Orbital Laser

## Stats

### Cost

200 metal, 2000 energy (700 metal and 4000 energy in total including the cost of the Hardpoint)

### Firing cost

350 metal, 2000 energy (not including the build cost of ammunition)

### Build time

100 seconds to upgrade from the Hardpoint

## Characteristics

### Pros

Highest damage per shot in the game. High amount of hitpoints.

### Cons

Projectile is vulnerable to anti-air. Beam can be defended against with energy shields. Uses ammo. Very high cost of ammunition. The weapon violently explodes on being destroyed.

The Orbital Laser is an installation capable of calling down a devastating laser beam from a satellite. It is unlocked by the Factory and upgraded from the Hardpoint, which in turn requires an Armoury to be built.

## Overview

The Orbital Laser fires sticky beacons along a parabolic path. When the beacon connects with the structure of the opponent's fort, terrain, or the water surface, after a short delay the spot will be struck by an immense laser beam from the sky, capable of obliterating the opponent's fort in one blow. The beacon is a destructible projectile, and is vulnerable to anti-air.

Aiming the Orbital Laser beacons works identical to the Howitzer or Mortars - both angle and power of the shot need to be aimed.

As a laser-type weapon, the Orbital Laser beam is reflected by Energy Shields, causing no damage. It can be redirected with Portals. With proper placement of the Portal, (and unlucky beacon placement by the opponent) it is possible to actually redirect the beam towards the opponent.

The beam will refuse to fire if the beacon lands in close proximity to the owner's fort. Apart from friendly-fire protection, this is also to prevent an early exploit, where one would build a disconnected structure over a Portal at their own fort, and fire the beacon at the contraption, which would catch the beam and redirect it towards the opponent horizontally, making an attack that was all but impossible to stop without covering the entire front of the base with Energy Shields.

Note that even though the weapon is built by upgrading from the Hardpoint, it does *not* require an Upgrade Center.

The weapon uses Ammo to fire. Two variants of ammunition are available.

## Ammunition

### Orbital Sweep Ammunition

###

*"Powerful satellite beam that sweeps over the point of impact"*

The basic variant of the Orbital Laser ammo, the Orbital Sweep ammunition fires a red beacon that, on impact with either terrain or an enemy fort, calls down a sweeping orbital strike. The beam distributes a sum of 4,000 total damage across 12 grid units.

Building this variant of ammunition costs 90 metal and a whopping 8000 energy to build, as well as 100 seconds for the construction to complete.

#### Strategies

Using the Orbital Sweep beacon, it is very easy to direct the beam in the desired direction; the satellite begins its strike roughly 2 grid units behind the beacon's impact, charging up and proceeding to deal immense damage over the next 10 grid spaces. The beam is capable of dispensing around 500 damage *per grid*.

The Orbital Sweep is excellent at dealing critical penetrative damage to poorly defended spots of a base. In this aspect, it is similar to a Nighthawk; however, the Orbital Laser delivers much more concentrated damage to its target, so there's a good chance to destroy internal devices such as Batteries, Technology, or economy buildings such as Mines and Propellers.

The targeting beacon must be defended mid-flight. To aid with this, the Firebeam is a very handy tool. Not only does it burn out incoming Anti-Air bullets and eliminate the defenses themselves, but it also does *not* ignite the beacon on contact; this is the only case in the game where the Firebeam does not ignite a projectile, allowing easier use with the Orbital Laser.

EMP Rockets or Heavy Mortars can be used as bait to make Flak waste their ammunition before firing the Orbital Laser. Note that Heavy Mortars are more effective as bait than Incendiary Mortars, since doored Anti-Air will not fire upon incoming Incendiary Mortar shells.

#### Counters

Albeit its exceptional damage output, due to the fact it lacks any sort of penetrative damage, the Orbital Sweep laser is stopped with ease by any form of dense woodspam. Even more dooming for it is the fact that due to its vertical attack trajectory, it's very hard to assist with splash weapons such as Firebeams or Howitzers. Thus, if meticulous Anti-Air and vertical defenses are in place, the Orbital Laser can be easily be defended. Also remember that unlike the Runway, the Orbital Laser has a somewhat lengthy reload of 10 seconds, meaning that stocking up multiple beacons is likely to be ineffective.

Shields are also relatively cheap defense against Orbital Lasers, costing the same amount of metal as just one door; there's just a small energy upkeep to be aware of.

### Orbital Focus Ammunition

###

*"Powerful satellite beam that focuses on the point of impact"*

This variant of ammo can be obtained by upgrading the Orbital Sweep Ammunition, and so requires an Upgrade Center to be built. The upgrade costs 50 metal and 2000 energy to upgrade from Orbital Sweep Ammunition, and takes 30 seconds to complete.

As the description states, unlike with the sweep ammunition, the Orbital Focus Ammunition will call down a blue beam that will not move and instead will deliver the full blast focused into the beacon's point of contact. This attack will often cleave an entire ship in half. Upgrading the ammo counts as building, therefore it cannot be done concurrently with building new Orbital Sweep Ammunition - the upgrade will only begin after all previously queued Orbital Sweep Ammunition finishes building.

## Orbital Laser Mark II

### Description

"Fires a targeting beacon for a laser satellite with trajectory preview"

## Stats

### Cost

100 metal 2000 energy (800 metal and 4000 energy in total including the cost of Hardpoint and Orbital Laser)

### Build time

100 seconds to upgrade from the Orbital Laser

## Characteristics

### Special

Displays a partial trajectory preview

The Orbital Laser can be upgraded into a Mark II variant. This upgrade requires an Upgrade Center to be built. The Orbital Laser Mark II behaves exactly like the base variant, and the stats of both weapons are identical. The only difference is that the Mark II variant displays a partial trajectory preview, just like Scattershot's active ability. Considering the high cost of ammunition, as well as the precision required to make the weapon effective (especially with the focus ammunition) the upgrade is worth considering.