Functions of Defensive Buildings (newb questions)

Hacksaw vs Razor: Hacksaw can kill a single Raven before the Raven drops its bomb on a target behind it. Razor can not. That's pretty much its only use. You should know that Hacksaw was deliberately nerfed into being just on the edge of usefulness, it is not supposed to be your main goto anti air building.

Gauss also has autorepair when closed. Personally I hardly ever build HLT/Gauss, but I'd say build a Gauss when you need a HLT that can not easily be overrun. You probably never want to build a HLT without nearby LLT/Stardust or unit support, but a lone Gauss could survive for some time.

Behemoth is probably pretty nice if you can put it on a large hill/mountain/cliff for the range bonus it gets. Could be used for sieging, to deny terrain or to scare away cheap arti spam. Annihilator is probably good against heavy units like striders (not Ultimatum tho!).

Newton can be used to throw enemies off cliffs. I sometimes build them on the center of ~500-1000elmo diameter plateaus to get rid of any spiders and jumpies that climb up. Newton can also be used to trap enemy aircraft - one Newton is enough to trap a Raven (and cheaper than a Hacksaw, hint hint). Faraday.. I wonder too. I suppose a single Faraday can be awesome support for a bunch of nearby LLTs/other porc, but I almost never build them. Then again, Venom has the same price, permastun AND deals real damage. Despite these (comparatively) bad stats Faraday is probably still underused.


Keep in mind that I'm not too much of a porcer and haven't really played a lot recently, but most of those things should still hold true.

I quite dislike hacksaws as their range is low and their damage is in one burst. Use these when you are getting raven rushed in the early game. In team games it is quite unlikely to happen. Otherwise it is quite useless.

Gauss vs HLT - If you need sustain because you are being bombarded by arty and need a damage sink then gauss is your best bet. It takes a loooong time to kill one gauss with artillery. Otherwise get HLT but remember to support it with antiswarm defense force (the thing Skasi mentioned already).

Behemot is probably one of the best cost value arty pieces in the game. At least on paper. Problem is that it is immobile and its range is not ideal. Once you establish a good defense line with 2-3 DDMs (Doomsday Machines) then you might want to use it since it deals a lot of damage. Bewary of air units, scythes and skuttles though. Be sure to place them on ridges or just make a terraform platforms for them (for the range bonus).

Annihilator - it is supposed to be a high damage dealer sniper kind of a tower. It has lost its popularity due to well... people figuring out how to counter porc properly. Its not a bad thing to have but overall Behemot is a better idea imo. If you want to make this one then be sure to have a DDM standing next to it for security.

Faraday is a mid-game porc that is meant to stun these pesky assault forces trying to march into you. Normally assault units such as thugs or zeuses should kill porc with ease (unless its a ddm ofc) they die to faradays and some auxilary porc/units because of the stun. These are really great in certain situations.

Newton is weird. You can build it to serve as makeshift AA with some additional forces (like one raider or llt). You can make it as anti raider measure but only against the lightest ones. You could even skirmish with them in some instances especially with convict porc creep or any other kind of conball (I remember a game when I were nabbing units from a enemy esball to be killed y my grizzlies). Otherwise it could even be used to push units down cliffs and deal considerable amount of damage to them (if they are light enough to get pushed that is). Heck, it is even possible to make ramps that throw crawling bombs at enemies stunning/blowing them up. It is one of the most fun units in the game tbh.

quote: -It sounds somewhat attractive: Of every enemy bomber wave you are guaranteed to shot down one bomber, which also can dies before dropping bombs. BUT: Sometimes it targets two seperate bombers, so it is not even a "safe" kill and the "guarantee" to prevent bomb dropping goes away. If the aircraft is shut down by something else while missile is underway then much potential damage was wasted.

This is somewhat mitigated with target priorities gadget. Burst weapons will not fire at something which is doomed to die from in-flight Hacksaw missiles. Other targets will avoid shooting at doomed units but the update for this only occurs twice a second.

Hacksaw is at its current power level to see if bombers can be balanced without prominent dedicated anti-bomber. I think this experiment has worked well. I have built the current Hacksaw but rarely, when I really wanted to protect something from bombers. The situations were rare but the Hacksaw did quite well when it came up.

The real use of Faraday is to make Zombies, Trololo Zombies, and Duke Nukem worth playing.

quote: defensive buildings are meant to be erected at the front line, making a few units on circle guard around each mex is a better defense than two llt.

Source?