has the shortest range, damages everything along that range, costs the least expensive materials to build, boasts the most health of all Serpulo turrets, Plated Conduits are tougher than Armored Conveyors, and with a Surge Tower connection and Water Extractors, it can be placed almost anywhere.
* If you are already boosting other turrets with liquid, simply add a line to the Meltdown. If surface water is scarce in the sector, supply a Meltdown from a Liquid Container behind your turret line. Extra Batteries are also recommended.
* The Melting debuff greatly weakens units by reducing their health and speed, and Tsunamis spraying Oil can further enhance the damage. However, this will cancel out the Freezing and Wet effects which will prevent you from using the Blasted + Freezing and Shocked + Wet combos.
* When faced against the Meltdown, its relatively short range makes it vulnerable to being sniped by the Fortress and Minke. Alternatively, the Antumbra and Quad have enough health and damage output to survive 1 blast from the laser and destroy the turret before it can fire again (even with Cryofluid), though they will be left with low health so if you're not using them for a kamikaze attack have Repair Turret or Vela healing on standby.

## Changes

 Version 6.0, unknown builds
* Build cost changed:
	+ Copper cost increased (250 → 1200).
* Power usage increased (840 power units/second → 1020).
* Fire rate decreased (0.75 shots per second → 0.65).
* Fire rate for Cryofluid decreased (230% → 225%).
* Description changed:
	+ Old description: "A massive laser cannon. Charges and fires a persistent laser beam at nearby enemies. Requires coolant to operate."
 Version 7.0, Build 127
* Fire rate increased (0.65 shots per second → 0.66).
 Version 7.0, Build 130
 Version 7.0, Build 132

## Trivia

* All 4x4 turrets on Serpulo are most likely named after security exploits. The Meltdown in particular is named after the Meltdown vulnerability, which exploits speculative processes in processors to read all the memory in a system.
	+ Meltdown and Spectre are the original 4x4 turrets introduced in Version 4.0, which are both named after vulnerabilities that exploit speculative processing (transcient execution CPU vulnerabilities). The Foreshadow, which was added later in Version 6.0, has an associated vulnerability that behaves differently.
* If the *Display block status* graphics option is on, the Meltdown will show a green diamond (functional) even if it does not have any coolant, as long as it has power.

## References

1. ↑ https://github.com/Anuken/Mindustry/blob/v145.1/core/src/mindustry/content/Blocks.java#L3950
2. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/Mindustry/comments/k8q59n/til\_there\_are\_3\_turrets\_in\_mindustry\_named\_after/