Merui

The Merui is a legged long-range artillery unit introduced in Build 136. It fires projectiles that travel over intervening ground and structures, dealing area damage to ground targets while being unable to hit air units. Merui occupy the same collision layer as other legged ground units and therefore do not collide with other legged walkers. The unit is named after the aquatic beetle Meru phyllisae and belongs to a family of beetle-themed units.

Merui’s primary weapon fires relatively slowly but with significant area effect. Its main weapon was nerfed in Build 149: the firing rate was reduced from 1.00 to 0.95 shots/sec (reload increased to 63 ticks). The projectile has a limited lifetime (46 ticks, roughly 0.76 seconds) and produces an area hit roughly equivalent to a 2.3-tile radius for splash damage; the impact also applies modest knockback (about 0.8). Projectiles travel over targets and terrain and have an effective range around 17.25 tiles, but they cannot affect air targets. The weapon deals 30 area damage (and 30 damage vs force fields). The Merui’s shell and movement are fragile compared with heavier tanks.

Practical use and tactical notes:

• Merui excels at disabling or destroying turret installations behind cover because its shots pass over walls and other blocks, making it effective at severing turret ammo or targeting protected structures from a distance.
• The unit’s fragility and cost (fabricator requirements include tungsten) make it best used behind sturdier screening units such as Stell tanks; let the tanks soak up return fire while Merui delivers long-range suppression.
• Because it cannot target air, combining Merui bombardment with area airborne attacks (for example, bombing from a core-dropped Reinforced Liquid Container filled with ozone) can be an effective way to finish swarms that Merui cannot personally target.
• Merui’s low speed and tendency to be fragile mean it is vulnerable to fast kiting units and concentrated breaches; spread friendly forces to minimise splash casualties and use Diffuse or other anti-swarm tools for melee interceptors.
• Legged movement allows Merui to traverse shallow liquid tiles when natural walls constrain the pool edges; they do not drown as long as their main body is not positioned over deep liquid, which can let them accompany other legged attackers along constrained paths.
• On the Erekir map, Merui and its derivatives are notable among non-core, non-cargo/assembly drone units for having an item capacity, which theoretically allows wireless item transport. This feature is impractical on Erekir without player-usable logic and because Payload Loader/Unloader interactions with units are restricted.

Design and compatibility:

• Merui was added officially in Build 136 and received the reload/firerate change in Build 149.
• It benefits teams that can access tungsten and the Oxide-related tech tree (for example, the Oxidation Chamber and subsequent output), since tungsten is required for construction and enables complementary defensive structures such as the Sublimate.
• The unit’s projectiles do not track and have no added status effects; their primary strength is terrain-traversing splash damage rather than precision or air denial.

Combat counters:

• Breach-class units with sufficient numbers can block Merui advances and damage them at close range; tungsten-armed Breaches are especially effective at hitting Merui behind other tanks.
• Fast, small units that can kite (for example, Elude) can harass and avoid Merui shells due to the projectile travel time, making hit-and-run tactics effective against isolated Merui.