Officer

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

This unit can be created by running the Officer program on one of the green Darwinians in a level. The Officer is used to give commands to the Darwinians, which you cannot directly control yourself.

The Officer program is another executable available to the player, first found as a research item that must be downloaded in the level Containment. The Officer is meant to serve the purpose of being your liaison between yourself and the Darwinians, giving you a means to influence their actions and move them around the maps.

The program is run by turning any Darwinian anywhere on the map into an Officer. Once it has turned into the Officer, the unit will become fully controllable like the other programs, however loses the Darwinians laser and grenade weapons. In addition to this, Officers cannot be used to operate the various structures meant for use by the Darwinians.

The officer begins with the move order which commands nearby Darwinians to travel to a specific point in a straight line from the Officer. Each Officer is limited to the complexity of it’s individual move order, meaning you will have to use several to get the Darwinians to move great distances.

Officer Research

The Officer begins at version 2.0 with the move order, and each subsequent version researched grants additional orders the Officer can use to influence the Darwinians. At version 3.0, the follow command is unlocked, which allows an Officer to cluster Darwinians around it, and lead them to a specific point by moving the Officer itself. This order can also be used to keep them from spreading out to far during their normal milling about. Before engaging the enemy, you should either turn this order off, or give a move order into the path of the enemy to send the Darwinians to battle, as they have a tendency to not fight while under the influence of the follow command.

Version 4.0 is the final upgrade that can be researched and grants the absorb ability. This command causes the officer to attach nearby Darwinians to it as a personal shield. This causes attacking units to take damage but can also be a big waste of units. Seems to be of limited practical use, and only worthwhile in the later missions where you get perpetual Darwinian spawns.