Arkyid

## Purpose

### Description

Fires large sapping laser beams at enemy targets, repairing itself in the process. Can step over most terrain.

## Research

### Research Cost

83000  Silicon
73000  Titanium
62000  Plastanium

The **Arkyid** is a Tier 4 Ground Unit on Serpulo obtained after upgrading a Spiroct through the Exponential Reconstructor. In addition to enhancing the Spiroct's previous abilities to sap and walk over walls, Arkyids gain a longer-range electric ball attack that travels through blocks for significant area damage.

Arkyids can be upgraded into the Toxopid through the Tetrative Reconstructor. This can be done by either directly sending the output from the Exponential Reconstructor into it or by using carrier units such as Oct and dropping it into one. They cannot be transported by Payload Conveyors.

## Appearance

The Arkyid has a larger chassis than the Spiroct and its legs are larger with visible joints and bending. There are 4 pairs of weapons attached, resulting in 8 'eyes'. Two of the 'eyes' are the larger electric ball cannons while the six other 'eyes' are the small sapping lasers. This arrangement and size difference match the eyes of most spiders, with two large and six smaller ones.

## Strategies

### **Against**

The jump in health from a tier 3 to tier 4 unit is colossal, often to around a multiple of ten. Coupled with the extremely dangerous self-healing and wall walking that comes with the Spiroct and you will have a massive threat that needs to be destroyed ASAP. To knock back and stall Arkyids, Tsunamis loaded with Water and Cryofluid together will keep it at bay for your turrets to safely target it. Low but consistent damage from turrets like the Ripple is useless against its sapping lasers, but high-damage combinations like Blast Compound ammo with the freezing from Cryofluid will erase it within seconds. The electric ball attack poses another problem due to it bypassing walls and exploding, knocking out the supply to your defenses. To prevent this from happening, bullet-absorbing blocks like the Segment and Force Projector should cover your front line to catch these stray shells. It is a goodbye to your base if it breaches the front defense and heals back its health.

### **For**

Most bases in the campaign discourage the use of Ground Units, as all defenses are placed on open space and anti-air is typically weaker due to the Ripple ignoring fliers. However, Arkyids are self-sustaining and can heal off any injury inflicted by defenses before reaching the Core. This saves time in setting up healing infrastructure or retreating units to heal and makes them on par with the Quad for attacking bases. Once it reaches the Core, they can step over all the blocks to damage and destroy it directly. Do expect to lose a few to the Core explosion, however, unless you take the time to destroy the surrounding defenses before knocking it out.

Another advantage that the Arkyid has is that it has a winning matchup against small and large units alike due to the *sapped* status effect, which severely weakens any unit that gets damaged. In combination with the health stealing, a single Arkyid is able to win against all tier 5 units except for the Toxopid, Omura, and Navanax; the former is very infrequent and loses to groups, while the latter two do not spawn naturally in the campaign. This lets you save resources on base defense in attack and survival sectors, which can then be devoted to more unit production. In survival sectors, they are easily able to handle guardians.

## Changes

 Version 7.0, Build 127
* Sapping lasers:
	+ Second pair fire rate increased (2x 2 shots per second → 2x 2.14).
	+ Third pair fire rate increased (2x 1.3 shots per second → 2x 1.36).
 Version 7.0, Build 128
 Version 7.0, Build 132
* Sapping laser damage increased (37 → 40) for all pairs.
 Version 7.0, Build 136
 Version 7.0, Build 138.1
	+ Old description: "Fires large sapping laser beams at enemies, repairing itself in the process. Can step over most terrain."
	+ New description: "Fires large sapping laser beams at enemy targets, repairing itself in the process. Can step over most terrain."

## Trivia

* Arkyid is named after the Arkys genus of spiders, known as triangular spiders.
* Its body sprite is reused from the Scepter.