Favourite Point Defence Structure

Just a cheeky poll wondering what everybody's favourite point defence structure is.

Personally my favourite is the single laser defence tower, because lasers.


In most situations I prefer to build multiple single laser defence towers so that they have the ability both to focus fire and also to distribute fire (instead of a Laser Defence tower, which can only fire at one target at a time)

Guardian!
Oh wait...

On topic:

Can anyone tell me the difference between the single, dual and triple laser towers? They all destroy everything pretty much instantly.

missile defense.

cost/dps ratio makes it the best unit in the game. it can topple any of these other turrets if you place maximum amount of each for 500 mass.

plus it has the added advantage of being the go-to unit for killing air, so at the same time, you're creating a no-fly zone.

really, it's perfect.

You're wrong.

The Laser Defense Tower has the best damage to cost ratio.

You also need to factor in range and health. The Single Laser Defense Tower has greater range and greater health – meaning it can shoot at enemy ants before they get into range and it can take more incoming fire before going down.

The Missile Defense Tower is the least powerful of all the towers against ground units – it just has the added benefit of shooting at Air.

I love when people spam out missile defense towers. They're so easy to kill. Even when people build a wall of missile defense towers, they're easy to kill.

Honestly, the Pelter is the most powerful defensive structure. But of the point defense towers, the Laser Defense Tower. The Laser Defense Tower out ranges ants, doxes, and slammers. Has a bunch of health. Best damage to cost ratio. Simply annihilates. Not as good as it used to be, but still pretty good.

But, like I said, the Pelter is the most OP tower right now. As a single structure it isn't the most powerful – but when you get a net of them, it's a nightmare to attack.

Yeah, I dunno if I hate or love Pelters. Got Pelter-creeped once when I just started playing PA. When I realized what was going on, it was gg already But I use Pelters all the time to f*ck up the AI...

To the topic: Depends on the purpose. To prevent some stray Scampers from harassing your mex, missle towers are just fine. To defend against a horde of incoming Levelers, missle towers are *slightly* too weak. So I interpret your question in terms of its looks: Then I like the adv laser tower best.

But I don't see PDs as a single structure, most of the time I try to use them in combinations...

no by feel it doesn't, on the battlefield you can always get a missile defense turret up, it does the same job than the laser def most times bette, for cheaper and faster, mostly because of fast rate of fire.

the laser turret will get overwhelmed first.

You're assuming you're building the tower under fire. If you're fabricators are under fire, sure, build a missile defense tower due to the less metal cost. But the simple fact is, it's a less powerful tower with it's lower dps, lower health, shorter range, and less dps per metal cost.

The Missile Defense Tower will get overwhelmed first due to it's shorter range, less health, and less dps. It's simple numbers. And that's when comparing to the single laser defense tower – doesn't even account for the standard laser defense tower.

Agreed. Combos are the best. A pelter + laser defense tower line with a few missile defense towers to deal with pesky bombers is a deadly defensive line.

And that's when I just send my units around it, completely negating all of that metal investment. ;-)

and THAT is why there should be more choke points ...

But I'm off the opinion that the mass of chokepoints on every map is just something that stems from the 2D - history of RTS - gaming. When there are planets, how should there be these many chokepoints? Its a planet - just walk another way round the PD ..

Yup this is great for defence. My favorite too. Costs just 300 euros though so you're getting screwed with the exchange rate somewhere.

Lava planets have a helluva lot of choke points and are absolutely awesome.

Really miss them.

Can I just say that SupCom horribly misused the name "point defense" and now people seem to think that any kind of turret is a point defense weapon?

"Point defense" does not mean that it is a gun that kills enemy units, as if it were 'defending' a 'point.' That is just a regular static gun emplacement or turret that just kills things like any other weapon.

Point defense refers to weapon interception, usually missiles. An Aegis system on a ship is a point defense system. This means in SupCom the tactical missile defense structure is a point defense system. The turret that just shoots and kills things is a regular gun turret or gun emplacement.

Point defense means it defends against enemy weapons by destroying incoming shots.

It's more of a preference rather than efficiency poll XD Clearly the most effective combination is a pelter with missile defences. But I like throwing a couple of single lasers in there as well for some variety.

Yeah that's true Point defence also refers to short range interception aircraft. Essentially I used the term to differentiate from pelters, because in an ideal system you use artillery to soften up an army, and shorter range defensive towers to protect against the drips and drabs. Also the term is commonly used on the forums because of the large amount of supcom players, so I used the commonly accepted terminology, rather than the correct terminology, because I'm strangely hypocritical like that.

As the system currently is, a network of pelters does the job perfectly fine.

Actually it can mean that, and as stormingkiwi mentioned, it can also apply to short range interceptors. Though, you are right that SupCom probably misused the name, since point defense is an intended purpose rather than a class of weapon or structure.

If you placed the turrets directly adjacent to your factories rather than out in the open or at chokepoints, they'd legitimately be point-defense turrets.