MIRAGE
Hover the gunship to take it apart
PartsTechsThe Mirage is an air brawler: a squad of 3 gunships for 300 (unlocked for 50) that flies over the ground war and fires 2 missiles of 1,087 every 3 s (725 damage a second each) at anything within 6.5 tiles (65 m), ground or air. Its job is to hunt what can't look up: the Skitter, Ridgeback, Cutter, Torch, Aurochs, Anvil, Weaver, Salvo, Breaker and Landship have no weapon that reaches the air, so a Mirage squad that gets to them wins, and it also beats the Rotor; across the launch roster it wins 69–74% of its fights at equal cost. It loses to dedicated anti-air, the Hexguard, Courser, Heron and Dreadnought; the Seraph is a toss-up (85 / 28 / 100% at 400 / 800 / 1600 coin). Deploy it on the flank away from those guns, send it after artillery and the short-range heavies that can't answer, and keep it clear of rifle and missile lines. Its range is short, so it has to arrive close: Cloak makes it untargetable until its first volley, so it crosses the field without taking a shot; Long Barrels (+4 range, 10.5 tiles) let it fire from outside short-range guns; Shield Cell adds 5,118 shield, doubling what it can soak; Heavy Plating adds 40% hp and blocks 60 per hit; Oil Slick leaves a 1.5-tile slick for 6 s that slows ground units to 60% speed, pinning what it chases.What you see: the Mirage as it flies in the game today, 3.4 m long and 2 m across the racks, shown over a lift stand instead of at its 5 m flying height. The racks are fixed to the hull, so the whole gunship turns to aim, at most 100°/s: the dial on the stand shows the target's bearing off the nose closing at that rate. On Fire the clamshell doors swing open and the left rack, then the right 0.1 s later, each loose a missile at 17 tiles/s (170 m/s at 10 m a tile, drawn at true speed), the hull kicking nose-up at each launch; splash 0.3. 5,118 hp, 1.6 tiles/s. Tech parts are hidden until bought, as in the game; toggle them below. Numbers from the catalog (base.json) and the animation plan.