What is the point of lotuses against rover raiders?

A single scorcher can easily take out a lotus and deal eco damage.
Two scorchers take on a lotus easily.
It is hard to support a lotus with other raiders.

By far, it seems like lotuses are just an extra expense on top of mexes vs rover raiders, that could be spent on more raiders instead. Is there any use for them?

I wouldn't make one lotus against rovers to defend mex, since like you said one scorcher can destroy a lotus by itself, so I would make two or more.

But I find lotus very useful like in some situations, since if you mean by spending that metal on more raiders to guard the mex, if you get attacked from a few sides, it would be almost impossible to micro them all well to protect the mex, so making more than 1 lotus to guard mex is the better option and more useful in my opinion.
But if you mean to attack the enemy with it, then there will be less use for lotuses.
Also if you get raided by scorchers and a fencer, lotus is completely usless, because fencer out ranges lotus.

Overall, I think there isn't much use for lotus against rovers unless you have a ton of income and can be fine with losing a lot of them.

It is for that struggler who got past the front with low hp, not really meant for raiders missed out due to noobnes or stealthiness.

Fun Fact: Lotuses on a ramp do not, in fact, take less ranged damage from scorchers.

The lotus OUTRANGES the scorcher, so a scorcher has to either avoid the area with a lotus, or it has to dive directly at the lotus. This makes the possible routing paths for the scorcher far more defined and much easier to defend against.

One example - lets say there are two scorchers attacking 1 scorcher + 1 lotus + 1 mex, the 2 scorchers can not tack back and forth to get closer to the mex and then kill it, they have to dive. As they dive, the defending scorcher can get the retreat advantage and the defense will almost certainly win. So lotus also acts like a force multiplier.

How many scorchers coming from different directions would it take to take down a single stardust?

quote: How many scorchers coming from different directions would it take to take down a single stardust?

Sometimes 3, always 4 according to my test. (Near-perfect conditions; scorchers are equidistant around the circle with diving orders prepared while on wait, then wait released simultaneously)

quote: Sometimes 3, always 4

That is actually not that much...2 lotuses perhaphs better.