Preface: This is primarily in the context of team games. I've been getting back into the game after a haitus, and I'm finding that almost nobody uses or plays around Unit Cannons - as a result, I've been scooping up a lot of easy-ish wins. I'm puzzled why it isn't being used by other players as the abusive, game-winning superweapon that it is. Late-game, when money is running high(ish), I just go ahead and build a row of 4+ unit cannons. Any threat that comes up, I can snipe with ease from that point forward. Enemy making a push for Catalysts? Send a hit squad. Compared to using Nukes as a stall/counter, it's tremendously more cost-effective. Enemy has undefended junk on a moon? Send a hit squad. If I include builders in the fire queue, I can toss up some defenses and a teleporter to pump reenforcements in and hijack the moon, or at least stake a foothold. Blind radar scouts detect an Enemy commander, sitting in the open, protected only by an anti-nuke launcher and perhaps a single Umbrella? Send a hit squad and it's often GG. Granted, this is largely limited to team games, where the scale of things can get out of hand far more easily than on cutthroat 1v1s, but it's still worth noting. In a rare few instances I've seen enemies get total Umbrella coverage and thick amounts of AA to cull my forces, but this typically only happens when they're down to one planet - or, at times, they're down to that one planet because my Unit Cannon coverage has allowed me to break anything even remotely undefended. And more conquered planets means more Unit Cannon real estate, if I've somehow failed to find sufficient space on the homeworld for both unit cannons and the defenses needed to keep them safe. Likewise, punching through an orbital-defense hole on the planet and marching into Slammer-chewing ground defenses is a spoiler, but if I include builders in the mix I can have them (plus some Spinners) play bodyguard while a teleporter is built to ferry in proper T2 Bot/Vehicle siegebreakers like Mobile Artillery or Snipers. It works far better than using an Orbital Fabricator to try to zap a teleporter in from orbit and have it be swarmed by bombers immediately, as variable levels of Spinner density can chew through a lot of air. This is a really fragile, top-heavy approach, however; a single enemy Unit Cannon can likely deposit forces to damage multiple cannons of my own unless I double down on defense infrastructure. It's just that nobody does it - they're working on nukes that won't arrive on time or a massive army that they can't get a teleporter up to send it through. Hijacking gas giants is one thing that can hard-counter the Unit Cannon, because only orbital can defeat orbital, but this is a continuing problem with orbital itself rather than an elegantly placed solution to the Unit Cannon problem. So I have to ask: What's the deal? Does nobody like the Cannon? Or is my data set too limited?
I think its going to take some time for people to realize that they really need to focus more on defending from unit cannons rather than nukes or Halleys. As it stands, Unit cannons are just far more efficient and cheaper than both of them.
For me it's remembering to use them, I'm so used to having to crack a planet with nukes or halleys that I don't jump to the unit cannon. But when I do, it's super effective because I think people aren't remembering to defend against them.
I use them alot, but its not that hard to defend from them either, especially with the new patch adding anti drop pod weapons to missile laucher structures and units.
Ok looks like landing the units actually got alot easyer with the grouped fall instead of the single line.
1. Yes, but both nukes as well as halleys are ways more effective (if it works, the whole area/ whole planet is annihilated!) and ways less micro-intensive! So it eats up ways less APM-Power of your team to set up nukes and halleys then efficently manageing unit drops! 2. Umbrellas now got double-functions, which is quite nice to see! Also makes them double-targets, so it´s an even heavier strike then before if you loose your Umbrellas! 3. The softcounter against unit cannons are kestrels. They simply take out the invaders too fast! 4. The hardcounter are nukes and halleys. Hell, these are the same things you wanna protect from unit cannons! Got the idea? 5. Unit cannons got a huge weakness: They have to be placed near to each other---otherwise the units won´t land synchronized--- which makes them ultra-easy targets! 6. In my eyes it´s ultra-cool how you are now able to gain orbit control by sending in troops to your opponent: As the umbrellas cannot take out your SXX and Avenger AND these unit cannon pods at the same time your effectiveness is rising a lot. Feels like awesome to me!
It´s just another aspect that screams "do ranked team games"---currently there are just too few players that play "semi-competitive"! Read as: Players nearly without skill, but with good strats for ShareArmy-Games---like myself! (and no, that´s no joke, I´m terribly bad at 1v1! )
I use unit cannon when i have the money for it. Nukes i personally dont like so i never build them also i forget to build anti nuke but i always build umbrella and now also catapults. But i dont know how effective catapults are i think they suck..
