Sublimate

Sublimate is a continuous flame turret that projects an armor-piercing sustained jet of gas at enemies. It serves as a primary point-defense turret for choke points and frontal lines, dealing high DPS over a straight line and ignoring unit armor. Sublimate accepts two volatile gas ammunitions — Ozone and Cyanogen — and is unlocked after building Afflict with Diffuse as a prerequisite in the tech tree. The turret has no water-cooling enhancement and functions as a short- to mid-range area suppressor that excels at shredding groups and tanks.

Sublimate’s Ozone load deals 540 DPS at a consumption of 15 units/sec, with 2x pierce, 1 knockback, and -70% building damage (so only 162 DPS vs buildings). Its base range is 16.25 tiles (130 world units). Cyanogen increases the turret’s power substantially: at 18 units/sec it outputs 1170 DPS, gains +8.7 tiles range (to about 24.95 tiles), 3x pierce, 2 knockback, and the same -70% building damage penalty. Both ammo types use a Continuous Flame bullet type that applies repeated ticks of damage per second and are explicitly armor-piercing.

Deploy Sublimates where ground units funnel or are forced to pass in a line; the high pierce makes them ideal for cutting through stacked targets and melting incoming missile hordes before they reach your defenses. Because the flame is continuous and linear, positioning on approach paths, corners, and outer core rings maximizes its efficiency. Cyanogen Sublimates gain much greater reach and raw killing power, enabling them to threaten higher-tier units and reducing the number of units that outrange the turret.

Practical notes and interactions:

• Place Sublimates alongside walls and other turrets (for example, pairing with Lustre) to cover blind spots and offset its straight-line firing pattern. They pair well with turrets that have different targeting patterns since Sublimate has no spin-up or slow rotation drawbacks.
• Use Duct routing and Reinforced Bridge Ducts to protect supply lines; both gases are highly volatile and can cause catastrophic explosions if Reinforced Liquid Containers or Tanks are destroyed. Reinforced Bridge Ducts help prevent fire from jumping along conduit lines.
• Ozone Sublimates are excellent, low-cost anti-tier-1 defenses — 540 DPS can wipe many early waves and is effective against units like Cleroi blobs because the flame jet is difficult for point defenses to intercept.
• Cyanogen Sublimates are much tougher to brute-force; their extra range and pierce make them resilient to missile-based attackers and harder to flank without higher-tech units. They are effective against tanks that try to close range.
• Common counters are to surround or flank the turret so AI must retarget multiple units, or to sever incoming Duct lines to trigger chain reactions and cut off ammo. Early-game units often outrange an Ozone Sublimate, so support with Breach or other turrets can be necessary.
• Specific hostile units that can outrange or threaten Cyanogen Sublimates include non-missile long-ranged attackers (e.g., Tecta, Conquer, Collaris) though some require additional tech levels; fast surround tactics with mobile units like Obviates can still neutralize a Sublimate without advanced tech.

History and balance notes: Sublimate was added in early builds and has received fixes across builds (notably bug fixes around firing and correct damage to Ducts). Cyanogen’s consumption rate was increased in later builds to balance its higher DPS and range; the cyanogen ammo uses a 1.5x ammo/item stat, which is a unique non-integer ammo ratio among turrets.