Howitzer

### Pros

Immense explosive damage. Flexible aiming. Projectile does not expire when lit on fire. Hard to stop with anti-air. Large amount of hitpoints of the weapon itself.

### Cons

Extremely expensive. Large weight. Slow and bulky projectile. Can be stopped by mass anti-air. Projectile can be easily shot down by heavy weapons due to large hitbox. Catastrophic explosion when the weapon is destroyed.

### Special

Projectile does not expire when lit on fire.

The Howitzer is a weapon introduced with the Moonshot DLC in 2019. It is a high caliber Munitions Plant weapon.

### Overview

A slow firing artillery piece, the howitzer makes its presence known by shooting a large, but slow projectile at the enemy.

The shells fired by this weapon is known for being extremely damaging in a large area around the impact, but the ability to shoot it down using anti-air allows for a lot of counterplay. The high damage makes it a high priority threat for the enemy and should be addressed as fast as possible. With a reload time of 30 seconds and a firing cost of 70 metal and 4000 energy this weapon should be fired carefully as a miss will render you at a disadvantage.

Upon impact, the howitzer can penetrate up to 3 foreground bracings (exploding on collision with the 4th) or up to 4 background bracings (exploding on collision with the 5th) allowing it to explode deeper into the base. The howitzer will deal a hefty 450 damage on direct impact plus a bonus of 40 splash in a radius of 230 (with linear falloff).

The howitzer shell is a very well armoured projectiles, requiring 10 machine gun bullets, or 36 shrapnels from a flak explosion to destroy it. A cannon shell and a 20mm bullet will instantly destroy the howitzer shell, but so will another howitzer shell.

The howitzer shell is the only projectile in the game that can be swayed by the effects of an enemy magnabeam, but only at a 10% capacity, of what a friendly one would do.

### Strategies

Unlike the cannon, the howitzer requires support in order to hit consistently, as this slow projectile can be shot down by enemy anti-air. This makes a howitzer a good combo for shotguns, snipers or even smoke bombs to deny enemy anti air. A smoke bomb can be shot in advance to make sure any anti-air is unable to fire, whilst a shotgun or sniper might require one to shoot the howitzer first and force the opponent's anti-air to open their doors, risking the howitzer shell from being destroyed.

Due to the large splash radius, the howitzer is an ideal weapon to weaken the enemy's defenses, so having a good follow-up on a howitzer hit is essential to be able to inflict a decisive blow, thanks to the initial splash damage weakening the woodspam of the enemy fort, allowing medium and heavy weapons to simply destroy the rest of the base along with its devices.

Belonging to the Munitions plant, one of the most common combos is the howitzer being paired with a regular cannon. The howitzer is shot first to weaken the enemy, and a cannon follow-up which will then penetrate further and possibly take out a vital parts of a base, such as the weapons or the core itself.

The howitzer projectile instead of being hindered by fire, it greatly benefits from it, being able to be ignited with use of firebird's active or a firebeam, not expiring from being set on fire. This allows the howitzer to deal extra damage as it sets a very large radius around the impact ablaze. This extra fire damage would allow even some light weapons to deal significant damage to the enemy fort. (The firebeams can be used to block off the enemy anti-air, while adding to its overall damage)

Despite its large in-game sprite, the howitzer is the smallest weapon produced by the munitions plant allowing it to be fit in very small protective boxes.

Howtizers can collide with other friendly howitzer shells too. Due to the very large projectile size, it is generally a bad idea to group fire howitzers. In such case there is a high chance the projectiles will collide right after being shot inflicing heavy self damage from the explosive radius of both projectiles.

### Counters

The main counter to a howitzer is anti-air. Shooting the projectile out before it reaches you will render it completely useless. However one should consider alternatives too as anti-air can be countered too.

The use of metal prevents further penetration of the howy shell from infiltrating and unleashing a murderous blast, along with sandbags. (sandbags are more popular due to their cheaper cost, while metal is more of an expensive option)

Due to the large splash radius, it is important to let the projectile explode far from the base. Having large boxes out front to soak up the projectile before it reaches vital parts of the base is important.

One can also use a return to sender to use the enemy's howitzer against them.