Dominant Bio-mechanoid

Dominant Bio-mechanoid
General information
Type	Cyborg
Affiliation	Mental's Horde
Individual information
Health	1500
Attacks / weapons	SBC Cannon Cannonball direct impact (0-750, dependent on velocity) Cannonball splash damage (0-25) Cannonball piercing power (350-580, dependent on velocity)
Size	45 ft (13.7 m) standing
Game information
Point value	10,000

The Dominant Bio-mechanoid is an enemy that appears in Serious Sam Classics: Revolution.

Overview

The Dominant Bio-mechanoid is a large green biomechanical creature that has SBC Cannons attached to its custom-grown weapon slots on its sides. Dominant Bio-mechanoids are even more dangerous than Major Bio-mechanoids, as they have higher health points and their cannonballs can instantly kill even a 200 health, 200 armor player, even on lower difficulties, and deal minor to massive amounts of damage to players that have a good amount of health and armor if they don't directly explode on them. The Dominant's cannonballs actually have the same damage properties as the player's own cannonballs regardless of the difficulty, including the piercing power of 580. Because of this, the Dominant's cannonballs can instantly kill a player even on Tourist difficulty. Furthermore, these cannonballs are immune to gunfire, much like those fired by the player's cannon.

Dominant Bio-mechs appear only in the Bright Island campaign, with the first one appearing towards the end of "Ruins of the Abyss". Later on, they become slightly more common, generally spawning with other enemies, usually lesser Bio-mechanoids like Spawners and Minors. They become more common on higher difficulties.

While Majors and Dominants are never seen together except in custom levels, Dominants can be made to appear in The First Encounter and The Second Encounter campaigns in co-op mode if the mutator replacing enemies with the new Revolution-exclusive types is enabled. In this case, they can also appear with Majors and can even appear as early as "Temple of Hatshepsut" if the players venture outside of the starting area to head for the secret small oasis with the Extra Large Health. Otherwise, with the mutator active, they make their first non-secret appearance in "Valley of the Kings" (The First Encounter) or "Valley of the Jaguar" (The Second Encounter). The chances of Dominants appearing increase if the player raises the enemy multiplier; however, the player also runs the risk of the game becoming more unstable or even crashing in the process.

Behavior and skills

When the Dominant Bio-mechanoid sees a target, it rapidly fires two cannonballs one after another that fly up in an arced trajectory and then fall to the target's location in an attempt to directly hit them. After firing, it walks to the target and starts firing cannonballs again. The speed at which the cannonballs are launched out of the Dominant's cannons depends on the target's distance to the Dominant - the farther it is, the faster the cannonballs are launched and the more likely they are to instantly kill the target.

Tactics

• The Dominant Bio-mech's cannonballs can be avoided by strafing left or right.
• Like the Major Bio-mechanoid, strong weapons such as the cannon, XM214-A Minigun, XL2 Lasergun, CDF-ST-005 Plasmathrower, MK III Grenade Launcher, and XPML21 Rocket Launcher are effective weapons to use against it.
• As stated above, the Dominant Bio-mech's cannonballs cannot be destroyed with gunfire, as a stark contrast with the Major Bio-mech's rockets.
• In addition, using the cannon against the Dominant Bio-mech is slightly risky as the cannonballs from both the player and the Dominant Bio-mech can destroy each other, and the latter can still kill the player with a second cannonball. It is ideal to either aim the cannon such that the Dominant Bio-mech's cannonballs do not get in the player's line of fire or shoot the cannon as soon as the Bio-mech is done firing.
• The Serious Damage and Invulnerability powerups are very useful to have active when fighting Dominant Bio-mechanoids as the former lets the player quickly kill the Dominant Bio-mech easily while the latter allows the player to not worry about the Dominant Bio-mech's fatal cannonballs.
• A risky but ammo-efficient tactic to kill a Dominant Bio-mechanoid involves circling around it, jumping frequently, and slicing it to death with the P-LAH Chainsaw at point-blank range. Unlike the Major Bio-mechanoid, the Dominant Bio-mechanoid has a much lower chance of directly hitting the player at close range as it fires cannonballs at an arced trajectory instead of a linear trajectory. As long as the player keeps circle strafing around the Dominant Bio-mech, the Dominant Bio-mech rarely gets a chance to damage the player outside of minor splash damage. However, this leaves the player at the mercy of other nearby enemies like Kleer Skeletons and especially Spawner Bio-mechs and their Marsh Hoppers.
  • The XOP Flamethrower is also an effective choice against a single Dominant Bio-mechanoid, as long as the player continuously circle-strafes around it. On the other hand, these tactics are not recommended on I Am Ugh-Zan difficulty as there is a chance that the Dominant Bio-mech or another approaching enemy will spawn with either a fire modifier that can harm the player if they touch it or an ice modifier that can reduce the player's movement speed if they get too close to it.
• Luring a Dominant Bio-mech into a mine field from the MKII-B Minelayer can be useful as the mines can deal great damage to it.
• Dominant Bio-mechanoids are high-priority threats when they appear with other enemies, as they can easily kill the player when they are focusing on killing other enemies. Even from far away, the Dominant Bio-mechanoid should still be destroyed immediately as soon as it is spotted regardless of whether or not it is the only enemy in the area, as its cannonballs can easily gib an unsuspecting player. However, as long as the player is constantly strafing, they can easily avoid the Dominant's barrage of cannonballs.

Trivia

• The Dominant Bio-mechanoid is named WalkerMonster in the game files and WalkerArtillery in the Serious Editor.
• The Dominant Bio-mechanoid originated as a custom enemy for both Serious Sam HD and Serious Sam 3: BFE as a part of the Ultimate Enemy Pack and Ultimate Resource Pack mods by Solais, respectively, where it is named the Artillery Bio-mechanoid (WalkerGreen being its internal name).
  • Although the concept of a cannon-armed Bio-mechanoid existed as far back as the Serious Violence mod for Serious Sam: The Second Encounter in the form of the Commander Bio-mechanoid (not to be confused with the one from the Ultimate Resource Pack), the Dominant and Artillery Bio-mechs are green, while the Commander is black in color.

List of appearances

• Serious Sam Classics: Revolution (First appearance) (non-canonical appearance)