Andron

Andron Ingame.

Androns are one of the three main types of alien invaders. They will be the main and most numerous hostile units in the battles with their participation. Androns are usually the third alien species the player will encounter. In terms of strength, androns appear at the level of sebillians. The features of androns is high armor, full protection from suppression and stun damage, as well as complete disregard for covers and the inability to crouch.

In-Game

Androns, like sebilians, prefer to use heavy weapons such as plasma cannons, however, unlike them, androns will not try to get closer and will prefer to stay at medium distances. Also, despite the fact that they do not use covers like caesars, they will try not to stay in the line of fire and, if possible, will go around corners or retreat deep into buildings.

Because of being fully immune to stun means that there is no way to capture a "live" andron as a prisoner in the game. Using of stun grenades against androns makes no sense, just like using of flash bangs and stun batons. The impossibility of suppression also gives them an incredible advantage - if the andron manage to survive after heavy fire, it will have a full volume of TU, and will provide appropriate resistance.

A high armor rating allows them to withstand more damage than sebilians, and even more so than caesans. Because of this, the standard ballistic weapon against androns becomes extremely ineffective.

Tactics against androns

The fact that androns do not use covers must be actively used, taking into account their preference for fighting at medium distances, it is recommended to be at a large distance from them and fire from weapons capable of causing a lot of damage per shot, such as sniper rifles. Carbines are ineffective, since they shoot several weak bullets by themselves, the damage from which is actively reduced by armor, Moreover, you need to approach the targets in tight, although this may be necessary when storming alien ships Ballistic weapons are very ineffective against androns, so it is recommended to use laser or plasma.

Taking into account the impossibility of suppressing androns, the use of automatic and machine-gun bursts makes no sense except for causing damage, so it is recommended to save ammunition and TU, and use either more accurate shots (in the case of rifles), or shoot bursts near when it is guaranteed that most of the shots will reach the target.

The use of shock grenades against androns can serve as an excellent alternative to the use of conventional ones, even despite the relatively low damage, firstly, the detonation of shock grenades occurs instantly, allowing both to assess the remaining health of the andron and instantly eliminate the target in order to avoid further retaliatory fire in this turn. Secondly, androns killed by shock grenades leave their recoverable equipment, which has a positive effect on your budget.

Disassembly Data

Androns are bipedal robotic infantry. Standing 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches) tall, they are constructed from the same advanced alien materials as are used in the hulls of alien craft and are consequently very heavily armoured. Disassembly of the destroyed Andron reveals that it is powered by a miniaturized Alenium reactor sat within an armoured compartment in the droid‘s torso. The power is distributed to the rest of the body through a branching armoured cable that runs down the back of the torso in an unexpected mirror of a bipedal creature‘s spinal column. The remainder of the body is comprised of powerful hydraulic systems and servomotors that control the movement of the robotic limbs. These are all connected to a complex network of sensors which allow the droid to navigate the battlefield and track and prioritize targets. Armour plates sit atop this machinery and protect it from harm. These plates vary in thickness from 1-3 centimeters (0.4 - 1.2 inches) and in some areas are virtually impervious to kinetic damage.

The thickest armour appears to surround the central processing units in the robot‘s head, rendering any attempt to score a headshot pointless. Our soldiers have instead been instructed to shoot for the torso, where there is still a chance to disable a critical component (in this case the Alenium reactor or the armoured spine) and our weapons have more of a chance of penetrating the enemy armour. Andron soldiers present a unique challenge on the battlefield. Extremely tough, utterly fearless and able to fire heavy weapons on the move, they make deadly assault troops. Their biggest weakness appears to be poor situational awareness - interviews with our soldiers suggests that Androns do not make any use of cover when in combat. It is possible that the aliens erroneously believe that the Androns are sufficiently armoured not to require cover (while they are tough, they are not invulnerable). Whatever the reasoning behind their behavior, we must use this flaw in their programming to our advantage.

Interrogation Data

They cannot be stunned or captured alive. Therefore it's not possible gain an analysis boost against them. However, there was an analysis report on andron in the game files, which, for the reasons mentioned above, could not be obtained in the game.

Well done, Commander. Whoever fired the lucky shot that disrupted its self-termination mechanism has given us an intact specimen rather than the usual fragged to hell mess of circuitry that forms its brain and I've been working around the clock to decrypt its contents.

The brain is an engineering marvel. Like the rest of the body, it's been modelled on organic beings - a large, complex lump of matter. Considerable thought has been given to cooling the excess heat a machine-speed brain generates. The architecture of the brain is so designed to prevent hotspots from forming, superconductive material is used throughout and an unusual liquid coolant is used whose molecules appear to dump around spots of heat and ignore cooler areas, regulating the amount by which any particular area is cooled rather than cooling everything by the same uniform temperature. As with other design decisions of the Andron, there don't seem to be any efficiency gains from modelling the brain like this. A distributed set of processing nodes throughout the body would be easier to cool and make the Andron more resilient against an attack which takes out a processing node.

Digital forensic analysis of its operating system reveals two distinct layers of machine code. The first, more fundamental layer is an autonomous, undirected, self-aware neural network. This generalized layer can learn and reason in a similar way that higher-order mammals can. It was difficult to unearth, as its been partially hidden and mostly brutalizer by a second layer of code which savages the self-learning and self-improvement mechanisms, installs powerful obdience protocols and forces the decision matrix to refer to an approved master instruction set turning a potentially self aware being into a lobotomized slave. This disparity between the two layers both in design and intent is striking. Clearly Androns weren't always this way… but what were the Androns before they were re-purposed as engines of war? Experiments are underway to see if we subvert the control layer. A mass slave revolt on Andron-crewed vessels may be one solution to the invasion.

For all the Andron's robot speed and strength, their slavish instruction set makes them incredibly predictable, right down to the way they hold their their weapons and the precise pattern of movements they make in combat. These "tells" as well as detailed files on weak spots in their armour plating have been packaged up and distributed to your men. You should see a roughly 10 percent improvement in damage caused by exploitation of these weaknesses.

Ranks, characteristics and available equipment

• Guard
• Soldier
• Warrior
• Elite
• Officer

Guard andron on the battlefield

Action Points	45
Resilience	60
Strength	80
Accuracy	45
Reflexes	60
Bravery	100

Weapon (All possible)	Others
Alien Rifle	Alien Plasma Cell

Soldier andron on the battlefield

Action Points	55
Resilience	90
Strength	80
Accuracy	55
Reflexes	60
Bravery	100

Weapon (All possible)	Others
Alien Assault Plasma Alien Heavy Plasma Alien Plasma Cannon	Alien Plasma Cell

Warrior andron on the battlefield

Action Points	57
Resilience	135
Strength	80
Accuracy	60
Reflexes	65
Bravery	100

Weapon (All possible)	Others
Alien Heavy Plasma Alien Plasma Cannon Alien Assault Plasma	Alien Plasma Cell

Elite andron on the battlefield

Action Points	60
Resilience	200
Strength	100
Accuracy	65
Reflexes	70
Bravery	100

Weapon (All posible)	Others
Alien Heavy Plasma Alien Plasma Cannon	Alien Plasma Cell

Officer andron on the battlefield

Action Points	57
Resilience	135
Strength	100
Accuracy	60
Reflexes	80
Bravery	100

Weapon (All possible)	Others
Alien Assault Plasma Alien Heavy Plasma Alien Plasma Cannon	Alien Plasma Cell

Andron Disassembly

Andron Analysis (1)

Andron Analysis (2)