Crabber

I can’t break through that damn shield!

~Survivor shooting a Crabber

Crabber
Planet of origin: Ana
Forms of damage Claws: 30 Stabbing: 20
Attacks per turn: 1 – 2
Initiative: 63 (Extremely Fast)
Height: 160 cm
Average weight: 135 kg
Average health: 360
First appearance: Chapter 5

Crabbers are the latest and one of the most dangerous species to come to our world through the Conjuncting Fog. Their damage is mediocre compared to Knightmares. However, they are incredibly resilient, possessing large pools of HP. Their armor covers almost the entire body, which makes them harder to hit. They’re also sentient and display a significant intelligence. Crabbers don’t tolerate other species, so they react with aggression against anything unfamiliar to them. Be very wary when fighting them because they like to attack in small groups, and you’ll most definitely have to waste lots of ammo to drop even a single one of them dead.

Contents

• Weaknesses
• Special action
• Resistances
• Useful knowledge
• Drops
• Related events
• Lore

Weaknesses

Crabber’s weakness map represents the probability of weakpoints spawning on various alien body parts. Green color highlights the areas where these points generate less often, whereas, in the places marked red, they appear most frequently. Please note that in no way does it affect the damage dealt unless you attack the weakpoint directly. So, for example, if you target their face when no weakpoint is present, you’ll get the same result as if you tried to attack one of the legs.

Despite being the 2nd most durable creatures in the game, they’re not that hard to deal with. Due to a tiny area where the weakpoints can spawn, they’re pretty densely packed, and it’s not that uncommon to see two or three stacked together. The player can take advantage of that and deal with a Crabber in two hits with a good weapon.

Hitmap

Crabbers are unique creatures. They possess a shield that negates all the damage dealt to them. Due to that, it might get confusing where the player can land a hit. Blue color highlights where Crabbers can’t be damaged, while red represents their vulnerable areas. Please note that despite a very obvious similarity, the hitmap is not the same as the weakness heatmap.

Special action (Shielding)

• The Crabber is shielding itself with a thick armor.
• There’s a 30% chance the creature’s special action will activate.
• Damage received by the shielded Crabber will be reduced by 75% until the end of the shielding action.

Resistances

Any attacks aimed at their head are met with a telescopic neck, which cushions the blow. Any other place you can hit is covered by a hard shell; thus, stunning a crabber is challenging and can be seen as an achievement. Even if they do take damage, they fight as if nothing happened.

• Bleed – 0% resistance
• Blind – 0% resistance
• Dizzy – Immune
• Fear – 0% resistance
• Hatred – Immune
• Ignite – 60% resistance
• Poison – 0% resistance
• Stun – 99% resistance

Resistances affect a weapon’s base debuff multiplier (100%). With no resistance, the chance to apply a debuff is what you see on a weapon’s card. So, for example, if your weapon has a 10% Ignite enhancement, each hit with that weapon has 10% (base chance) * (100% – 0%) (base debuff multiplier) = 10% chance to apply the Ignite debuff. However, with Crabbers’ 60% resistance against the debuff, that number is reduced to only 10% * (100% – 60%) = 4% chance.

Useful knowledge

These facts increase your chance to successfully obtain alien-specific loot:

Crabber Shield Ponge:
“Inside the shields, there are mainly hollow pockets with cushioning sponge-like tissue.”

Crabber Sticks:
“The body cover is thick and durable, but extremely light.”

Drops

When killed, Crabbers have a chance to drop:

Related events

None

Lore

Crabbers have not evolved as a race. Instead, they have been genetically engineered by the Cyferus civilization. In Cyferus’ language, the name for Crabbers means “a warrior,” which heavily implies their purpose. They were used to exterminate other intelligent species that could pose a threat in the future. Crabbers used to attack and conquer selected planets, eviscerating everything in their path. They couldn’t target Cyferus themselves due to an imprinted fear protocol.
What’s more, had the need ever arisen, the civilization could also activate a biological protocol which makes an entire Crabber colony self-destruct within a few months, usually rendering a planet’s ecosystem a complete wasteland as well in the process. The colonies depend on what is called a Karma Chamber. It is a central place of every settlement where not only reproduction is done but also genetic modifications of the species based on strictly defined schemes. It functions as a brain and a biological printer of sorts. After joining the Stream of the Worlds, the Karma Chambers’ tissues stopped growing properly and got badly wounded due to constant Demon attacks. As a result, invalid protocols were being fired off, affecting entire colonies. This is why separate colonies don’t communicate with each other and often do weird things. Notable examples of such peculiar actions on Earth include genome modification allowing individuals to breathe carbon dioxide (resulting in a colony’s eradication) and construction of a spaceship deep underground despite the settlement counting only a few dozen members instead of millions.