Elude

## Purpose

### Description

Fires pairs of homing bullets at enemy targets. Can float over bodies of liquid.

## Research

### Research Cost

Free

The **Elude** is the tier 1 air unit of Erekir, obtainable by feeding Graphite and Silicon into a Ship Fabricator. It fires two purple homing bolts at a time at ground and air units. Unlike its successors the Elude does not actually fly, meaning that it is vulnerable to turrets that target ground units, cannot go past solid blocks or natural walls, and automatically opens adjacent Blast Doors. They are, however, able to traverse bodies of liquid without being slowed, having any status effects inflicted, or the risk of drowning.

Feeding an Elude into a Ship Refabricator creates the tier two Avert while fusing four in a Ship Assembler along with 12 Large Beryllium Walls in payload form creates the Quell.

## Strategies

### For

Eludes are not only very cost-efficient on Erekir, but are also way faster and deal more damage while maintaining decent durability. It can fill all the roles that the Stell can perform, thus making them the first tier 1 you should produce. Their drawback of not having Merui's wall-climbing movements can be minimized using Blast Walls and by sneaking them into gaps in the Campaign. If the enemy base is fully walled, it may be worth it to infiltrate into defenses with Averts and knock out Sublimates before flooding it with Eludes. Another considerable option is dropping a Reinforced Liquid Container with Ozone to destroy enemy walls. Also worth noting is that Eludes are the only "air" unit that can be picked up by a Quell or Disrupt, giving them additional mobility options. Quells can carry up to four Eludes at a time, while Disrupts can carry 19. Since Eludes are fast on open ground, can attack air units that Quells and Disrupts can't, and are immune to Disperse, this makes them a viable complement for a carrier ship. For early-game defense, the Elude can respond to any sudden attacks easier due to its high speed (especially on open maps such as Caldera where fully walling is impossible) and has comparable DPS to the Stell, making it a solid counter against early Merui as it can weave its way around projectiles.

### Against

While the Elude has great speed, it lacks mobility and is blocked by anything solid. Thus, the best counter to the Elude is to wall off any choke points that they might sneak by, as once one gets in your base is in severe trouble. When fighting them with your own Eludes, keep in mind that the homing projectile moves in a very wide arc and is almost guaranteed to miss if the target is too close.

## Changes

 Build 141
* Damage decreased from 18 to 12.

## Trivia

* The Elude's line of units are all based on verbs for evasion or disruption.
* As stated in the description of Lake and by the preview provided by the game's developer, Anuken, the Elude is designed to be a hovercraft, as it is the only ship-related unit in Mindustry that does not have true flight.
* Eludes have a hidden, cosmetic **Movement Effect Ability** (internally referred to as *MoveEffectAbility*) that emits a trail of particles when moving.
* Eludes are currently available before the player obtains Tungsten. However, in the In-dev Erekir build, the Ship Fabricator required Tungsten to build.
* For Mixed Tech games, the Elude is the only Erekir unit that can be made entirely from resources that can also be manufactured on Serpulo (though the Ship Fabricator still needs Beryllium to be built, which is Erekir-exclusive).