Void Bastards is a roguelike space-shooter extravaganza. Seemingly pulled from the pages of a 60s comic book, it’s a fantastical amalgamation of colour, chaos, and creativity. From the procedurally-generated spaceships populating the game’s nebula, to the mutated citizens onboard those ships, Void Bastards is all about implementing strategy with hilarious, and often disastrous, results.
The ‘enemies’ in Void Bastards are usually the mutated crews of long-abandoned ships, floating through the vastness of the nebula. You might also stumble across some space pirates during your voyage, or come face-to-face with the mechanical foes that form the ship’s security systems. Some of these folks, hell-bent on your demise, are pretty easy to pick off. Some of them, however, are not. Your job is to amble through the nebula, looting ships and trying not to die along the way. How you do that is entirely up to you.
The deeper you venture into the nebula, the more powerful Void Bastards’ enemies (or ‘Citizens’) become, taking on new forms that become steadily harder to defeat. Here’s our guide to every enemy in Void Bastards, conveniently listed in alphabetical order – because who doesn’t appreciate an alphabetised list?
Gunpoints
Gunpoints are deadly turrets that often lurk in the rooms and corridors onboard ships, conveniently hidden just around corners for optimum sneakiness. They’re part of the ship’s security system, so if a ship has a lot of security, you’re pretty much guaranteed to encounter these bots. Once you enter their line of sight, Gunpoints take a second to ‘boot up’ before firing some heavy-damage bullets at you. They’re stationary, but they’ll keep shooting until you’ve moved out of their line of sight, so it’s a good idea to take cover while you come up with a strategy for taking them out.
Boompoints
Boompoints are variations of Gunpoints; usually found deeper in the nebula than their bullet-shooting counterparts, these bots fire missiles that do a serious amount of damage. They’re also hardier than your average Gunpoint.
Radpoints
Another variation of the Gunpoint is the Radpoint. These hardy, rocket-launching foes are similar to Boompoints, with a couple of main differences: they’re only found in the furthest reaches of the nebula, and their projectiles also cause radiation damage. They can very quickly knock down your HP, so be prepared when you take them on – despite what the name implies, there’s nothing rad about these turrets.
How do I beat Gunpoints?
There are several ways to beat Gunpoints, which also apply to Boompoints and Radpoints. The best way to destroy them is to either use your Zapper to stun them, or temporarily disable all security systems onboard the ship from the SEC room, and then run in all-guns-blazing.
Alternatively, you can save that precious ammo and use merits to subvert them, causing them to see the light and start fighting for your cause. Make sure you stun or temporarily disable them before attempting to subvert them, however, or you might just be blown up in the process. Remember, you can only subvert them once you’ve unlocked this ability from the workbench.
Janitors
Janitors are potty-mouthed average joes. These citizens are quite low-level, so you’re likely to find swathes of them early game. That said, they can still deal some significant damage, especially as you progress through the nebula, when they take on their ‘Veteran’ form. Janitors wander around when idle, muttering to themselves and emitting stepping noises, displayed in the characteristic comic book style. Once they spot you, they’ll begin to hover and glow, shooting balls of energy from their mouths.
Veteran Janitors
Veteran Janitors have been around the block a few times. They have more health and they do more damage, making OG Janitors look feeble in comparison. The main differences are that you won’t find the Veteran variant until the third depth level of the nebula, and that they have the capacity to shoot two energy balls at once.
How do I beat Janitors?
Janitors are relatively simple to defeat – grab any gun and aim for the head. You can also use poison spikes to one-shot kill a regular Janitor. For Veteran Janitors, you’d be wise to use your stronger guns to get rid of them before they can inflict too much damage. Large groups of Janitors can swarm you – have your Clusterflack or Bushwacker at the ready for times such as this.
Juves
Juves are short, goblin-esque and mightily angry citizens. They’re a bit of a nuisance as they’re nimble and speedy, craftily dodging attacks and hiding behind various obstacles. However, they have pretty low health and are one of the easiest enemies to defeat in the early game. When idle, they’ll walk around and emit a tapping sound, and they’ll hover when they spot you.
Hardened Juves
Hardened Juves are a variation of Juves found deeper in the nebula. They’re just like regular Juves, except they’re slightly less squishy – it’ll take more than a couple of headshots to defeat these guys.
How do I beat Juves?
Juves are relatively easy to beat. As a general rule, aim for the head with any standard gun – your run-of-the-mill Regulator will kill a Juve with one easy headshot. It’ll take a few more shots to kill the Hardened variant, so it might be worth switching to a more powerful firearm, like the Stapler. Remember, these guys are fast, sneaky, and have a tendency to swarm; try using an explosive as a handy method of dispersing juvenile crowds.
Patients
Patients are small clusters of floating heads that aimlessly meander the ship’s corridors. They’re quite melancholy, which – if you’re anything like me – might make you feel a little bit sorry for them. Don’t let them beguile you, however; once they’re in close proximity, each of the heads will start to fire projectiles at you. While the heads are individually weak, as a group they can do some serious damage, especially if you’re swarmed by other Patients in the vicinity.
Inpatients
Inpatients are variants of Patients, found deeper in the nebula. They are a cluster of pink floating heads who do more damage, have more health, and move significantly faster than regular Patients.
How do I beat Patients?
You’ll need to take out each of the Patient’s many heads in order to defeat it. When one is killed, often quite easily by a single shot, the others live on – this, combined with the constant bobbing and weaving, makes these guys effortless ammo-wasters. Instead of firing aimlessly at them, grab a weapon with splash damage. Throw a Clusterflack bomb at them and run away, or use the Nebulator to take all of the heads out at once.
Peepers
Nobody likes a tell-tale, so by default nobody likes Peepers. These security cameras are positioned in random locations onboard ships, and will start loudly beeping when they have you in their sights. Once their alarm goes off, you’ll have a few seconds before it informs a SecBot (listed below) of your presence.
Watchers
Just like Peepers, Watchers are security cameras that are alarmed by your mere being there. They have even more of a bee in their bonnet than Peepers do, and will alert the SecBot twice as fast.
How do I beat Peepers?
To prevent a Peeper or Watcher from alerting the SecBot and beginning a highly annoying feud, you’ll need to destroy them. One shot from any gun or the Zapper should do it. As Watchers alert the SecBot faster, you’ll need to take them out as soon as they start sounding. Remember, if you shut the ship’s security down, Peepers and Watchers will be temporarily disabled.
Pirates
Pirates are worthy foes, and entering combat with them shouldn’t be taken lightly. Luckily, you’ll know when it’s coming; once you make enough progress in the game, you’ll spot the purple pirate ship on the map. Each time you move, they’ll move after you.
It’s possible to avoid them altogether by choosing ships outside of their range, or to automatically torpedo their ship (if you’ve looted a torpedo). If they do manage to lock onto you, they’ll follow you down into the next ship you board. Once onboard, they’ll hunt you down, firing high-damage missiles from their hefty armour.
How do I beat Pirates?
Simply put, bring your best stuff against the Pirates. Strong weapons and upgraded tools will really help you out against these hardy foes, as well as the usual tricks (like Zapping). You may also need to remove a Pirate tether from the ship, which is essentially an anchor keeping the Pirates stationary. Hunt down the tether and remove it – you won’t be able to exit the ship until you do.
Pirates shouldn’t be underestimated, but they’re not invincible, and you’ll be able to take them on with ease once you’ve got some powerful weapons to hand.
Screws
Screws are, without doubt, one of the toughest enemies in the nebula. These lumbering, spiky giants have a lot of power behind them, and they can take even the best fighter down. When they see you, they’ll fire spikes in all directions from their bodies, which scatter and bounce from the walls – these are hard to avoid and do serious damage on impact. Perhaps the only respite from this ‘spelling of your doom’ is the fact that they’re slow – very slow.
Trusty Screws
If the standard Screw wasn’t bad enough, here comes the Trusty Screw! Found in the lower levels of the nebula, they’re twice as strong, loaded with health, and they really pack a punch.
How do I beat Screws?
When it comes to Screws, the best methods involve no combat at all. Avoid them like the plague. Since speed isn’t on their side, you shouldn’t have much trouble running away from them, or lock doors to trap them inside rooms. If you’re dead-set (emphasis on the dead) on killing a Screw, make good use of Bushwackers, your Zapper, and any powerful weapon. The Zapper comes in especially handy if you happen to get swarmed.
Scribes
Scribes are first encountered on the second depth level of the nebula, and paint the picture of a morose, mutated office worker, tie and all. They hover around the ship, and will start glowing when they see you, taking a couple of seconds to prepare and fire its projectiles at you. They’re inherently shy; after a brief violent outburst, they’ll turn and quickly float away, ready to encounter you again later.
Senior Scribes
Senior Scribes are stronger than regular Scribes, and do more damage with their bolts. Other than being immune to headshots, they aren’t that different from your average Scribe.
Veteran Scribes
Veteran Scribes are found deeper in the nebula, and are far tougher than the other two variants, so it’s wise to be wary of them. Not only do they fire guided projectiles that home in on you wherever you are, they also drop mines that explode when you run over them, dealing substantial damage. Groups of Veteran Scribes can spell disaster – even if you’re hiding, their bolts are likely to find you, and their mines can quickly trap you.
How do I beat Scribes?
When taking on a regular Scribe, you can use any basic weapon. A Zapper comes in handy to prevent them from running away and sneaking up on you again later, like the introverted miscreants they are. Try to take them out while they’re preparing their attack to minimise damage. The same can be said for Senior Scribes, except you’ll need to aim for the body rather than the head, and potentially use a more powerful weapon.
When it comes to Veteran Scribes, you should aim to beat them as quickly as possible, before you’re swarmed by the mine-dropping, tie-wearing pranksters. You can use their own mines against them by shooting and detonating them from afar. Otherwise, bring a strong weapon, and a Herd-Zapper (if you’ve built it).
SecBots
The SecBot is the most fearsome of the ship’s security systems. Short, mechanical, and inexplicably angry, these Bots aren’t a fan of intrusions. They sit inactive in the SEC or NAV rooms on the ship, and are only awoken if a Peeper or Watcher spots you (and you don’t destroy it quickly enough).
Once they’ve been alerted, they’ll hunt you down, slowly but surely making their way to your location (they always know your location) and dealing some serious damage with their guns. If you’re wondering where it is at any given moment, just listen out for the sound of its blaring siren. Oh, and it can unlock doors, which for some reason is unnerving.
WarBots
The WarBot is an even angrier version of the SecBot, with more health, more powerful guns, more speed, and the ability to repair itself. They’re very difficult to destroy, and even more difficult to ignore, thanks to the whole earth-shatteringly loud siren thing.
How do I beat SecBots?
When taking on a SecBot, arm yourself with a Zapper – the mortal enemy of all security systems. This will stun the bot long enough to help you escape it, or give you a chance to deal some damage. You can avoid combat altogether by spending merits to disable it in the SEC room, or by shutting down the security systems on the ship.
If you have the ability to subvert SecBots (which you unlock from the workbench), you can spend merits to turn these mechanical foes into mechanical friends. They make a great asset to your fighting team, especially if you’ve got a WarBot on your side. Just make sure that you stun them before attempting to subvert them.
Spooks
Spooks are…well, spooky. They’re a mid-level opponent, but can do a significant amount of damage simply because of the sneakiness of their attacks. When idle, Spooks float around the ship as a translucent, cloaked figures with piercing green eyes and a stylish hat.
Upon seeing you, Spooks fade away, becoming invisible. When they reappear, they’re usually behind you, where they expose the core beneath their cloak to shoot at you. These foes will continue this disappearing and reappearing act until they’re defeated.
Shifty Spooks
Shifty Spooks are found deeper in the nebula than regular spooks. As the name implies, they have an added dose of shiftiness. They disappear and reappear twice as fast, and shoot twice as many bolts.
How do I beat Spooks?
The Spook’s main tactic is being a nuisance. The best thing you can do to them is prevent or weaken their invisibility effect. Use the Zapper to stun them, so they can’t fade away, or use the Spiker or RadSpiker to poison them. This will surround them in poison clouds, so you can still see their location even when they’re invisible – and be prepared for when they reappear. Make sure to shoot them with a strong gun, like a Stapler or Spiker, when they reveals their core – Spooks are more resistant to damage when cloaked.
Tourists
Tourists are gelatinous blue blobs that gently squelch around ships, adorned with tiny hats. They’re slow, weak, and explosive, and they really like their personal space. If you come too close to them, or they get too close to you, they’ll shake violently and detonate, showering a large radius with goo and dealing damage to anything in the blast zone. As a weaker enemy, they’re found quite commonly in earlier ships in the nebula. They also tend to gather in swathes, which I fondly refer to as tour groups.
Glowtrotters
The Glowtrotter variant of the tourist is a lovely shade of irradiated yellow. These blobs are faster moving than Tourists, but have a slightly weaker explosion. They do radiation damage, and leave a radioactive puddle on the spot where they exploded, which persists forever and can render some walkways difficult to traverse.
Friendly Tourists
Friendly Tourists are, in fact, anything but friendly. These pink blobs are huge damage dealers, found deep in the nebula. If you make the mistake of getting too close to one, it will detonate with a forceful explosion, dealing huge amounts of damage.
How do I beat Tourists?
Regular Tourists are slow and weak. You can shoot them from afar with any regular gun to cause an instant explosion, useful in taking out groups of enemies, or approach and run away again. This way you’ll save on ammo, but risk getting caught in the blast.
Glowtrotters are slightly more difficult to defeat, due to their selfish habit of leaving irradiated patches of goo where they explode. Try not to let groups of them explode in corridors – instead, lure them into wider areas and shoot them from a distance with any regular gun.
Friendly Tourists need to be avoided at all costs. Shoot them with with the Toaster or the Nebulator from long-range for a one-shot detonation. If you do end up too close for comfort, the Bouncer can safely block the blast damage. If you encounter a large group of them, throwing the Clusterflak and running away is your best bet.
Zecs
Zecs are dangerous enemies, found from the fourth depth of the nebula onwards. These angry, supervisor-style enemies find joy in yelling at you to get back to work. The Zec is made so powerful by the combination of its projectiles and its shield; it throws long-range, explosive bolts that deal substantial damage, and is protected by an unbreakable shield, impenetrable by bomb and bullet alike.
How do I beat Zecs?
From the front, Zecs deal a lot of damage and sit smugly behind a forcefield. From the back and sides, however, it’s a different story. Sneak up on a Zec to flank it or approach from behind, and use a powerful weapon to take it out before it turns around. Alternatively, you can use the Nebulator or Bangers and aim at the floor, ceiling or walls to tactically bounce the artillery around or over the shield – great for when your sneaking attempt has failed miserably.
Remember, Void Bastards is a game all about strategy, and coming up with your own creative solutions to the nebula’s fiercest enemies. The easiest way to defeat an enemy might not always be the best way. Leading groups of Screws into a garbage disposal chute and watching them fly out into space probably isn’t the most effective way to defeat them… but it sure is fun.
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