What's mobilising to put you down
Panicked pedestrians and news crews. Free MASS, no threat — but eating them rapidly drives the MEDIA stat, which is what calls in the heavier units.
Threat: lowFirst responders. Squad cars and a satellite van. Trivial to stomp; the van's broadcast feed bumps your MEDIA stat the moment it catches you on camera.
Threat: lowFirst unit that actually shoots back. Small-arms fire chips HP at long range; one ground-pound flips them over.
Threat: mediumStrafes from altitude. Hard to swat with melee — either bait it low, throw a vehicle at it, or use atomic-breath on the cone arc.
Threat: mediumM48A5 / M1126 hulls. Roll in, hold standoff, fire shells with a long cooldown. Smash with melee or atomic-breath them at range.
Threat: mediumLobbed shells with a delay timer. You hear the whistle before impact. Static targets — if you can reach the city edge they're easy MASS.
Threat: mediumStrafing runs from the skybox. Duck behind a skyscraper or eat the missiles mid-air with atomic-breath.
Threat: highCharges a beam, fires a hitscan line across the map. Move erratically during the wind-up, then close before it can reload.
Threat: highStuns atomic-breath for 4 seconds on a hit. Always travels in groups — prioritise them or you'll lose your ranged option mid-fight.
Threat: highSits in the bay and lobs naval shells. Tokyo Bay / New Manhattan only. You can swat them by wading into the water, or ignore and bear the bombardment.
Threat: highCluster bombs and danger-close artillery, painted in advance with red ground markers. You have a few seconds to clear the kill zone.
Threat: highPaints a 400-unit blast zone. Twelve-second timer. Either flee outside the radius, or catch and eat the warhead for a detonation that wipes the surviving wave on your terms.
Threat: extreme