Sectopod

The Sectopod "Walker" is one of the most dangerous terror units X-COM has come up against. Their armour is nearly impervious to all weapons fire, but they appear to be vulnerable to lasers.

Sectopods are seen in the company of Ethereals in base defenses and terror missions. Beware, their weapon is a powerful laser with autofire capability, which can make short work of any enemy of the Sectopod in seconds.

General Information

Every Sectopod is nearly completely identical and is built not only for self-sufficient commands and operation, but also psychic/psionic manipulation -- an Ethereal could potentially control a Sectopod as if it were it's own body, from millions of miles away.

If X-COM ground forces encounter Sectopods on Earth, it will usually be during a Base Defense, Alien Base Assault, or Terror Mission. Terror attacks by Ethereals are the most dangerous for both Civilians and X-COM units - apart from having to deal with their psionic abilities, we also have to fight against Sectopods.

Statistics

TUs:               62-71
Health:            96
Energy:            90-104
Reactions:         64-79
Strength:          90-97
Bravery:           110
Firing Accuracy:   30-70
Psi Skill:         N/A
Psi Strength:      100-116

Damage:            100 Laser
Accuracy-
  Snap:            75%
  Auto:            50%
  Aimed:           110%
TUs-
  Snap:            30%
  Auto:            35%
  Aimed:           60%

Autopsy

The Sectopod appears to be capable of self-sustained propulsion and attack. Its "brain", whilst small compared to modern electronics, is incredibly powerful. It is anywhere from 5 to 10, to even 20 times as powerful as standard Earth processors. This may be a machine, but it is a machine with near sentience although its intelligence is supressed so that it does not start thinking of its own accord.

There are signs of specialised biomechanical components, which may be used to psionically remotely control the Sectopod. Unlike the Sectoid's Cyberdisks, the Sectopod's power module is far more robust and as such, despite our best attempts, the module cannot and will not explode, except where immense amounts of energy are involved.

Whilst it is nearly impervious to most damage types, its "screen" has the "unfortunate" effect of amplifying lasers that strike, making them do considerable amounts of damage to the circuitry and mechanical "brain". The Sectopod is elerium powered.

[Jasonred] : The game explains that its "Sensing circuitry is particularly vulnerable to laser fire".

[--X-COM:Turcocalypse 14:26, 15 April 2006 (PDT)] : Bad sci-fi idea,I laughed when I saw it first.Laser is after all,radiation stimulated super-dense light.If it's vulnerable to this,how can PLASMA,matter with 15000 Grad Celsius shrugged off?

I guess that it's armor is thick enough that neither plasma's nor laser's heat would effect it. But spark from laser make it's sensor circuit mess-up and since it's quite powerful, Ethereal program it to shutdown the system once sensor damaged to prevent friendly-fire.

Notes

• Sectopods take 80% damage from high explosives and plasma, and 150% from laser. Combined with their strong armour, even the Heavy Plasma will have a very difficult time taking down a Sectopod - expect to expend many clips. Ideally the rear should be targeted, since it has a sizable 45 points less armour than the front. If you anticipate fighting Sectopods, dust off your old Heavy Lasers and bring as many as you can.

• Some commanders keep Tank/Laser Cannons on hand to deal with Sectopods. The turret laser's high power, combined with the Sectopods vulnerability to lasers, encourages troops to keep Laser tanks on hand when they would otherwise be scrapped in favour of hovertanks.

• The extremely impressive under armor of the Sectopod(45 on Beginner, 90 at all other difficulties) combined with the resistance to explosives means that a Sectopod is immune to standard grenades, and has a fairly decent chance of shrugging off an Alien Grenade or High-Explosive pack even at ground zero. In fact, the only explosive weapon that has a chance of killing a non-beginner Sectopod in one hit is the mighty Blaster Bomb, and sometimes not even then.

• As a robot, a Sectopod has incredibly high Psi Strength, making it almost impossible to effectively use Psionics against it. However, if you do have a soldier strong enough to Mind-Control a Sectopod, by all means do so; it's basically like adding a tank to your troop roster for the turn. As an added bonus, because the Sectopod fires lasers, the fastest way to destroy a Sectopod is to partially MC it, and then have the MC'ed portions fire upon the non MC'ed portions.

• The Sectopod's turret, although masquerading as a plasma weapon, is really a laser weapon. This explains how the Sectopods can self-kill themselves so easily during partial mind control. A quickly-made-up excuse would be that they are 'green' lasers. Green lasers that fire thick globs of light.

• The only infantry weapons that are effective against the front and side armour of a Sectopod (or under armour, for explosives) are (in order of effectiveness) the Blaster Bomb, Stun Bomb, Heavy Laser, HE Pack, Heavy Plasma, Laser Rifle and Large Rocket. (Laser Pistols have a theoretical chance but it's almost nil.) On average a Heavy Laser will take down a Sectopod in about 3-5 hits, more at higher difficulty levels. A Blaster Bomb ought to take out the Sectopod in one direct hit (usually). A Stun Bomb is about fifty percent more effective, per hit, than a turn of fire from a Heavy Laser.And even the HE Pack, Heavy Plasma and Laser Rifle (about as good as each other) will only nibble away at it - the Rocket's nibbles are even smaller.

See Also

• Ethereal