Annihilator tripod

The Annihilator tripod was a heavy walker used by the Scrin, first seen during the Third Tiberium War.

Background
The heavy walker classified as the Annihilator tripod was one of the Scrin's largest terrestrial assault unit. Armed with a proton cannon array mounted on what look like tentacles, these behemoths also have legs so massive that they can crush tank divisions. Furthermore, their near-impregnable armor sometimes cannot be so much as scratched due to powerful forcefields.

Despite its alien nature, it shares many of the same weaknesses as the mechanized walkers developed by humans. As demonstrated when a GDI commando disabled one of them by planting an explosive charge on its legs. The disabled walker was subsequently repaired and reactivated by an engineer, who was able to communicate in a rudimentary fashion with the walker's control entity by utilizing decryption programs similar to those found in the Tacitus.

The Scrin subfaction known as Reaper-17 uses a heavily mutated version of the Annihilator tripod, the Reaper tripod, which is even more dangerous due to being armed with conversion beams.

Game unit
The Annihilator tripod has better firepower, range, mobility and maneuverability than the standard Mammoth tank. However, its armour is not nearly as durable - causing it to still lose in a pitched head-on engagement. A Mammoth upgraded with railgun weaponry can easily damage or destroy an unprotected Annihilator in range, and at 3000 credits, the walker is also one of the most expensive Tier 3 units in the war.

Despite this, it's superior mobility and range, as well as its inherent abilities and possible upgrades, namely: its beam arms' high flexibility and autonomy, its short-ranged EMP burst (capable of immobilizing even Epic units), and its recharging Forcefield, respectively—easily make it one of the most dangerous Tier 3 units in the war - capable of cutting apart armor from a great distance, and disabling it should it foolishly decide to try and close the distance.

The Annihilator Tripod leaves a husk upon death.

Development
Design-wise, the Annihilator tripod was considered one of the more difficult units, as it went through multiple vastly different iterations. The original design for the Annihilator tripod looked more mechanical than organic, the design was scrapped because it did not fit with the design of other Scrin units.

The next design iteration was a tripod with one or three tentacles, with no connecting body piece between the tentacles and the legs, but the in-game model based on this idea felt too spindly. This version was considered not imposing enough and lacking any sort of focal point.

In the final design iteration, a center bulkhead piece was added to connect the legs to the tentacles, along with a central “eye” for focus. According to Art Director Matt Britton, the Annihilator tripod soon became a favorite unit among much of the development team.

Changelog

 * Tiberium Wars patch 1.05:
 * added ambient sound effects
 * added new visual effects for the Annihilator tripod's close-range EMP attack.
 * Tiberium Wars patch 1.07: fixed a bug that caused the drone platform to self-destruct when coming in contact with an enemy upgraded Annihilator tripod.
 * Kane's Wrath patch 1.02:
 * decoy Tripods can no longer cast EMP strikes
 * damage increased by 10%

Trivia

 * The Annihilator tripod may have been inspired by the tripods from the War of the Worlds novel.