Signal chips will not turn the comms console into a War queen caller

If you have killed Diabolus several times and still see only the Diabolus summon, the console is working correctly. Each boss has a different caller. Another signal chip can be useful as a crafting ingredient, but it does not replace the powerfocus chip.

The route from Standard mechtech

1. Finish Standard mechtech. You need an analyzed signal chip for that earlier research gate. If you are not there yet, follow the signal chip route. If no colonist is a mechanitor, start with getting a mechlink.
2. Build a mechband antenna in the Biotech architect category. Set aside 50 steel and 4 regular components. Its footprint is 2×1; it needs no electrical connection. Leave an accessible path for the mechanitor.
3. Select the mechanitor and choose “Summon warqueen threat” on the antenna. Read the confirmation’s enemy list before accepting. The antenna is single-use: activation takes 900 ticks, followed by a 120-tick burnout delay. That is 15 seconds plus 2 seconds at normal speed.
4. Prepare for the incoming group. Arrival is delayed; completing the activation does not mean the queen is already on the map. Check the incoming threat and give your defenders a safe position.
5. Kill the hostile queen and recover the chip. One hostile queen yields one powerfocus chip. You do not need to shred her corpse first, and the final blow does not have to belong to your colonists.
6. Analyze before crafting. The analysis unlock is permanent for your colony, and the physical chip remains available for a later bill. Finish the separate High mechtech project afterward.

Why the summon can be unavailable

Boss callers share a 2-day cooldown measured from the last boss call. Calling Diabolus can therefore delay your War queen call. A boss group already incoming also blocks another call. Wait for the displayed restriction to clear, check that the selected pawn is a mechanitor, and make sure they can reach and reserve the antenna. Building more antennas does not bypass these checks.

A normal hostile War queen in a raid can also supply the chip. You do not have to summon one if a suitable queen is already present. Natural raids are an opportunity, not a dependable early progression plan.

Your first call: 1 War queen, 5 pikemen, 2 scythers

The first summoned queen has no heavy shield unit. The second call introduces a shielded queen with different escorts. Read each new confirmation instead of preparing for the same first fight again.

Fight from positions that let you break the pikemen’s long lines of fire. Keep a retreat path and stop the scythers reaching isolated shooters. Do not charge your mechanitor into the middle of the escorts just because the queen looks like the main objective. The queen has a charge-blaster turret as well as the ability to deploy war urchins.

EMP can interrupt the queen, but her 70% EMP resistance substantially shortens the stun. Treat EMP as support for a damage plan, not a guarantee that she stays disabled. Psychic shock and insanity lances are not a shortcut against this boss.

Killing the queen also kills her surviving war urchins. She starts with 600 internal steel and spends 25 per urchin; unused internal steel is not a 600-steel loot reward. Do not prolong an unsafe fight just to extract more salvage.

Summoned waves follow the number of War queen calls across the playthrough, rather than your colony wealth. Moving to another map does not reset that count. After the eighth call, later groups are selected from waves 3–8 using the world seed and summon count. They do not simply repeat the first wave.

Analyze at a bench, then research High mechtech

If the mechanitor will not analyze it

First check the message on the command: the chip may already be analyzed, or the selected colonist may lack a mechlink or be incapable of Intellectual work. Then check the route to both the item and a research bench. Free a bench reserved by another pawn; restore power if it is a hi-tech bench. A simple bench is a useful fallback while your laboratory is busy.

Analysis and research are different jobs. Choosing High mechtech in the research tab will not make someone automatically complete the chip interaction. Finishing the Analyze job also does not pay the research cost.

Once High mechtech is complete, useful options include fabricors, paramedics, lancers, centipede burners and gunners, integrator headsets, high control sublinks, remote implants, the subcore ripscanner and the next boss caller. Not every unlocked recipe needs a powerfocus chip.

The queen died, but there is no chip

1. Check hostility at death. A friendly colony-controlled War queen does not drop a powerfocus chip. A queen that has actually gone feral and become hostile can. Killing your own gestated queen while she is friendly will not produce a chip.
2. Search the ground near the death and your storage. The chip is a separate dropped item. It may be hard to see beside a large corpse, or a hauler may already have moved it. Use the item search for “powerfocus chip.”
3. Allow it and check access. A forbidden chip is still a chip. Unforbid it and make sure a hauler can reach it safely.
4. Consider damage after the drop. The item has 100 HP and 25% flammability. Fire, damaging explosions and outdoor deterioration can destroy it. Move it indoors once the area is safe.
5. Check recent bills. Analysis keeps the chip, but crafting an integrator headset or another chip recipe spends it. A completed bill may explain an empty stockpile.

If the chip was destroyed before analysis, you need another hostile queen. If it was destroyed or spent after analysis, the research unlock remains; you only need another chip for recipes that consume one.

What should you spend the first chip on?

Analyze it first, then match the purchase to your bottleneck. You can use that same physical chip after analysis. You do not need a spare “research-only” chip.

An integrator headset helps when bandwidth prevents you from adding mechs you can already afford to build and maintain. Its +9 is the headset’s total contribution, not necessarily nine extra bandwidth over your current headgear. It offers no armor protection, so protect the mechanitor and account for the headwear it replaces.

A control sublink (high) suits an established mech workforce that needs more control groups or faster work. Install three standard control sublinks first. Each high sublink adds another control group and another 6 percentage points of mech work-speed offset. These implants do not add bandwidth. Up to three high sublinks extend the total implant level to six.

The mechlord suit needs no uranium in this version. It is a later Ultra mechtech purchase, not an immediate use after unlocking High mechtech. The headset is made at a fabrication bench; the listed implants are made at a machining table. Crafting ingredients do not bypass research or skill requirements.

The mech booster needs 100 steel and 4 components, with no chip in its construction cost. Gestating your own War queen uses a nano structuring chip instead: 600 steel, 300 plasteel, 3 advanced components, 1 nano structuring chip and 1 high subcore, after Ultra mechtech. Neither option multiplies powerfocus chips.

Short of supplies? See components and plasteel. For the next boss, follow the nano structuring chip route.

Find your next step

Plan your chip budget

Enter the new items you want to make across the colony. Implant installation limits apply per mechanitor. Owned chips can include the one you just analyzed.

Space, Odyssey endings and mods

Current PC 1.6 allows mechanitors to summon bosses in space. You still need Biotech and the correct caller; being on a gravship does not turn a comms console into an antenna.

There is no normal vanilla recipe to craft a powerfocus chip, and ordinary traders are not a repeatable source of the loose chip. Workshop recipes for making chips belong to mods. Follow the mod’s own recipe and compatibility rules if you install one. This page covers unmodded PC; it does not assume console DLC or version parity.

Quick answers