The route in five steps

Signal chips exist only with Biotech. A save without it never sees one. You also need a mechanitor, meaning a colonist with a mechlink implant. The usual sources are the ancient mechanitor complex quest and the Mechanitor starting scenario.

1. Build a comms console. It needs Microelectronics research (3,000 points, after Electricity), 120 steel, 4 components, Construction 5 and 200 W of power. The console is 3×2 and short-circuits in rain or snow if it has no roof over it.
2. Summon the Diabolus. Select the mechanitor and press Summon mech threat, or right-click the console with the mechanitor selected and pick Summon diabolus threat. A confirmation box lists the boss and escorts you are about to call. The console is not used up.
3. Kill it while it is hostile. The chip drops when a Diabolus that is hostile to you dies. Your mechanitor does not need to land the last hit. Turrets, traps, another faction or a berserk animal all count.
4. Recover the chip. It lands next to the wreck. If the Diabolus died outside your Home area, the chip starts forbidden. Unforbid it and haul it indoors.
5. Study it. Select the mechanitor, right-click the chip and choose Analyze signal chip. The mechanitor carries it to a research bench and studies it for half an hour of work. The letter "Signal chip studied: standard mechtech unlocked" confirms it. The chip is not consumed.

Vanilla has no crafting recipe for the chip, and no trader stock list includes it. Workshop mods that add chip recipes follow their own rules.

Why Standard mechtech is still locked after you get the chip

The research tab says Standard mechtech needs you to "study Signal chip." This is a one-time job on the physical item, separate from the research queue, and it is the step most stuck colonies are missing.

Analyzing never happens on its own. No work type or work priority covers it, so your researchers will walk past a chip in storage forever. You have to give the order: select the mechanitor, then right-click the chip. You can also select the chip, press its Analyze button, and click the mechanitor.

Analyzing takes 0.5 hours of work, 1,250 ticks divided by the mechanitor's Research speed. There is no minimum Intellectual skill, so a low-skill mechanitor is only slower. A forbidden chip is unforbidden automatically when you give the order.

After the letter arrives, Standard mechtech costs 1,000 research points, or 2,000 if your faction is tribal. It also needs Basic mechtech, and it does not require a specific bench. Any researcher can work on it as long as at least one mechanitor exists in your faction.

Calling the Diabolus

Each summon creates a quest, and the boss group lands at a spot away from your colony a few in-game hours later. Traders, visitors or a bestowing ceremony on the map can hold the landing back, sometimes for a day or more. An alert in the top right shows that a boss group is incoming.

Summoning is a 900-tick (15 game seconds) job at the console. Save just before you confirm, because the fight that follows is where colonists get hurt.

The first fight: one Diabolus and three militors

The first call is always one Diabolus, without a shield, escorted by three militors. The Diabolus has body size 4, moves at 2.4 tiles per second, has 75% sharp and 25% blunt armor, and carries a charge blaster turret on its back besides its main gun.

• The hellsphere cannon aims at the ground, takes 7.5 seconds to charge and reaches 18.9 tiles. The blast covers roughly a 4.9-tile radius and vaporizes walls, concrete and colonists alike.
• When the red circle appears, draft everyone inside it and move them out. Seven and a half seconds is enough if your shooters already stand spread out.
• It will shell walls to get at pawns it cannot reach, so a sealed killbox only buys time. Spread your shooters along cover so one blast cannot catch two of them. Running the group through 10 to 15 steel spike traps does a lot of the work on a first chip, and a killbox entrance is a good place to put them.
• Kill the militors first. They are light and die fast. Then focus the Diabolus. Blunt weapons and high-penetration guns get through its 75% sharp armor better than small arms.
• The Diabolus has 60% EMP resistance, so stuns last 40% as long. Psychic lance, Berserk and Skip do not work on it. Beckon does, and it interrupts a charging shot.
• Close in, the cannon has a minimum range of about 5.9 tiles, but the Diabolus also has a fire burst that coats everything within 5.9 tiles in flame. A shot aimed at someone farther away can still catch a close pawn in its blast, and the back turret keeps firing.

The Diabolus died and there is no chip

1. Was it hostile when it died? Only a Diabolus that is hostile to you at the moment it dies leaves a chip. A player-controlled Diabolus, such as one you gestated, drops nothing.
2. Is the chip forbidden? Drops outside the Home area are forbidden. Look around the wreck and the slag, type "signal" into the stockpile search, or check Resources at the top left.
3. Did something blow it up? The chip has 100 HP. Since update 1.4.3531 it has 0% flammability, so fire cannot burn it. A mortar shell, an explosive trap or a big Anomaly blast can still destroy it on the ground.
4. Is it sitting in the rain? It deteriorates outdoors like steel. Haul it under a roof soon.
5. Did a bill take it? A queued bandwidth pack, sublink or processor bill will use it. Analyzing does not, so check your machining table bills.

The boss fight usually leaves burns and gunshot wounds. Keep a stocked hospital ready before the call; medicine and treatment covers what to stock.

Getting more signal chips

You can call again 2 days after any boss call. Each Diabolus call is counted across the whole playthrough, not per map, and the group grows. Starting a new colony through the Archonexus resets the count. The third call adds a heavy shield to the Diabolus, the fourth brings two of them, and the eighth brings three with 32 escorts. After call eight, the game picks a random call from three to eight.

Calls that bring two or three Diaboli pay two or three chips, so later calls farm fastest if your defense can hold them.

A Diabolus can also show up in ordinary mechanoid raids, but only after two in-game years have passed or after you have killed one. A raid also needs enough points to afford its 500 combat power, and one group holds at most three.

What to spend spare chips on

Analyze your first chip before you craft anything. A recipe consumes the chip, and you would have to call another Diabolus to unlock the research. The four item recipes need Standard mechtech and a machining table. Gestating your own Diabolus needs High mechtech and a large mech gestator.

Spare chips also sell to exotic goods traders. Market value is 500 silver each.

A signal chip will not call the next tier. The War queen comes from a 2×1 mechband antenna and drops a powerfocus chip. The Apocriton comes from the mechband dish and drops a nano structuring chip. If chips are going into gestators, the mech gestation speed calculator shows how much each processor adds.

Space, the cerebrex core, and other setups

• Since update 1.6.4566 (August 28, 2025), mechanitors can summon bosses on Odyssey space maps, including from a gravship. The console still needs power.
• Destroying the cerebrex core in the mechhive at the end of the Odyssey questline deactivates mechanoids planet-wide, and mechanitors can no longer summon mechanoid commanders. A Diabolus can still turn up through quests or very large raids, but you lose the console farm. Scavenging the core instead keeps summons working, so stock up on chips first if you plan to destroy it.
• On a tribal start the route is the same, but Microelectronics and Standard mechtech cost double.
• Mech clusters are a different threat with no chip. See beating mech clusters if that is what landed on you.
• The console and every recipe eat components. Component supply covers reliable sources, and you need plasteel for the helmet and a gestated Diabolus.

Check your save

Chip budget

Enter the chips you hold and what you want to make. Analyzing does not use up a chip, so your first chip can go into a recipe once you have studied it.

Signal chip FAQ

Can I summon a Diabolus in space?

Yes, since 1.6.4566. A mechanitor can call it from a powered comms console on an Odyssey space map or gravship. The 2-day cooldown still applies.

Does studying the signal chip destroy it?

No. Analyzing keeps the chip. Only crafting recipes and Diabolus gestation consume signal chips.

Why didn't my player Diabolus drop a chip?

Only a Diabolus that is hostile to you when it dies drops a chip. A player-controlled one drops nothing.

What should I do after the first chip?

Study it, research Standard mechtech, then decide between more Diabolus calls for bandwidth packs and moving on to the mechband antenna for the War queen.