Direct shot>Saturation

Phoenix, Firewalker,Tremor,Catapult,Inferno these are saturation weapons.
In terms of actual usefulness,is it worth building?,time it takes to kill units, is it cheap,is it something you could count on when everything goes to dust?, is it useable in most situations? Or only those very few?

So, are Saturation better to build than Direct shot?

DS:Pillager Crabe Pene Wolverine Impaler Hammer Rackateer, Shipfac, etc

Discuss.

quote: So, are Saturation better to build than Direct shot?

As with most your questions, there's no simple yes/no (and if there was, that would be an indicator that rebalance is needed).
For the most part, it depends on what you want to hit. Large armies, swarms of units, cloak, buildings far away (notice how everything you listed has large range) etc. is where saturation is good. You should build what you need in the situation, not what is generally better.

Catapult is not really a saturation weapon.

Phoenix sucks in most cases and hardly gets built.

Tremor is extremely situational and difficult to make cost with.

Firewalker is highly spammable and is the go-to unit for jump fac in the end game.

Inferno is something you shoot at the enemy's facs/caretakers/windfarms when you want to crush your enemy's spirit.

Pillager Crabe Pene Wolverine Impaler Hammer Rackateer all have unique characteristics which can make them good or bad situationally.

Wolverine packs behave more like a saturation weapon, and are highly spammable as long as you're careful not to let them die to their natural enemies. If your enemy has firewalkers you should probably forget about wolverines.

Pene is an arty/antiheavy/terror weapon which runs a higher risk of teamkilling the more of them you have.

Impaler and hammer are pretty much pure arty, although hammer is somewhat better against mobiles than impaler is but neither are particularly good vs mobiles in general.

Pillager is arty but in groups their aoe makes them deadly against mobiles. In combination with wolverines they can wreck pretty much any ground unit that's thrown at them, but they also have similar weaknesses to watch out for.

Crabes go on hills and spires.

Racketeers are a terror weapon that can render your enemy's army and porc completely useless. There are lots of ways they can be used, depending on the situation and your own creativity. They don't do any real damage on their own though, so you have to combine them with something else in order to actually kill anything. Racket+bandit is typical but by no means the only valid combination.

Phoenix and tremor: If you don't know the exact reason you're building it, don't build it.

Inferno: If the game is stalemating and you see legitimate targets, consider building these. The real decisions are whether to build the silo, and where to build it. The inferno themselves are pretty reliable and can be semi-spammed to disrupt opponent's economy. Eos tends to be better at securing value directly.

Catapult: Is how to win a team game where the map is choked up. Has enormous potential to break anything smaller than a bantha.

Firewalker: Is an extremely powerful unit that hard-counters all skirmishers, provides artillery pressure, and denies areas. Great unit.

Hammer: Is cheapest artillery in the game (other than defender :P). Use them to punish aggressive forward porc earlier than most people are ready for. Do not spam, they are not a replacement for rockos, and good players will punish spam every time.

Racketeer: Great unit. Use to disrupt opponent's plans and composition. Scales well, by denying prime firing space (the front row). I find it has finicky micro/ai, but haven't seem anyone else complain.

Impaler/pillager: Standard artillery. If you can protect it and keep it firing at valuable targets, they generate advantage very quickly.

Crabe: Highly efficient at killing pretty much everything that's cheaper than it assuming proper positioning and support. Does not do well against things that are more expensive than it. I like to make them if I'm planning on going strider to hold off aggression.

Pene: Great unit. Sort of the opposite of crabe, in that they're weak against cheaper units, but great against everything that's expensive. Can snipe commanders, stingers, striders efficiently.

Wolverine: Useless in small numbers, polarising in high numbers. Lots of weaker players make these because they can spamstomp games, but when wolverines are countered, they lose so hard it's often gg (firewalker, wyvern, phoenix etc.).

Saturation vs. direct shot doesn't seem like a particularly useful dichotomy, especially the way you've labeled them. Phoenix for example, while providing a decent spread, is kind of a precision weapon in that you need to deliver to a very precise place. Compare to tremor, which says "get out of this area plz I will give you all the time you need".