Lancer

The Lancer is a medium-range energy laser turret specialized for dealing high single-shot damage to ground units. It charges briefly, then fires powerful piercing beams that can cut through multiple enemies standing in line. Lancers appear as part of mid-to-late game turret arsenals and are intended to handle dense swarms or tightly channeled ground assaults rather than fast, isolated targets or air units.

The Lancer consumes a very large amount of power while firing—360 power/sec—and fires at 0.75 shots per second for a sustained DPS around 105. Each shot deals 140 damage, has 4x pierce, and suffers a -75% building damage penalty (effective building hit equals 35). The Lancer has an effective range of about 20–21 blocks and carries a x4 armor weakness, making it especially vulnerable to heavily armored (T4+) units. The turret cannot target air units and will not hit flying enemies.

Because the Lancer must charge before firing, it will pause rotation while charging; this behavior can cause shots to miss fast-moving or evasive targets. The beam's high pierce and damage excel when enemies clump or are forced to pass through a narrow choke, but the charge pause and limited tracking make it less reliable against scattered or speedy ground units. Lancers pair well with area-control structures (walls, funnels) that line up enemies so each beam pierce is maximized.

Practical notes and strategies:

• Lancers require substantial power infrastructure. Batteries and Large Batteries are important to store excess energy and supply Lancer arrays during intense firing; Battery Diodes help prevent Lancers from draining the rest of the grid when under assault.
• A single fully-charged Small Battery (with no other power sources) will supply an uncooled Lancer for roughly 9 shots; with water cooling that increases to about 12 shots, and with cryofluid cooling to about 16 shots.
• Use choke points (single-tile gaps or narrow corridors) to make enemies line up for maximum pierce effectiveness. In open maps or when covering long perimeters, Hail or Arc turrets are often more practical.
• Lancers suffer greatly versus very high-armored units because of the x4 armor weakness; for those threats consider using Thorium-based turrets (e.g., Salvo with Thorium) or other high-armor-piercing options.
• Because the Lancer cannot hit air, even a single unescorted Flare or other fast flyer can destroy it. Lancers are often paired with Scatter turrets or power defenses to cover this weakness.
• The Lancer will pause rotation while charging; use this knowledge when attempting to weave fast units or player-controlled units through its line of fire. Extremely fast units can sometimes bypass its charge window but are at high risk from a single lucky shot.
• If the enemy destroys local power nodes or generators and there are no adjacent batteries, the Lancer will immediately stop firing; attacking power infrastructure can be an effective way to neutralize Lancer emplacements if direct assault is too costly.

Sound and trivia: the Lancer shares its firing sound with Quasar and Navanax’s EMP weapon, and it has the highest documented armor weakness among turrets at 4x.