Magpie Manual v2

As there is a new Magpie, thus shall there also be a new book.

(After numerous complaints from people that are too lazy to press a link to a google doc, I am writing this one in the forums, much to my discontent)


MAGPIE MANUAL v2
(now with purple flavor)

Written By Qrow
Accurate to 2026/10/05 (New Magpie rev. 1)


Forenote


While numbers that are cited in this guide are all accurate and techniques listed should be able to be performed by any given player, connection and other factors may make things more difficult or downright impossible under given circumstances. Similarly, some opinions regarding balance and matchups in this guide are mine, so take them with a grain of salt.



Introduction

Welcome to the Magpie Manual! This guide details every aspect of the Magpie unit from the planes factory in quite possibly way too much detail.

In recent history, magpie has seen a pretty substantial overhaul. This guide mostly focuses on how we are adapting to play new Magpie from old Magpie, at least in a very solo-unit viable sense.


Stats

Here are the relevant numerical details:

Stat	Value	Notes
Cost	250 metal
Health	900	Regenerates 5 HP/s after 60 s idle
Speed	252	Cruises at about 262 altitude, strafe dives go down to 80-235
Turn radius	10 (200 auto-strafe)	200 only after 2 s with no command; any click resets it
Weapon	Disruption EMG	16 dmg x 2 projectiles x burst 2 = 64 per volley
Reload	0.8 s	24 frames
DPS	80	While firing continuously
Slow DPS	320	Slow x4, max 50%, 2 s overslow
Range	580	610 from 60 up, 658 from 175 up, 688 from cruise
Shell speed	820
Splash radius	12	areaOfEffect 24 is a diameter; edge damage 0.5
Spread	4.2 deg max	Median 2.5 deg, rolled separately per shell
Ammo	30 volleys	120 shells, 23.3 s of fire, 1920 dmg / 7680 slow per sortie
Rearm	5 s	10 E/s, 50 E per rearm
Repair	13.5 HP/s	Airpad or Plant; Reef 54 HP/s
Sight	760
Targets	Ground and air	acquires targets out to 780
Fire state	Fire at Will	Set Target works
Vs shields	37.3 per shell	Slow does not pen sheilds

If you’re new here, Magpie is a “disruption fighter”, which really just means you can spam the hell out of it and get a lot of value in most scenarios. Compared to the previous magpie that people used for this purpose, the new value-generator-supreme Magpie has some important different strengths:

• New Magpie has to spend longer in fights to get value, but has high potential damage out of a run than previous Magpie.

• Blobs of new Magpie can take extended engagements against AA easier.

• Fighting raiders is still a huge easy way to generate value, but takes longer.

• You don't have to micro runs as carefully, but have less direct control over what's going on, and the time we previously spent on managing economy for runs has now been replaced with managing input/output of units in ongoing fights.

• You gotta speak to your teammates now, because technically you're still playing a support unit. Sad, I know.

To summarize: Magpie is a unit with a variety of uses, covering almost any situation you can be put in, but usually excels in anti-raider and com hunting, as well as target spot removal for heavy units in the late game.

How the weapon works

New Magpie weapon is a little more complicated than it appears on the surface, so here's a rundown of how it works.

quote: sprayAngle = 1050

converts to a deviation vector equal to 0.073. The weapon itself has no extra error, but the weapon adds a point out from a ball that it randomizes spread for. The maximum angle the shot can spread out is 4.18 degrees. The mean is about 2.47, from testing.

Every round in a total "shot" is rolled separately, so shots will all have some various offset between exactly on target and 4.18 degrees out. The shots then reaim 2 seconds later after the volley, but there is no carried over randomness, so everything just resets and rerolls on the next go around. This means that being close to the target is essentially, or at least having enough Magpie for the randomness to be evened out is.

However, leading is exact, meaning that a moving target will not suffer from additional aiming inaccuracy beyond what the target itself can cause with movement.

quote: burnblow

makes the shots detonate on a fuse, randomized up to +/-1 frame. Interesting we benefit a small amount of net gain in performance from this against some tall targets (up to a range of +10%!)

At an averaged strafe shot,(179 up, 457 slant): half the shells land within 26 elmos, 90% land within 50. At the Loopback shot (207 up, 689 slant): we land approx. 39 and 79, on average.

Performance and Hit Rates

As expected, we see a higher ratio of bullets hit proportional to size, and strafe mode generally greatly benefits DPS at the cost of keeping the Magpie closer to danger. See the below table for averages on stationary targets:

Target	Shell hit %	Dmg / volley	Slow / volley	Dmg / Strafe run (~3 volleys)	Strafe sustained DPS	Loopback sustained DPS	Dmg / run (sortie)
Chainsaw	93	61.1	245	183	32.4	17.3	1834
Artemis	92	61.5	246	184	32.6	17.2	1846
Guardian Commander	76	54.5	218	164	28.9	12.7	1634
Razor	73	51.9	207	156	27.5	10.6	1556
Thresher	71	51.2	205	154	27.2	11.9	1537
Hacksaw	70	51.1	204	153	27.1	11.2	1532
Stinger	69	49.4	198	148	26.2	10.4	1482
Strike Commander	65	49.0	196	147	26.0	11.0	1469
Minotaur	68	48.2	193	145	25.6	9.0	1447
Faraday	61	46.2	185	139	24.5	10.0	1385
Gauss	62	46.1	184	138	24.4	9.8	1383
Knight	62	45.9	183	138	24.3	9.3	1376
Lotus	58	44.2	177	133	23.4	9.1	1326
Stardust	58	43.7	175	131	23.2	8.3	1312
Reaver	47	36.8	147	110	19.5	5.7	1103
Picket	46	35.7	143	107	18.9	6.6	1071
Scorcher	43	34.6	138	104	18.3	4.9	1038
Bandit	41	32.8	131	98	17.4	4.4	985
Dagger	32	29.7	119	89	15.8	3.9	892
Glaive	30	25.9	104	78	13.7	3.3	777

Optimizing DPS

How do you get more DPS out of Magpie? The single biggest player is strafe mode.

In testing, strafe mode saw higher damage and an overall 2-5 to 4x sustained DPS improvement versus loopback. However, you have to fly inside Hacksaw (490), Gauss (560), Picket (610) and Stinger (620) ranges, so the improved DPS will cost some Magpies unless you can pass the DPS check.

Additionally, in testing, some other obvious ways to optimize uptime:

• Picking large, easier to hit or stationary targets is a way to get easy value and raise your consistent damage output by 60-85% or so, compared to mobile targets.

• One Strafe Magpie holds the slow uptime on targets up to about 3250 HP, but loopback only guarantees up to about 1800~ in testing

• Otherwise, don't fly into stupid targets, avoid shields (although mass magpie murders shields now), etc

Understanding Slow

Slow is Magpie's new main mechanic, and what lets it take some otherwise disadvantageous fights against AA that it would otherwise lose. Understanding how it works is key to playing the unit optimally.

• Slow is 4x the actual DPS of the unit. However, it's still damage, and can be affected by anything that would reduce damage, etc.

• Slow % is current stored slow value divided by current HP, meaning a damaged unit suffers more from slow than one at full health will.

• Slow is capped at 50% HP plus some (2s of overslow)

• Slow only slows the following: reload and burst rate (reloads in progress are modified), movement, turning, build, and hp regen. It does affect turrets for Razor, Thresher, Lotus, Stinger, Stardust and Gauss, because they have scripts that actually see and read current slow %. It does not touch range, damage, projectile speed or missiles that were already in the air and locked onto something, or just flying (i.e, it does not touch independent non-child projectiles)

• Shields don't care about slow.

Heres some specific info for volleys to 50% slow while fighting AA and other statics:

Strafe:

Turret	HP	Volleys to 50% (all shells hit)	Volleys to 50% (realistic hits)	Closed armoured (all hit)
Picket	375	1	2	-
Hacksaw	580	2	2	-
Lotus	785	2	3	-
Stardust	1500	3	5	-
Faraday	1600	4	5	10
Stinger	2250	5	6	-
Chainsaw	2500	5	6	-
Razor	3000	6	8	18
Thresher	3000	6	8	-
Gauss	3000	6	9	18
Artemis	3200	7	7	-
Lucifer	6000	12	14*	36
Desolator	10000	20	22*	59

Loopback:

Turret	HP	Dmg factor	Slow / volley	Volleys to 50% (realistic hits)	Closed armoured
Picket	375	0.32	81	3	-
Lotus	785	0.44	113	4	-
Hacksaw	580	0.54	138	3	-
Stardust	1500	0.40	102	8	-
Faraday	1600	0.48	124	7	20
Stinger	2250	0.50	129	9	-
Chainsaw	2500	0.84	214	6	-
Razor	3000	0.51	131	12	35
Thresher	3000	0.58	147	11	-
Gauss	3000	0.47	122	13	38
Artemis	3200	0.83	213	8	-
Lucifer	6000	0.83*	212	15	43
Desolator	10000	0.83*	212	24	71

(Assuming a perfect hitrate, divide by average hit rates for better estimates, but safely assume 1 or 2 more volleys than stated)


How much slow cuts incoming damage versus statics, averages based on attempts (strafe):

Turret	N=1	N=2	N=3	N=4	N=6	N=8	N=12
Razor	-45%	-47%	-47%	-46%	-44%	-41%	-40%
Thresher	-42%	-44%	-44%	-42%	-40%	-37%	-35%
Chainsaw	-41%	-40%	-37%	-38%	-33%	-25%	-25%
Artemis	-38%	-39%	-36%	-33%	-25%	-27%	-12%
Hacksaw	-50%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Picket	0%	0%	-50%	-50%	0%	0%	0%
Stinger	-46%	-43%	-40%	-50%	-50%	-50%	0%
Gauss	-36%	-39%	-38%	-38%	-50%	-33%	-33%
Stardust	-48%	-49%	-48%	-49%	-48%	-50%	-50%
Lotus	-49%	-49%	-48%	-47%	-42%	-43%	-43%
Lucifer	-14%	-43%	-43%	-40%	-50%	-33%	-50%
Desolator	-13%	-21%	-41%	-45%	-47%	-46%	-47%

Loopback:

Turret	N=1	N=2	N=3	N=4	N=6	N=8	N=12
Razor	-14%	-33%	-46%	-47%	-48%	-47%	-47%
Thresher	-5%	-32%	-44%	-46%	-45%	-45%	-43%
Chainsaw	-21%	-42%	-44%	-41%	-39%	-33%	-33%
Artemis	-5%	-41%	-41%	-41%	-39%	-35%	-31%
Hacksaw	-33%	0%	0%	0%	no fire	no fire	no fire
Picket	-47%	-43%	-50%	0%	0%	-33%	-50%
Stinger	0%	-27%	-42%	-33%	-33%	-25%	-33%
Gauss	0%	0%	0%	0%	-11%	0%	0%
Stardust	no fire	no fire	no fire	no fire	no fire	no fire	no fire
Lotus	-34%	-36%	-40%	-50%	no fire	no fire	no fire
Lucifer	-9%	-9%	-36%	-40%	-43%	-40%	-50%
Desolator	0%	0%	0%	-17%	-45%	-43%	-40%

Strafe mode kill breakpoints and loss rates for statics, with slow taken into account (strafe):

• For these, we take 1 pass to be 3 volleys/shots

(Assuming no splash from AA)

Turret	Dmg factor	1 pass	2 passes	3 passes	5 passes	1 run
Picket	0.56	4 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)	1 (lose 0)	1 (lose 0)
Lotus	0.69	6 (lose 0)	3 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)	1 (lose 0)
Hacksaw	0.80	5 (lose 1)	3 (lose 1)	3 (lose 1)	2 (lose 1)	2 (lose 1)
Stardust	0.68	12 (lose 0)	6 (lose 1)	5 (lose 1)	4 (lose 2)	4 (lose 2)
Faraday	0.72	12 (lose 0)	7 (lose 0)	5 (lose 0)	3 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)
Stinger	0.77	-	8 (lose 0)	6 (lose 1)	4 (lose 1)	4 (lose 1)
Gauss	0.72	-	11 (lose 0)	8 (lose 0)	5 (lose 1)	4 (lose 1)
Razor	0.81	-	10 (lose 0)	7 (lose 1)	5 (lose 2)	4 (lose 3)
Thresher	0.80	-	11 (lose 1)	8 (lose 2)	6 (lose 4)	6 (lose 4)
Chainsaw	0.96	-	9 (lose 2)	7 (lose 3)	6 (lose 3)	6 (lose 3)
Artemis	0.96	-	-	-	12 (lose 10)	12 (lose 10)
Lucifer	0.90*	-	-	-	9 (lose 2)	6 (lose 3)
Desolator	0.90*	-	-	-	-	12 (lose 9)

Loopback:

Turret	Dmg factor	1 pass	2 passes	3 passes	5 passes	1 run
Picket	0.32	-	10 (lose 0)	7 (lose 0)	4 (lose 0)	1 (lose 0)
Lotus	0.44	-	-	10 (lose 0)	6 (lose 0)	1 (lose 0)
Hacksaw	0.54	-	9 (lose 0)	6 (lose 0)	4 (lose 1)	2 (lose 1)
Stardust	0.40	-	-	-	12 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)
Faraday	0.48	-	-	-	-	3 (lose 0)
Stinger	0.50	-	-	-	-	5 (lose 2)
Gauss	0.47	-	-	-	-	5 (lose 2)
Razor	0.51	-	-	-	-	7 (lose 4)
Thresher	0.58	-	-	-	-	9 (lose 6)
Chainsaw	0.84	-	-	-	11 (lose 3)	7 (lose 6)
Artemis	0.83	-	-	-	-	-
Lucifer	0.83*	-	-	-	-	8 (lose 4)
Desolator	0.83*	-	-	-	-	-

Slow not taken into account (strafe):

Turret	Dmg factor	1 pass	2 passes	3 passes	5 passes	1 run
Picket	0.56	4 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)	1 (lose 0)	1 (lose 0)
Lotus	0.69	6 (lose 0)	3 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)
Hacksaw	0.80	5 (lose 1)	3 (lose 1)	3 (lose 1)	3 (lose 1)	3 (lose 1)
Stardust	0.68	12 (lose 0)	7 (lose 2)	6 (lose 3)	5 (lose 4)	5 (lose 4)
Faraday	0.72	12 (lose 0)	7 (lose 0)	5 (lose 0)	3 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)
Stinger	0.77	-	9 (lose 1)	6 (lose 2)	5 (lose 2)	5 (lose 2)
Gauss	0.72	-	11 (lose 0)	8 (lose 1)	6 (lose 1)	5 (lose 2)
Razor	0.81	-	11 (lose 1)	8 (lose 2)	6 (lose 3)	6 (lose 3)
Thresher	0.80	-	11 (lose 2)	9 (lose 4)	8 (lose 6)	8 (lose 6)
Chainsaw	0.96	-	9 (lose 3)	7 (lose 4)	7 (lose 4)	7 (lose 4)
Artemis	0.96	-	-	-	-	-
Lucifer	0.90*	-	-	-	9 (lose 3)	7 (lose 6)

* Deso is absent from this list because it is stupid to attempt it without taking slow into account.

Loopback:

Turret	Dmg factor	1 pass	2 passes	3 passes	5 passes	1 sortie
Picket	0.32	-	10 (lose 0)	7 (lose 0)	4 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)
Lotus	0.44	-	-	10 (lose 0)	6 (lose 0)	1 (lose 0)
Hacksaw	0.54	-	9 (lose 0)	6 (lose 0)	4 (lose 1)	3 (lose 1)
Stardust	0.40	-	-	-	12 (lose 0)	2 (lose 0)
Faraday	0.48	-	-	-	-	3 (lose 0)
Stinger	0.50	-	-	-	-	6 (lose 4)
Gauss	0.47	-	-	-	-	5 (lose 2)
Razor	0.51	-	-	-	-	9 (lose 8)
Thresher	0.58	-	-	-	-	12 (lose 9)
Chainsaw	0.84	-	-	-	12 (lose 4)	9 (lose 7)
Artemis	0.83	-	-	-	-	-
Lucifer	0.83*	-	-	-	-	10 (lose 6)
Desolator	0.83*	-	-	-	-	-

I will update this guide as I do more testing, but I feel like I was already able to gather the substantial amount of information here, so it may take longer to find more stuff.


EDIT: Forgot some tables