The Commander, the D-gun and Self-Destruct

The Arm Commander and the Core Commander follow several rules that no other unit shares. This page collects them.

What Only the Commander Has

• It is the only unit that can capture. The same setting in its data stops it being captured or reclaimed itself.
• It cannot be paralysed: the data makes both Commanders immune.
• It repairs itself at 3.75 hit points a second, paying 3.75 energy a second.
• It leaves no wreck when it dies.
• It makes 25 energy and 1 metal a second, and builds with a build power of 300 that loses nothing to rounding.

The D-gun

The Disintegrator does 30,000 damage, the same value the game uses when a unit self-destructs. It ignores the damage modifier of a closed building, though the target's veterancy still reduces it.

• Each shot costs 400 energy, and the whole 400 must be in store. With less, the D-gun does not fire.
• It fires every 1.2 seconds, out to a range of 240.
• The shot does not stop at its first victim. It carries on through everything in its path until it reaches the end of its flight, and its blast hurts your own units too.
• Your Commander fires the D-gun only when you order it. A computer-controlled Commander picks its own D-gun targets.
• Units it destroys leave nothing to reclaim. For every unit but the Krogoth, 30,000 damage goes so far below zero that the death severity is at its maximum.

The Death Blast

When a Commander dies, it explodes with 9999 damage across an area of 950. Its edge effectiveness of 0.75 means that the damage hardly falls with distance: a unit anywhere within 475 of the Commander takes at least 7499, enough to destroy almost any unit in the game. The blast also hits your own units. The splash rules show the formula.

Self-Destruct

Ctrl+D starts a countdown, and pressing it again cancels it. Each step of the countdown takes 1 second, except the last, which lasts a random time of up to half a second. Most units count down 5 steps. Mines count down 1 or 2 steps, so they go off almost at once.

A unit that self-destructs explodes with its self-destruct blast, which can differ from the blast it makes when killed. The Invader does 1200 damage across 275 when destroyed, but 2500 across 556 when it self-destructs. A self-destructed unit does not count as a kill for anyone.