Call it what you want, but the Anchor is a Space Warship, not a station.

It's far too mobile, and that invalidates Avengers. I could see Anchors being semi-mobile (ie REALLY slow) about the planet you build them around, but currently, they make Avengers completely useless. They do everything better, and don't take much longer to build

Don't get me wrong, I want warships in the game, but I want them more expensive, and I want there to be counters.

Even the name "Anchor" makes it sound like it shouldn't be very mobile.

Perhaps making Asteaeus capable of moving them, but for now, they're just better than Avengers hands down, they do everything you want a space fighter to do, and they love longer.

I think if they gave it a warship like model and increased its cost I think a lot of people would like that.

Not to mention they provide vision on the ground comparable to an air scout. I agree that anchors should be "anchors", more like turrets but in orbit. You should build them as stationary units to protect your base and prevent avenger camping, as they were in beta.

I will say that I think orbital fighters are still useful for assassinating unguarded orbital resources, radar, and cons, however, I do think the anchor is just a little to powerful right now...

I'm not sure if it needs to be made less mobile, but a decrease in health and increase in cost/build time would definitely be nice to see.

Or yeah, give it more of a warship-esk model, and then make an intermediate craft between the avenger and the anchor... like an orbital gunship or strike fighter or something.

but they should have a radius marker like a turret.

This applies to far more than just the anchor, basically anything that can change which planet it's orbiting falls under this.

Frankly I think this is just a side effect of forcing orbital to be useful for interplanetary gameplay.

Mike

Agreed,
It's been discussed at length here:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/orbital-fights-why-use-the-avenger.58013/page-2#post-898616

I agree. The Avenger is invalidated.

The Anchor should be slower and less powerful.

I've noticed this as well. I still advocate that the change to the Avenger should be one of damage and RoF - that way it can be overwhelmed more easily. It still needs to be a good orbital *anchor* for invasions. You should drop ten of them and start going to work, then send in avengers to hunt down undefended sats.

Not ten, then twenty, then five lasers, then twenty more. That's binary.

That's my biggest gripe with orbital right now.

It's so incredibly binary.

But at the same time, PA isn't supposed to be about orbital warfare, so we don't want Orbital to become too complex. But at the same time, it should still be more than this.

Id love for more orbital-air interaction, but without having air or orbital units be able to move into each others turf.

Like if fighters could lob missiles up, and Anchor attempt to mini gun down (But not too far), we could remove the orbital fighter, and just rebalance the Anchor.

Which is why the Anchor needs to be more than just a bigger, badder, slower avenger. RoF decrease, damage increase, introduce inaccuracy, and Voila! We have ourselves a frigate! (or space's equivelent of a tank)

In the real world, orbital sats are used for recon and orbital defense if necessary. Also nuke defense. If you count the allegedly unsuccessful Star Wars program.

They do not randomly shoot at airplanes. Evar.

That's my gripe about it. i also don't think it will add anything useful to gameplay without having some unintended consequences.

One problem i have with the Anchor is that it must be built by an orbital fabber..... If the enemy has orbital layer locked down how can i deploy an anchor?

Make it launched from the factory but not movable

Real life ones don't, because we don't arm them too.

Not that such an argument has stopped us from having orbital fighters and stations with energy weapons.

Still, I do feel like combat between the two could be fun, even with the introduction of more specific anti-orbital aircraft to do the job.

I'd also like to point out that the reason an Orbital laser cannot already do this is simply because air moves TOO QUICKLY. It can easily dodge the shots. RW, same deal. Even a laser from a hundred miles up would have difficulty. I don't doubt it could work, but mass producing the effect would be.... much harder. You COULD (theoretically) coat the entire area with a microwave laser - but it wouldn't be a specific unit. And while that might work out well for gameplay....Wait.

What am I saying!

A microwave laser would be really cool......orbital suddenly would make sense for a factory......

Simply use it for, say a battle with the enemy - you slowly chew through his units as they enter the area of the laser. It could be either a quick pulse weapon that lasts for, say, ten seconds, with a range of about that of a orbital radar, or a continuous beam that slowly chewed through units.

I think the last one would be less OP. You get the first one over someone's base, they have no time - it's like a nuke. The second one though, could be specialized for killing units, and picking off proxies.

Well at that point you might want to actually use tracking missiles, well if you are actually having problems hitting a target with light speed lasers!

But I suppose you could use a kind of wave attack with a low powered emitter to douse entire continents with energy to try and slowly melt enemy air fleets over time, whilst leaving the troposphere safe with it's thicker atmosphere.

If you can't hit an enemy, hit every molecule within 3 miles of them, and burn the very air around them.

Which is the idea of a microwave laser beam. You burn the air. It would harm land units too.

Ehh, possibly, but for balance of a anti-air orbital unit that might take it a bit far.

I think it sounds awesome - and I think it could be balanced.

I dont want much AA interaction with orbital. It doesn't make physical sense, it really isn't necessary, and it would make air premo again.

Not that it isn't still premo.