Cybran T2 Mobile Bomb

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Cybran T2 Mobile Bomb: Fire Beetle
f • s • e
Mobile bomb. Must be moved into position and manually detonated.
Build Costs	-1800 -300 1200
Max Health	750
Speed	5 (Land)
Intel (Radius)	Vision: 24
Weapon: Suicide Death
Damage Damage radius	1200 5

The Cybran T2 Mobile Bomb, nicknamed the Fire Beetle, is a Cybran unit.

A devastating weapon, the Fire Beetle is a Cybran T2 land unit best described as a mobile bomb, in that its "attack" consists entirely of running into its target and exploding. This explosion can in some cases surpass that of a tactical missile in damage; massed Fire Beetles, properly deployed, may replicate the detonation of a strategic nuclear weapon without being vulnerable to strategic missile defenses. They are like the Baneling in StarCraft II.

That said, proper use of Fire Beetles is tricky, as they will not detonate if simply destroyed; one cannot, for instance, load six of them on a T2 Air Transport and crash the transport for a more effective explosion. While this does make them far safer to move around, since one chance explosion will not cause a multimegaton blast to ripple across a group of Fire Beetles, it does mean that any Fire Beetles destroyed by, say, point defenses are effectively wasted, and it is therefore beneficial to protect the beetles until they reach their targets; as Cybrans lack mobile shield generators, such protection generally takes the form of mobile stealth fields and cheap infantry units.

Unfortunately, Fire Beetles lack any sort of reusable, reloadable, or even survivable weaponry, making them unsuitable for prolonged defensive campaigns; while their inclusion in normal infantry almost invariably results in at least one Fire Beetle destroying a group of its own allies in addition to whatever enemy it targeted; while these semirandom detonations are amusing, they are rarely efficient. Fire Beetles also perform poorly in groups for similar reasons; it is to their advantage to be deployed such that they all explode individually, minimizing the chance that any one explosion will neutralize the entire force. Fire Beetles are, however, occasionally effective against Experimental units and stationary shield generators.