Giant Flying Manta

The Butterfly is a type of large flying creature that patrols around the world.

Location
Manta can be found at:
 * Grass Fields
 * Northern Forest

Behavior
Giant Flying Mantas glide through the sky and are accompanied by swarms of small flying creatures. Each manta patrols on a fixed path. The round-trip time for each manta is exactly five minutes. The manta and its flock are immune to the pioneer's attacks. Pioneers can jump onto its back and take a ride. Doing so generally requires a or tall Ladder. Take caution as the pioneer can only stay on the center part of its body, standing too near to the edge of the wing can cause pioneers to fall and suffer massive fall damage.

When flying, mantas avoid all the terrain features, such as flying above small hills, dive into ravines, passing through stone arches, and spiraling around rock spires. By riding on the manta, pioneers have the opportunity to discover interesting terrain features, such as resource nodes, Power Slugs, Crash Sites, Mercer Spheres and Somersloops.

If man-made buildings are built in its path, it will simply fly through them as there is no collision between the Manta and the buildings. The pioneer, however, if standing on it, does collide with the buildings and will be pushed away from Manta.

Its body emits blue lights during the night.

Riding
Be sure to stand near the center of its back to avoid falls. The Manta around the Northern Forest tilts more, so its safe spot is narrower. Reloading the game while riding will reset the Manta's position to its spawn point, causing the pioneer to fall.

Trivia

 * Unlike a pioneer, vehicles cannot be on the surface of Manta’s skin, as they fall through it.
 * Its name comes from the Patch 0.1 patch notes
 * It resembles a much larger version of the Skyray from the survival game Subnautica.
 * Jace & Snutt claim that the Manta feels pain when clipping through player's factories.

History

 * Patch Closed Alpha 5: Added collision