In the experimental build, anchors seem to have greater range than umbrellas. they also kill them very quickly, or at least with a few anchors, you can decimate umbrellas, and they won't even shoot back.
I don't know if it was a bad idea, but it's just too powerful at the moment. Either make a new unit that can shoot the ground with rapidfire, or make the anchor do less damage against ground, or have much less range against ground.
Seeing as I have not had time to play the current build I have no personal experience with this. However if it is as bad as you say I would be for the "new unit" or "less range" option.
True. Anchors are orbital laser towers, as meta put it. Don't build them aggressively - build them tactically.
But that's the issue, you can build them agressively, and there is nothing people can do about it atm...
In theory, you should be building your Anchors aggressively outside of Umbrella range to try to siege your way into a beachhead - rather than simply being shut out forever. To counter this, your enemy must use Avengers to kill your fabbers before they can get Anchors built. To counter-counter this, you need your own Avengers... It's a fair bit more interesting than it has been.
The anchors should just be much more inaccurate when firing at the surface. That way it acts to discourage the enemy entering the area (attrition damage) instead of flat out wiping the floor with anything in range. An army could drive under some anchors, but many of the units would get hit in the process.
Now I am thinking that anchors should only be able to shoot at ground, and orbital fighters would be the ones to take them out.
in case people forgot, we already have a satellite that can shoot the ground. Why on earth do we need another one? If you want to make it shoot anything, make it shoot air, then maybe planetary invasions will be vaguely possible.
we have a t1 bombers that drop bombs on the ground, why do we need t2 bombers that drop bombs on the ground? we have a bot that shoots at the air, why do we need a vehicle that shoots at the air? we have a gunship that shoots at the ground, why do we need a bomber that can hit the ground? we have sniper bots, why do we need shellers? we have tanks, why do we need bots? we have infernos, why do we need vangards? The point I am trying to make if you did not catch it already is you need different types of units that can accomplish the same thing in different ways. we have a hard hitting sat (the SXX) we need a lighter hitting one.
In the Livestream they said Anchors are now stationary, whereas the Orbital Laser is mobile. So the Anchor is an Area Denial system, like the turrets, while the Orbital Laser is more like a heavy tank - slow but powerful. Of course, it can't take much hits, so the analogy breaks down if you go too far, but still.
Uhm, I watched and played a few games. I seen fabbers erect umbrellas underneath of firing anchors and then the umbrella shoot them down. If you can literally build umbrellas underneath, then it probably isn't OP. It also looks expensive to stack many in same area. Also, it does pathetic damage to structures, I think combat fabbers can repair structures while under fire, assuming the combat fabbers aren't hit while will happen eventually but the anchor range isn't too great that it decimates all a fabbers in a base. I think it fires like 5 fireflies that do double damage, is how i'd describe it. I have also seen fighters take out anchors. That is also a good sign. I seen a game where both sides built 4 anchors and fighters took them down back and forth between the two, aside from building umbrellas underneath. I think an SXX actually won that game lol.
So ten fireflies? Each anchor gun does 25 damage once per second, and there are four guns. A PTE kestrel does 20 damage four times per second. Pretty close. (I can't say how many fireflies that is.)
I am fairly certain anchors burst fired. Perhaps its each gun firing off pattern and the pause between all 4 guns, but I'm pretty sure it spits some shots at the ground all scattered and then does it again. All I know is it seems to chip a variety of things if deployed over an enemy but the enemy can get 6 fabbers to easily quickbuild an umbrella without the anchor killing all 6 or the umbrella or something crazy like that.