Steel Ball

Steel Ball

High-speed anti-unit bot

Mobility	Ground
Giant	No
Cost	200
Unlock cost	50
Units	4
HP	4571
Attack	2 - 2605
Target	Ground Only
Attack Interval	0.2s
Splash Damage	No
Burst Damage	Minimal
Max DPS	52100
Range	45m
Speed	16m/s
Description A high-speed and high HP unit that attacks enemies at close range with a laser beam that gradually grows in size. The bane of all high HP units

Values are normalized to the supply cost of the unit to make it easier to compare units. The Splash Index tries to calculate the effectiveness vs spam by multiply attacks with slash area and a penalty for damage below 350.
Unit Cost	50 - 62.5
HP Value	73.1 - 91.4
Burst Value	0 - 0
DPS Value	208.4 - 260.5
Splash Index	0.5

v0.9.0.2

Summary

Steel balls are a fast-moving, short ranged unit whose beam attack is designed to rapidly shred high HP units. They excel against high HP units with either low range or low fire rate, and are weak to chaff units and all air units, as they target ground units only.

Steel balls have very good synergy with Mustangs as they share the same movement speed and cover each other's weaknesses - Mustangs can effectively defeat both flying units and chaff that would otherwise draw the Steel Balls' fire, which allows the Steel balls to destroy the high-HP units Mustangs struggle to deal with.

Steel balls can be recruited fairly early in the same, but they are also potent threats when levelled and can rapidly snowball a game out of control. If you have a strong, aggressive start, they alone can win you the game. As a reactionary unit, they shine vs Rhinos and shields/deployable barriers, especially if they're deployed near your base.

Most of the Steel Balls' upgrades center on increasing its utility rather than on direct damage output, with the exception of Heavy target. Damage Sharing and Mechanical Division make Steel Balls much more resilient to high burst units, while Energy Absorption and Armor Enhancement allow Steel Balls to stay alive against units that deal damage over time (e.g. massed Fangs, Crawlers).

Tech Upgrades

Steel Ball Tech Upgrades

Icon	Name	Cost	Description
	Energy Absorption	300	Increases HP by 40% and converts damage dealt to HP HP 6399
	Damage Sharing	250	Chains adjacent steel balls together, increasing HP by 120% and sharing damage received equally between them HP 10056, total HP 40225
	Range Enhancement	300	Increases attack range by 40m Range 85m
	Mechanical Division	350	Destroyed Steel Balls create 5 level 1 Crawlers to continue fighting
	Armor Enhancement	350	HP is increased by 35% and 60 damage is blocked when attacked. The damage blocking effect increases by 60 with each level HP 6171
	Heavy Target	200	Decrease range by 10m, when switching target, lock-on priority is given to the unit with the highest HP in range. Range 35m

Melting Damage

The damage of the Steel Ball need time to build up. A full unit need about 26s to deal a total of 1,000,000 damage that is about 5s longer then the max DPS. That shows the the build up to max DSP need more then 5s. As rule of thumb; it takes about 4 seconds for the first max DPS and 2 seconds for the next, after that the max DPS is applied.

Update Notes

0.7.40 The HP bonus of Tech [Armor Strengthening][Armor Enhancement] has been increased from 20% to 35%. 0.7.31 ATK increased by 5%. 0.7.25 The HP bonus provided by [Energy Absorption] is adjusted from 60% to 40%. 0.7.13 Tech [Armor Enhancement] adds an additional 20% HP, and the price is adjusted from 300 to 350. 0.7.12 The EXP required for leveling up has been adjusted from 750 to 780. Reinforcement card [Subsidized Steel Ball] adjusted from level 1 to level 2. The cost of [Mechanical Division] adjusted from 300 to 350, and the number of crawler generated adjusted from 7 to 5. 0.7.6 Attack increased by 10% New Technology [Heavy Target]: Decrease range by 10, when switching target, lock-on priority is given to the unit with the highest HP in range. The effect of the [Improved Steel Ball] card is adjusted to: Steel Ball's attack increased by 50%, HP increased by 30%, and movement speed increased by 3, but the recruitment cost increased by 50. [Extended range Steel Ball] is removed from the game. 0.7.0 Adjusted speed from 15m/s to 16m/s 0.6.175 Page created