Moloch

Moloch
Stats
Health 1,000	Sight: 1
	Hearing: 1
Armor N/A	Weakpoints None
Immunities N/A	Vulnerabilities N/A
Behavior
Walk speed 0.3	Swim speed 1
Aggressive? Always	Can Enter Submarine? No
Drops only 1 of the items marked with an asterisk * may drop at a time
Items	Chance
N/A	N/A

The Moloch are large man-of-war-like creatures that manifest in Barotrauma. They are one of the most common aquatic life encountered in Europa's oceans.

Description

Molochs possess three pairs of elongated tentacles which allow them to propel themselves through water, although it makes them poor at walking on dry ground. Their shell is primarily pearl blue in color, with an oily sheen, and their legs take on a more whitish blue appearance.

Molochs have poor eyesight, instead using the sensory tendrils which line the ventral side of its head to navigate the ocean.

The Moloch's shell acts as both its defensive and offensive capabilities. The shell protects their soft innards and will absorb the majority of damage inflicted to it (1/100th of the damage). It is also the Moloch's only method of attack, using the shell to ram into its targets.

They are ponderous, but their mass alone allows them to easily inflict heavy damage on a submarine by simply colliding with it.

In-game

Impact with a Moloch, or even just a corpse thereof, is especially damaging to the submarine's hull and will easily busts holes in it, causing flooding. Consequently, the Moloch presents the most danger either when the submarine is stinking or stationary.

Molochs will not focus on any humans they encounter, and will deliberately attempt to ram the submarine. However, a crew member getting hit by the impact of their shell will still mortally wound them, making it a recommended strategy to keep seamen away from parts of the ship being attacked by Molochs. Despite their persistence to sink the submarine, they tend to be unable to match the speed of it, which makes fleeing a viable option.

Since the shell of a Moloch significantly reduces the efficiency of attacks from above, it is strongly recommended to shoot them from beneath for maximum efficiency. A Railgun will take three to four shots to kill it. If a player manages to shoot it under its shell, it will usually be an instant-kill. If not, shooting it again will kill it.

Molochs cannot be inflicted with bleeding.

Molochs are sometimes found instead of an artifact at the end of salvage missions in Quest Mode, as they emit the same kind of infrasonic signals. Killing the misleading creature will still be considered a success.

Damage Values

Item	Attack Damage	Kinetic Force	Damage Type	Attack Duration
Head	200	400	Blunt	0.2 Seconds

Trivia

• Before version 0.3.2.0, Molochs were unable to damage players, but tried to regardless. This resulted in the popularity of a 'rush' strategy to deal with them: divers would swim to the Moloch and strike it the least efficient weapon, distracting the creature from the comparatively vulnerable submarine and slowly wearing out the monster. The issue was fixed in 0.3.2.0, and the strategy abandoned.
• Interestingly, the Moloch's code doesn't include direct damage values against structures, instead transferring kinematic energies to yield the same result and create hull breaches.