Ancient Harvester/NPC

General
The Ancient Harvester is a much more powerful version of the Alien Harvester, armed with multiple onboard Plasma weapon systems to lay waste to its opponents. It first appeared in the Alien Decimation of December 21, 2017.

This ship closely resembles the Reaper Harvester variant of the Alien Harvester, with high forward speed and Stasis Resist, but is much more deadly up close, despite its smaller arsenal. Do note that it does not have the ability to spawn Alien Reapers.

Strategy
This ship is relatively fragile compared to the Alien Harvester, but more than makes up for it with its massive damage output. Use a Suppressor to provide much-needed squadron protection and Guardian Cruisers to tank the damage while your Paladin Carrier and Enforcer Battleships pound away.

If you manage to deal enough burst damage, the Ancient Harvester will only get to fire off 1-2 Surge Core blasts before being destroyed, as opposed to the usual 4, saving some repair time.

Trivia

 * With the debut of the STRIKER Variant of the Ancient Harvester, it is possible that Ancient Barrage Harvesters exist, although that theory has yet to be confirmed.
 * The Ancient Harvester received an AI change which caused them to maintain their distance at long range instead of charging headlong into enemy fleets.