Protector Drone
From Duke Nukem Wiki
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The Protector Drone (also known as the Alien Beast) is an enemy in Duke Nukem 3D. It appears only in the Atomic Edition of Duke Nukem 3D, and only in the Atomic Edition episode The Birth. It is first encountered in the first level of The Birth, It's Impossible.
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[edit] Description
The Protector Drone is a very dangerous enemy. It is very quick-moving, has powerful slashes, can take a beating, and it can disable its foe with a single shot of its Shrink Blast. This lean beast is not for underestimating but, preferably, for termination with extreme prejudice.
This monster is the spawn of the Alien Queen herself, and apparently the opposite can be said to be true as well, since a horde of Protector Drones were seen in the video footage at the start of the fourth episode surrounding a pregnant woman about to give birth (presumably to the Alien Queen herself). The Protector Drone is charged solely with protecting the Alien Queen and her domain, and it is very determined to carry out that duty.
[edit] Appearance
The Protector Drone is a slim beige creature, somewhat humanoid in appearance but certainly very alien. It has three red eyes, positioned just above a large mouth full of extremely big teeth. On the top of its head is a small fleshy fin. It has large fleshy fins sticking out of its shoulders and spikes on its elbows, and its ribcage stands out prominently (it doesn't wear any clothing). It has large hands, with three long sharp fingers per hand. Its legs are rippling with muscles, and each foot has three large toes. It walks on its toes, as various animals do (like cats, except not as fluffy).
Despite its seemingly frail appearance, the Protector Drone is very durable. It can survive two direct hits from an RPG.
The Protector Drone fires Shrink Blasts from its mouth, which is presumably a biological feature since there is no visible technology on its body. It being immune to the Shrink Ray is probably due to needing to be immune to its own attack. When it dies, it spews a large amount of green blood from its wounds. This blood is toxic/acidic, and can sometimes be left behind in puddles, which are harmful to touch.
[edit] Combat analysis
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The Protector Drone is very quick-moving, and is capable of jumping high to pursue any foes that attempt to escape it by fleeing to higher ground.
Its main attack method is to get close to its foe and slash at it with its claws, an attack that does significant damage. Its less common method of attack is to fire a Shrink Blast at its foe, which acts identically to the Shrink Ray (i.e. a single shot will shrink the foe for a certain amount of time), and to then stomp on them while they are shrunken and helpless.
Being an agile enemy, the Protector Drone may dodge most projectile weapons. Only 3 Pipebombs are needed to kill it, but because the Protector Drone is so quick, the act of deploying them may often be too slow. The same goes for the Laser Tripbomb (3 mines). The other danger with explosive weapons, particularly the RPG and the Devastator, is that the Protector Drone may move to close range so swiftly that the weapon user can forget explosions will harm them as well at close range, and they ends up hurting (or even killing) themselves in the process.
An important point to note is that the Protector Drone cannot be shrunk by the Shrink Ray, even though it is an organic enemy. This is likely because it uses Shrink Blasts as a weapon, and is therefore immune to any effect that would try to shrink it. It is however susceptible to the Shrink Ray's counterpart, the Microwave Expander, and needs about 20 shots from it to kill it.
The Protector Drone is still dangerous even when it is dead. Its blood is harmful (either toxic or corrosive), and standing on its corpse will cause damage.
[edit] Data
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[edit] The Protector Drone in other games
 A Protector Drone in the extreme foreground in Duke Nukem 64, just before dying. |
- Duke Nukem 64 does not contain the episode The Birth, which is the only episode in Duke Nukem 3D the Protector Drone features in. However, some of The Birth's levels are moved into other episodes, and the Protector Drone is also distributed around some other levels as well, mainly the more popular levels in Lunar Apocalypse and Shrapnel City.
- The Protector Drone is first encountered in Lunar Apocalypse, Fusion Station.
- While there is no colour applied to palette 6, the Protector Drone gibs will show red blood instead of green.
- Since the palette system is not applied, the poster in Area 51 will shown a blue newbeast, instead of brown.
[edit] Trivia
 The 3D model used to make the sprites. |
 A Protector Drone in a glass tube in Area 51. |
 A poster declares the Protector Drone as "UNKNOWN". |
- The Protector Drone's alternate name of Newbeast is the temporary name given to the monster by the developers during the creation of the game.
- The Protector Drone' code is based on that of the Assault Enforcer. The two enemies share several attributes, such as jumping and crouching.
- The Protector Drone will spawn the jibs of the Assault Enforcer when destroyed.
- The Protector Drone cannot be shrunk by the Shrink Ray.
- The Protector Drone was initially intended to be blue like The Queen, but it was later changed to beige for unknown reasons. Sometimes the actor placed in the maps will have a palette of 15 (blue changed to brown).
- There is a Protector Drone contained in a glass tube in Area 51 in a fetal position. This is the position the Protector Drone is born in (i.e. born from the Alien Queen).
- This particular Protector Drone will remain in its fetal position indefinitely, unless it is attacked.
- If a fetal position Protector Drone is hit by an attack that is strong enough to kill it in one shot (i.e. from full health), it will instead became immortal. This never happens in normal gameplay, though, since no weapon used by the player has such firepower.
- This bug seems to be fixed in Duke Nukem 64, as the Plasma Cannon can deal enough damage to kill a Protector Drone in one shot.
- The Protector Drone is based on the Xenomorph from the Alien movies. Their appearances are similar, and their blood is harmful. Both also have a queen which is bigger and deadlier than them, and that gives birth to more of them.
- It can jump a lot further underwater.
