| Point Defenses | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tech 1 Point Defense |     | |||
| Tech 2 Point Defense |     | |||
| Tech 3 Heavy Point Defense |   | |||
Point Defenses, commonly abbreviated as PD, are a group of static turrets that attack land and sea-surface units within range. They are designed to deny the enemy access to certain areas of tactical importance, in other words point areas.
Compared to mobile units, PDs are tougher in HP, and usually have more powerful weaponry with high range and damage. However, they are costly and mobility is worth a lot of value when units could be moved towards mass deposits to secure more income. As with other decisions, point defense is a measure only taken when it is cost effective.
As other weaknesses, point defenses can't attack submerged enemies nor air units, making it vulnerable to bombers and gunships, as well as artillery and missile launchers that outrange it.
Tactics[]
Aeon T1 Point Defense and Aeon T2 Point Defenses holding off a Cybran assault.
Nonetheless, PDs make for a good base defense when focusing on repelling attack but take heed, they do need time to construct. While it is possible to snap build PD, especially with higher Tech levels of engineering suites or the ACU, this tends to be highly risky. Do not rely on build rate; prepare in advance with walls to channel the enemy offensive and buy the most time to react, then build turrets as you gain intel of an attack. Building walls, PD, and other defenses are a medium to high priority objective for engineers, after mass collection (by extractor construction and reclaim).
A single point defense is not infinitely good; while they have reasonably high range to avoid most direct fire units of equivalent Tech level, they won't hold out against a dedicated assault. Building multiple of them around the area makes for a greater chance to defuse and deter hostile intrusions, before they can approach or otherwise traverse deeper into the base. Note that T1PD especially shouldn't be built adjacent to each other, because it'll make it easier to be dispatched by AoE attacks, especially Mobile Light Artillery. Instead, against direct fire units, walls are a great soft-"adjacency bonus" combination for PD positions, as their higher firing position would allow them to fire over the barricades while the raiders (be they tanks or LABs) would find it hard to break through whilst under heavy fire.
The main advantage of T2PD is extra range and area covered over T1, however that does not make T1 obsolete. All factions benefit from using both T1 and T2 PDs together. For all factions, using T1 PDs brings up DPS relative to pure T2, and for Aeon it also allows for lower overkill of their single shot cannons, taking care of T1 spam armies (and other units with low health) much more effectively than the Oblivions alone. Even the UEF T3 Ravager should be built with T2 PDs assisting it, due to its 8 second reload time. As Ravagers also require energy to operate so if there isn't enough Power then having auxiliery T2 Defenses can help. Though you can build power generators next to them to help offset the operating costs.
Combine PD with anti air as necessary, to prevent them from being sniped and picked off by bombers or gunships. At T2, TMD will be useful against ultra long range missile attacks – as MML (eg Flapjack) outranges even T2 PD, and TMLs are high range and cheaper to fire (300 mass per missile) than a destroyed T2PD target. At the later stages of the game, shield generators can be used, as with any important structure, to protect the PD from damage.