Do Anchors need additional counters?

I had taken a fairly long break from the game and just came back to it last night.

I love the new additions to the game, I'm especially happy to see catapults and stingrays attacking orbital. That was a great "Hey , I suggested that!" moment for me. I'm also thrilled to see the new model and effects for the anchor... however, the anchor is where my friends and I hit a bit of a wall with the game.

The only unit we found effective against the anchor was the stingray, but on most maps it isn't an option. A death ball of Avengers can take out 1 or 2 anchors, but anchors were usually built in huge clouds and the eat avengers like they are nothing. Umbrellas and Catapults are off the table because the anchor will destroy the worker before they are built.

Nukes work on anchors, but they are too costly, too slow building, and usually don't hit enough anchors to come close to covering the cost.

What can we do? Should we get a new unit? Should an existing unit become effective vs anchors?

I propose the SXX be able to turn on it's side and fire the beam at long range against other orbital units. Slow tracking speed and high cost will leave it very vulnerable to avengers, but will leave it super effective vs anchors.

As it stands right now I find the SXX among the least valuable orbital units. Orbital bombardment is great, but the unit can only be used after you have orbital dominance, and if you HAVE orbital dominance you're better off building a anchors over the enemy base. Giving the SXX additional utility will help mix up orbital play so that we have more going on than grinding up avengers against the ever present anchor cloud.


edit: btw, I saw some great mods that address this, but I would prefer a minimalist approach, ideally in vanila. I was very impressed by the Orbital Overhaul mod and xmod, but it add/change a lot more than what I was hoping for.

Orbital Warfare Overhaul is the answer. I'm telling you guys. It's perfect.

Ssx turning on its side and shooting orbital would be good, but you gotta make it have no splash in space to stop it being hella OP

You would also need something scouting the anchors for it since I don't think its view range is great (assuming you give it enough weapon range to take out anchors), but it would definitely make the Ssx more useful and orbital more fluid without having to add a ton of units

I played a round with it, and it was legitimately awesome, but honestly it isn't what I'm looking for. Vanilla needs a minimalist solution of its own, or we need a low impact mod that only alters one or two units without overhauling the game.

Absolutely. This could also add more value to radar satellites as spotters.

I've been considering modding it all morning. It would have to be a second weapon with a shared reload. The range and targeting are just too different to just allow orbital targeting with it "as is".

I want to do it today, bt I know it will make my wife jelly though if I start getting absorbed by code at home.

blue hawks (think thats what they are called) if in a group wreck anchors

If they couldn't shoot at every unit on the game, then maybe we could have like a legit counter, that or anti-orbital artillery.

It doesnt change the game at all except for the orbital layer. Orbital is a complete drag right now and needs completely changed/

I completely disagree. There are several new ground base defenses, and the addition of new orbit to ground and orbit to air combat units have a serious impact on the layers other than orbital.

The Orbital overhaul adds a whole lot more than orbital and is anything but minimalist.

Don't get me wrong, I like the mod, I think it's cool. But it's not at all what I'm suggesting should be implemented.

Yeah, the cruise missile ships. I may have called them sting rays in the op... but I know the ship you mean and I referenced them wrecking anchors.. The problem is that they are only on the water layer. They are no use at all on any planet that doesn't have water, or even if the anchor is built over a large island on a water planet.

Blue hawks are the t2 missile bots, sting rays are t2 missile ships.

Are you sure the bots attack Anchors? I built a slew of them expecting it to work, but not one of them fired into orbit.

yup some times the attack command doesnt work and they just stand there out of range not doing anything.
But if you manually run them under the anchors they will automatically fire at them when in range

Anchors have tons of counters right now
In the PTE, even more so.

OK, that sounds about like what I saw last night. Without knowing what they are meant to do it gave the strong impression they can't shoot orbital.

Tons of them? That's awesome, but what are they? So far only 2 missile units have been mentioned, and one of those is bugged. From another topic it sounds like creeping umbrellas might be effective, but impractical. 18 to 1 Avengers isn't exactly a "counter". What else engages Anchors?

I think that changing target priorities would help a lot. Now it's damn hard to force bluehawks to fire at anchors. Anchors should be the number 1 priority for missile units.

Other thing that would help a lot would be to make missile units attack different targets. Right now they tend to shot multiple rockets at the same target (and some rockets are wasted). Instead they could just spread the fire a bit, so that rockets are not wasted.

nukes and catapults

nukes are a horrible cost exchange if you're just targeting anchors, and while catapults fire on them I'm pretty sure the anchor out ranges it. I tried building them just out of the anchors range last night but it didn't work out to spectacularly.

First off, are we referring to anchor creep or anchors in general?

For anchor creep, just put an umbrella on the edges of your defensive lines. The thing has 300 range in the PTE (which is freaking huge, btw, compared to the sorry range of the anchor at ~180). Use it!

18->1 Avenger trade is only true if you have 18 avengers. If you bring 30, you might lose 5-6. It's diminishing returns for the anchors.

The mobile anti orbital units are good counters if they have an army with them to soak the damage. Anchors have terrible DPS, so use that to your advantage and park 20 tanks and 2-3 bluehawks under them. Or just put a small naval force there and wait for stingrays.

OK, I'm not playing PTE. I used to, but I'm trying to get my 3 very PA-shy friends to play with me and the phase "I just need you to change this setting" is an instant game kill for the group.

I was referring to anchors in general, not anchor creep. They're easy enough to defend against if the enemy is trying to place new ones, but if half the area over a moon is already covered in anchors it's too late to counter creep... and, as I'm not in PTE, umbrellas don't have a range of 300.

Sure, if theres only 1 umbrella... but when the whole damned moon is a shell of them you have to out number them by a lot more than 18 to one, and Lord forbid he have any umbrellas, catapults, or avengers supporting those anchors. 18 to 1 is the minimum ratio, but that's honestly being very optimistic.

Or another way to put it... if the enemy invests even a quarter as much metal on anchors as you invest in avengers you're not going to come close to breaking his orbital defense with units. anchors counter avengers, not the other way around. Just because it's not a diamond counter doesn't mean it isn't a hard counter.

The sting rays worked well, but few of the planets we played on were water worlds, and the bluehawks were bugged. Now that I've been told how to work around that bug they'll help a lot, though they still require you already have access to the surface layer.

I still feel like it would be good for the game to have an orbital counter to the anchor. If the enemy has bunkered down on the only pushable rock it can be impractically hard to dislodge him once he has ample anchor coverage.

It's a bitter disappointment if the game is reduced to a nuke throwing match because 1 unit enables a grid lock. Nuke-Anti-Nuke is no more exciting or satisfying than avenger ball vs anchor cloud.


The orbital layer plays like an RTS with one unit and one base defense. I've never seen resistance to the idea of artillery countering base defenses on the ground, I'm kind of shocked at the resistance to the idea of a unit that would behave that way in space.

You are so close to the solution.

So close. Let me try and pull you the few extra yards to the goal line.

So you want a way to counter when someone goes mass Anchors that doesn't involve investing the same metal into that anchor field?

It's just not going to happen. He set up those defenses, now you have to spend the metal to break them. Throw a hundred avengers at it, micro them properly, and you might get out of that mess with enough avengers to defend your new-found territory. Point is, you need to be looking for a commander kill. If someone blankets their main base with anchors, go around them! Build a unit cannon, drop down a teleporter, and invade the damn thing, and make sure you have bluehawks in the mix to sweeten the deal. I don't usually suggest invasions, but that's what the Unit Cannon is for - invasions in places you otherwise wouldn't be able to invade.

Back to the original question. Now, the Orbital section of the Orbital Warfare mod (the new units and the ground based railgun, as well as the changes to Jigs) solves every issue you've listed here. Excaliburs shoot at anchors before anything can get close, and avengers are cheaper and thus aren't quite as difficult to snowball. In addition, you get the hailfire, which can see and shoot ground and air units. It's a great anti-Umbrella weapon until you get up a powerful SXX. To top all that off, Anchors no longer shoot at ground and the two orbital defense satellites do a marvelous job at defending from enemy attacks. It requires you to invest in a sizable orbital fleet if you want to defend your home without encouraging orbital turtling. After all, it's going to be really hard to win by turtle when the enemy can break every defense you have.

The PTE orbital changes don't help the current situation much. Umbrellas become king, what with their enhanced fire rate and range. Going orbital without a gas giant or reasonable expansions just doesn't make sense in the long term or short term, though rushing a SXX can be a powerful tool.