Spliced Monstrosity

## Description

Spliced Monstrosity is an NPR ship belonging to the Splicers. Spliced Monstrosities are large, arthropod-looking ships that feature many forward-facing "claw-like" wings and appendages, as well as a massive central thruster that resembles the thorax of a bug. The texture of spliced monstrosities appears to be an amalgam of various metals, colors, and shapes befitting a "scrapper/junker-based" NPR.

## Combat and Strategy

All associated items can be found on the Splicers page.

In general, Splicers are known for slower, but powerful weaponry, along with various "junker"-based items that allow them to whittle down and destroy ships.

For Primary Weapons, Splicers fire Flaming Heavy Bolts - a moderate-speed version of the Heavy Bolt that sets targets on fire, applying Heat Damage on contact. In general, these are trivial to avoid - but players must take care to avoid being caught in flaming heavy bolt spam to avoid taking heavy damage in lower-level ships.

For Secondary Weapons, Splicers employ the following:

* Splicer Glaive: A dumbfire smart-tracking buzz-saw that bounces off of ships, dealing damage and returning to hit multiple times. Players should employ high-speed ships like the Sprinter to avoid glaives, use Stealth systems to avoid their smart tracking, or employ Barriers to block the progress of the glaives.
* Spliced Rocket: A dumbfire torpedo, much like the Javelin Torpedo, with lower speed and a heavy application of Radiation Damage. While radiation damage is typically not high for smaller ships, players should still take care to avoid incoming spliced rockets, which should be trivial given their speed.
* Splicer Salvage Beam: A dumbfire particle-based beam that projects from the front of a splicer, dealing damage on contact and healing the splicer simultaneously, Players should take care to not be flanked by the splicer to avoid being hit by this beam, or equip the Beam Refractor Shields to mitigate the damage and healing of the beam.

For Utilities, splicers use Splicer Engine Boosts to apply Engine Overdrive to themselves and nearby ships for a short time, as they frequently outrun the range and follow speed of the device. Players can also enter the range of the spliced engine boost to hijack some of the applied speed effect.

For Mines, Splicers employ variants of their Spliced Bombs, which function similarly to the XHE Timed Mine: after a longer arm time and fuse, they detonate and deal AOE damage whilst applying Slow Down.

For Large Weapons, Splicers employ the following:

* Splicer Boost Bomb: Applies engine overdrive to all allied ships.
* Splicer Glaive Array: A powerful array that summons numerous glaives to attack nearby enemies - players should take evasive action when this weapon is fired, retreating to a distance until the glaives expire in order to avoid massive damage from a plethora of bouncing blades.
* Spliced Turret Beacon: Allows splicers to summon a Spliced Turret.

In general, spliced monstrosities are fairly straightforward to destroy due to their mediocre shields and lack of consistently-tracking weaponry outside of the aforementioned glaives and powerful glaive array. Stealth systems such as the Light Bending Stealth System are very effective against them, as well as weapons that apply heat damage, such as the Heat Ray or Xandelevium Blaster. High-power dumbfire weapons, such as the Javelin Torpedo, are excellent at dishing out damage to the spliced monstrosity due to its large shield radius, though some aiming may be required due to its decent speed. The Projectile Repulse Field is particularly powerful against them due to their low-speed weaponry.

## Notes

* More info about the respective NPR in general can be found on the Splicers page and the Splicers category page.