Lob viability?

I've experimented with the Lob a little, and it just doesn't seem very effective. It is definitely not a defensive weapon - because the dox land individual and each get focused down by attacking units. As an offensive unit it doesn't seem as effective as just sending your army in - unless your enemy is pretty turtled, but then their is the same issue of the dox getting killed before their friends land.
Has anyone been able to make effective use of it?

Lob seems to be a pointless unit that was added in "because it was cool".

I can see it be important on a few map desigens that prevent you from "walking over to raid".
Apart from that I do think it's still a little weak.

Not the intended use, but I just set them to force-fire at a set location, and amass a giant force of them.

Only way to use them unless you want to be a derp that I can see.

Oh BTW, a lot of people talk about how Lob is a factory + an energy plant in cost.

You get 8 1/3 dox for free with the Lob, so the actual cost of a lob is roughly 825 metal, which is 225 more than a factory but a bit less than a factory + a pgen.

It seems to be good for amassing a large force of dox rather quickly.

I originally thought the Lob can create the free dox, but I was wrong.

I use arty commander in GW, so I only need 300 metal to build a Lob.
Since I though it can create the free dox, I spam a lot of Lob.
Then I found out these Lob sank my economy quite quickly.

If you put the mouse over a Lob which is reloading,
you still can't see its resource consumption.
I think this is a bug!
Player can only see this resource consumption in total incoming above the main screen.

There are also another bug about the Lob.
The created dox of Lob lose their command UI,
this make them unable to patrol or do other area commands.
While the dox created by factory don't have this problem.

By the way, there is no options for player to stop the reload of Lob.
I can't cut its power.
If I press the stop button, this can only cancel the attack ground command.
I still need to let it refill.

But it does created dox faster than a factory would, doesn't it? Sound like it'll basically work as a dedicated dox factory.

I use it to defend against early game raids on some of the maps. I think they will be used more when people realize their efficiency.

Can anyone test this?
Because we can't see its resource consumption.

I have several questions.

1. What is its accurate consumption speed?
2. How long for it to fire? (Because the dox also takes time to walk out the bot factory.)
   
3. How long for it to reload?
4. If player uses it as a dox factory, it is a better option?

PA-Stats says something about ressource consumptions, apparently it's identical to the factory, without the energy requirement.
http://pa-db.com/unit/bot_factory
http://pa-db.com/unit/artillery_unit_launcher

I don't know how that translates to actual production, tho.

I can see the speed of Lob is 15 metal/s and 2 power.s,
but I can't understand the value int PADB.
It says that:

• Metal consumption: 60 per shot (180.0 per second)
• Energy consumption: 1500000 per shot (4500000.0 per second)

This is quite confusing for me.
This implies that the dox created by Lob is 60 metal rather than 45 metal?

Since the Lob costs as much as a factory and a pgen and some more it doesn't really mean you save energy. Making a factory and a pgen would've given you a pgen after all.

The shot dumps a bunch of doxes at the same time, so I don't think that's the cost per dox.

Yeah, but if it's the same cost* producing dox slightly faster, then it would be viable to uses it as a simple dox-factory.

*actually a bit less, P-Gen is 600 energy, bot factory uses 675, which might be balanced out by roll-off, although theoretically the lob doesn't have to deal with rolloff in the first place

The lob needs way more range to make it useful imo.

I like the lob, but I haven't found an offensive use for it. It's nice for defending against early game raids if the enemy only has radar coverage, so they don't realize that you have 6 ready-made bots hiding inside of it.

Besides shooting over terrain features though, I don't see much of a reason to build it. Seems super situational.

Its pretty good for situations where you have naval control and what to push inland because you can build them on water. Your navy can provide supporting fire and then the dox can kill things that are just out of range.

Ive also found it can be good to fire behind/inside an attacking force comprised of tanks or shellers because it forces most of the units to rotate their turrets all the way around backwards, giving you a chance to fire unopposed from the front for a while.

I think a larger 'clip' and more range would help it out a bit, or the ability to make and fire booms.

Well, I do believe that the Exodus-Guide gives a good hint:
If you want pure buildpower for Dox this will produce more in a given period than an unassisted botfactory. Can be built on water and provides a safe means to project a land threat from sea.
Thanks @exodusesports for providing that awesome guide BTW! http://exodusesports.com/article/planetary-annihilation-titans/

Fair point, though you could just as easily have Dox following the ships underwater/have hovertanks actually compliment your ships' firepower instead of risking building something on the front.