#3: Ax'Zilanths

The Ax’Zilanths are the closest equivalent to the Terran player.

1. Unique traits
2. Buildings
3. Building strategy
4. Missiles
5. Ships
6. Starting resources
7. Colonization strategy
8. Mining strategy
9. Population
10. Spying
11. Scouting
12. Tactical
13. Art inspiration

Unique traits

They require air and food, although they survive longer without air than the Terran colonists (3 population loss per day, rather than 100% of the population). They are not immune to radiation like some other aliens, and cannot gain new colonists if there is 50% radiation or higher, although radiation will never kill colonists.

If food, water and radiation requirements are met, the Ax’Zilanths gain one new colonist each day.

The possess the unique ability to adapt to Virus missiles. The second Virus missile fired by the player will have no effect. This is true even if you fire at yourself or an unoccupied asteroid.

The AI for this alien sets a flag when it loses a colony due to its population reducing to zero due to lack of Personnel Podules, Atmospheric Regulator or Nutrient Podule (though not if the colony explodes due to Mega or asteroid collision). The exact actions it takes in response to this have yet to be analyzed.

Their technology allows them to teleport their asteroid. A discovered asteroid becomes undiscovered after it teleports (see Mass Displacement Podule). They also have a missile which can intercept and neutralize incoming missiles.

Buildings

Each alien building has a name, a type (as it counts on a spy satellite report), Hit Points, build time (in days), a height (for the purpose of scaffold), a width (1, for one-square, or 4 for a 2x2 building), a softcap (buildings marked ! have a hard cap instead), and the building at the equivalent position in the Terran building list.

Atmospheric Regulator

Required for life. If there is not at least one Atmospheric Regulator, the colony loses 3 population per day. However, since Nutrient Podule is checked first, a colony with neither of those buildings only suffers the lesser penalty of losing 1 per day.

Atomiser

Reduces radiation by 30%. The colony must have no more than 40% radiation for population growth, which is one per day.

Defence Shield

A Screen Generator. Presumed to work the same as Terran Screen Generator, which reduces damage to all covered buildings by half.

Energy Accumulator

At least one Energy Accumulator or Reactor is needed to power Repulse Generator, Propulsion Unit and Ore Extractor.

Engineering Plant

Required to build ships and missiles.

Mass Displacement Podule

Allows asteroids to teleport. Asteroids can teleport randomly to avoid going off the edge of the screen, or to avoid collisions with other asteroids. They also have a 1% chance per day to teleport randomly, and even asteroids without a Mass Displacement Podule can be teleported this way (probably a bug). Teleport location is random. See Tactical for more information.

Missile Silo

Required to build or launch missiles.

Nutrient Podule

Required for life. If there is not at least one Nutrient Podule, the colony loses 1 population per day.

Ore Extractor

Mines two units each of five randomly selected ores per day. Can mine any ore. Building multiple Ore Extractors has no effect. Requires one Reactor or Energy Accumulator to function. At least one Ore Extractor or Resource Podule is necessary to build ships.

Personnel Podule

Provides housing for up to 100 colonists. If there are no Personnel Podules, the colony is destroyed.

Propulsion Unit

Appears in the Asteroid Engines slot, suggesting this is an Asteroid Engines. Requires at least one Reactor or Energy Accumulator to function.

Reactor

At least one Energy Accumulator or Reactor is needed to power Repulse Generator, Propulsion Unit and Ore Extractor. A Reactor is required to build missiles.

Repulse Generator

Appears in the Gravity Nullifier slot, suggesting that this is a Gravity Nullifier. Requires at least one Reactor or Energy Accumulator to function.

Resource Podule

Equivalent to Storage Facility. At least one Ore Extractor or Resource Podule is necessary to build ships, but the game does not track mined ore.

Science Podule

Unknown.

Sensory Matrix

Increases the chances of spotting Terran spy satellites. The base chance is 1% plus a cumulative 1% per day, and each additional Sensory Matrix and Subspace Detectors adds another chance per day, although a colony will never build more than one of each, for a maximum of three chances per day.

Spacecraft Dock

Shipyard. Required to build ships, with a cap of 4 shipyards.

Stabilising Platform

Landing Pad. At least one is required to build ships.

Strategy Control

Equivalent to Command Centre. Required to start new colony.

Subspace Detectors

Increases the chances of spotting Terran spy satellites. The base detection rate is 1% plus a cumulative 1% per 16 days, and each additional Sensory Matrix and Subspace Detectors adds another detection attempt per day, although a colony will never build more than one of each, for a maximum of three chances per day.

Turret

A plasma turret which deals 5 damage, the same as Terran plasma turrets. Fires on a 6-day cooldown. The Ax’Zilanths do not use Laser turrets.

Turret

A photon turret which deals 8 damage, the same as Terran plasma turrets. Fires on a 6-day cooldown.

Building strategy

Each Ax’Zilanth colony attempts a new build every 60 days. They do not require any currency or resources to produce buildings. Unless there is an urgent need, they will randomly build one of the following clusters of four buildings:

• 0: Reactor, Turret (Plasma), Turret (Photon), Missile Silo
• 1: Atmospheric Regulator, Personnel Podule, Reactor, Nutrient Podule
• 2: Sensory Matrix, Repulse Generator, Energy Accumulator, Mass Displacement Podule
• 3: Propulsion Unit, Spacecraft Dock, Stabilising Platform, Engineering Plant
• 4: Strategy Control, Energy Accumulator, Personnel Podule, Nutrient Podule
• 5: Personnel Podule, Atomiser, Subspace Detectors, Stabilising Platform
• 6: Ore Extractor, Ore Extractor, Resource Podule, Missile Silo
• 7: Defence Shield, Science Podule, Reactor, Missile Silo

Each building has a 100% chance to build until it reaches the cap, but there is a 15% chance per building to ignore the cap and build anyway. The exceptions are the Mass Displacement Podule, Propulsion Unit, Repulse Generator, Sensory Matrix, Strategy Control, and Subspace Detectors, which have a hard cap of 1 per asteroid.

If a colony lacks an Atmospheric Regulator or Nutrient Podule, or has neither Reactors nor Energy Accumulators, they make it a priority to build the following cluster:

• 1: Atmospheric Regulator, Personnel Podule, Reactor, Nutrient Podule

Missiles

Each asteroid attempts to build missiles every 30 days. They must have a Reactor (Energy Accumulators are not sufficient), Engineering Plant, and Missile Silo to build missiles. They roll on the following percentile table and built that missile, to a maximum of 5. The yield listed is as shown on an intel survey.

“Interceptor”

Replaces the Antivirus. Intercepts and neutralizes incoming warheads. When a missile strike is incoming, 1-4 of these are launched in response. They have been observed self-destructing before leaving the asteroid, which may be a custom trigger to avoid actually firing one as an offensive missile against a Terran colony, where it would have the effect of an Antivirus.

“Static Inducer”

Replaces the Explosive. Causes a Static Inducer effect in all ships. More testing required.

Trivia:

• The Ax’Zilanths do not use Napalm, but do use Hellfire. They are the only alien to use Hellfire.
• They are the only alien to use the Vortex missile. Other aliens use those slots, but only as custom missiles.
• They do not use Explosive or Antivirus, since special code replaces these warheads.

Ships

To build ships, an Ax’Zilanth colony requires at least one Reactor, Stabilising Platform, and Engineering Plant. It also requires at least one Ore Extractor or Resource Podule. They also require at least one Spacecraft Dock, and produce proportionally faster with up to a maximum of four docks.

Each ship an Armour value, speed, number of hardpoints (sometimes erroneous), ID number in the game code, chance to build, build time, and up to six hardpoints. The names here are arbitrary and do not appear in the code.

Ship $3c “Fighter”

A fast 30 Armour ship with a Photon Cannon (8 damage) and Warp Generator. Warp Generator phases ship out for three days and back in for two. Due to a bug, however, being phased out has no effect.

Ship $3d “Light Cruiser”

A fast 40 Armour ship with a a Plasma Cannon (5 damage), Warp Generator, and Disruptor.

Ship $3e “Heavy Cruiser”

A slower 40 Armour ship with a Photon Cannon (8 damage), Laser, Ion Cannon and Napalm Orb. Listed in the game code has having two hardpoints, although it has four. Never built randomly.

Ship $3f “Scoutship”

A slower 15 Armour ship with a Photon Cannon (8 damage). The weakest ship. The Ax’Zilanths and Rigellians are the only two species with a slow scout ship like this. The only small Ax’Zilanth ship without a Warp Generator. Each colony sends a scoutship every 130 days, the slowest of any alien.

Ship $40 “Light Bomber”

A slower 50 Armour ship with a Warp Generator, Plasma Cannon (5 damage), Chaos Bomb and Disruptor.

Ship $41 “Heavy Bomber”

A slower 60 Armour ship with a Warp Generator, Plasma Cannon (5 damage), Chaos Bomb, Disruptor and Vortex Mine. Identical to the previous ship except for higher Armour and a Vortex Mine.

Ship $42 “Transporter”

A slow 35 Armour ship with two Photon Cannons (8 damage). A typical Transporter.

Ship $43 “Battleship”

A slow 90 Armour ship with six hardpoints: two Plasma Cannons (5 damage), two Chaos Bombs, a Photon Cannon (8 damage) and a Disruptor.

Ship $4b “Orbital Space Dock”

Required to build the largest three types of ship (equivalent to Terminator, Transporter, or Battleship). The first time the colony attempts to spawn one of these ships, it instead creates an Orbital Space Dock. As a result, it effectively has a 30% chance to be built, and a build time of 50, 60, or 90 days. Has two Plasma Cannons, one Photon Cannon, and one Deflector. It is exceptionally tough, having 200 Armour, and the Deflector effectively doubles that. The other aliens except Swixaran have a sprite for the OSD in the files, but it’s just a duplicate of the Ax’Zilanth sprite and the ship is never instantiated for those species. If you were to cheat one in, it would have the stats of the Swixaran space dock but the sprite of the Ax’Zilanth space dock.

Starting resources

When facing the Ax’Zilanths, the player starts with the following resources:

• Cash: 250,000 credits (default)
• Blueprints: Gravity Nullifier, Shield X40, Solar Matrix

The alien colony begins with the following building clusters:

• 1: Atmospheric Regulator, Personnel Podule, Reactor, Nutrient Podule
• 4: Strategy Control, Energy Accumulator, Personnel Podule, Nutrient Podule
• 2: Sensory Matrix, Repulse Generator, Energy Accumulator, Mass Displacement Podule

They start with the following ships:

• $3d “Light Cruiser” x5
• $3f “Scoutship x1”
• $42 “Transporter” x2
• $43 “Battleship” x1

Colonization strategy

Each Ax’Zilanth colony considers starting a new colony every 35 days. The colonization countdown freezes if there is no Strategy Control. The initial colony takes 80 days to activate, and each new colony takes 40 days to activate.

A colony ship carries 100 population, altough this does not decrease the population on the asteroid.

A new colony builds the following cluster of buildings:

• 1: Atmospheric Regulator, Personnel Podule, Reactor, Nutrient Podule

Mining strategy

The Ax’Zilanth mine every day. If there is at least one Ore Extractor, and at least one Reactor or Energy Accumulator, the colony mines five times, and depletes two units of a random ore each time. They can mine all ten ores types.

Building additional Ore Extractors has no effect, although they will build as many as six before hitting the soft cap. The amount of ore mined is not stored anywhere.

Population

Population increases by 1 per day, provided that radiation is 40% or lower, and the colony has at least one Nutrient Podule and Atmospheric Regulator. Radiation above this amount does not decrease population. Each Personnel Podule has capacity for 100 population. If there are no Personnel Podules, the colony is destroyed.

Population decreases by 3 per day without an Atmospheric Regulator, and 1 per day without a Nutrient Podule. If both are missing, it only loses 1 per day. If either are missing, it reacts by building an Atmospheric Regulator, Personnel Podule, Reactor, and Nutrient Podule.

Spying

Each colony has a daily chance to spot one Terran spy satellite in orbit and shoot it down. The chance begins at 1% and increases by 1% per 16 days. Once they shoot a satellite down, the chance drops to 6%.

The daily chance is increased by 1% per 16 days for each Sensory Matrix and Subspace Detectors.

Scouting

Every 130 days, each colony sends a scout ship to explore a random sector of space. This is substantially slower than the others.

Tactical

The Ax’Zilanths have a very specific military strategy. They have a massive 80 pixel sensor range for detecting incoming missiles (compared to 16 for the Ore Eaters, for example), but only 30 pixels for detecting incoming fleets.

Every 16th day of the year (days ending in 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, or 96), each colony measures the damage done to it and retaliates with a missile strike depending on the amount of damage done since the last check:

• If at least 220 damage, it fires 1-6 Hellfire, 1-3 Nuclear, 1-3 Virus, 1 Mega, and 1 Stasis
• If at least 150 damage, it fires 1-3 Area Explosive, 1-3 Hellfire, 1-3 Scatter, 1 Stasis, and 3 Vortex
• If at least 50 damage, it fires 1-3 Hellfire.

Every 8th day that isn’t a missile day (days ending in 08, 24, 40, 56, 72, or 88), it fires a single Static Inducer missile at a random Terran asteroid.

On all other days, there is a 1% chance to trigger the Mass Displacement Podule, the asteroid teleporter, on each asteroid. However, the asteroid to be teleported is randomly selected from all alien colonies, even ones with no Mass Displacement Podule, since the building count references the currently indexed asteroid, not the randomly selected asteroid being teleported. This may be a bug.

If none of these occur, every 8 days divided by number of colonies, it checks for Terran missiles or spy satellites within sensor range, which is a massive 80 pixel radius; for comparison, that’s one quarter of the game screen. It retaliates by firing 1-4 of a unique missile which deflects incoming missiles.

Failing that, they resort to fleets, but will only use fleets once they have lost one colony to building destruction (i.e. Terran attack, not asteroid collision). They need at least 10 ships present to form a fleet, and form fleets of 0 to 15 ships. The retreat chance is set at 100%; i.e. they will never retreat until destroyed.

The Mass Displacement Podule can also trigger automatically in two specific instances. If an asteroid is about to move off the edge of the screen, and it is not affected by a gravity nullifier effect, it will teleport. It will also teleport to avoid an asteroid collision, if necessary; however, only if it cannot resolve the collision by firing a Mega missile (i.e. it has no Mega, no missile silos, or the colliding asteroid is an Ax’zilant colony). A Mass Displacement Podule is required on the teleporting asteroid in these circumstances.

Art inspiration

The art for the Ax’Zilanth appears to be heavily inspired by an artwork by sci-fi illustrator Peter A. Jones, which appeared on the cover of the 1975 Panther Science Fiction publication of The Chalk Giants by Keith Roberts. The artwork’s creation in 1974 is described at the author’s website. It appeared on page 16 of Jones’ 1980 art anthology, Solar Wind.

In the original artwork, the figure is a humanoid in shape, size and skin tone, except for the black and white head. The game art only draws the head, while the manual art adapts the creature to have a tentacled lower half.

Below is a comparison between the alien as it appears in the game, and the artwork: