Stinger

Summary
The skulker is medium sized ranged hostile found on Fortuna III. It is part of the Dirtbeast class, that prefers to attack from long range

Description
The Skulker is a type of spitter that attacks from long range. It has many distinguishing features, including the large rounded head, lacking any discernible eyes and nostrils. It has a large sail like protrusion on its back, as well as exposed spinal plates running from the base of the neck to the tip of the tail. Like the spitter and hurler, it has 2 antennae like protrusion extending from the shoulders, as well as four spit sacks under the throat. The skulker is furless, with a purple back, and 3 large stripes running along the spine on either side of the back. It has purple glowing lesions over it's body, as well as glowing spinal plates, head patterns and a glowing sail. It lacks horns and claws like those of the squatter.

Behavior
Th skulker prefers to be at least 25 to 30 meters away from it's target. It will typically move side to side rather than approaching the target. It will rear up on it's hind legs and let out a guttural roar before hurling a long range assault on the target. Like other spitter type creatures the skulker is also able to engage the target with melee attacks should the target come to close. The 4 attacks that the skulker utilize are:


 * Ranged Attack: The Skulker rears onto its hind legs and charges up its attack. During this time a bright glow will be seen coming from its mouth. The skulker will then release a single powerful shot with very good accuracy. The charge time is 2 seconds, and if the skulker is stunned or staggered during this time it will abort the attack. The skulker will lead its attacks to attempt to hit the target, and thus it is a very powerful enemy with an attack that can be difficult to dodge if not spotted soon enough. If the target moves behind the skulker during its charge up time it will not be able to hit the target.


 * Left Downward Slash: If the target is within close range the skulker will slash down with its left paw.
 * Right Upward Slash: The skulker will swipe its right paw upwards to attack the target if within melee range
 * Combo attack: The hurler will first swipe up with its right paw before slashing downwards with its left paw. The time between attacks is approximately 1 second.

The skulker will occasionally jump side to side to attempt to avoid attacks. Another common movement seen in the skulker is to move behind objects, and will often times be more difficult to spot.

Variants
Like the other Dirtbeast, the skulker has 5 main variants. Each variant has purple spit sacks and the large sail to make for easy identification. The variants are as follows:


 * Standard Skulker: Main variant that will consistently spawn throughout a match
 * Weak Skulker: This variant is only spawned by the Howlers. It looks identical to the standard skulker, but is weaker and has a lower total health points.
 * Storm Skulker: The storm skulker is purple and black in colour. It has golden glowing patterning on its head, with the sail and spinal plates also glowing a bright golden colour. This variant is stronger and tougher than the standard variant skulker
 * Thunder Skulker: This skulker is black and grey, with the sail and head patterning glowing gold. This variant is stronger and tougher than the standard variant, and is worth more credits.
 * Mutated Skulker: A mutated version of Skulker that drops biospheres for the Hunt contract. It is a grey in colour with black spots replacing its dark stripes.The sail and head is a vibrant pink colour.



Lore
The skulker is a mutated version of the squatter that mutated due to the Cycle on Fortuna III. It is a type of spitter, that further mutated to lose its eyesight, but is still able to very accurately sense threats. The spit from the skulker is damaging due to being concentrated 'cycle' energy that is collected by the antennae on the shoulder. The large sail on the back of the skulker also collects ambient 'cycle' energy, and could explain why the skulkers single projectile is much stronger than the other spitters projectiles.