On the battlefield it's often useful to explore different means of harassment, Orcas are just one of the many possibilities, but I find these most effective because if the enemy doesn't see them coming you can really lay down some firepower over his Harvesters.
Harassing harvesters in 1.02 is still optional.To begin with let's start with a little about the Orca. It has six missiles and it takes about eight to take down a Harvester, so if you were to take two Orcas to your enemy's base and attack a Harvester you would have four missiles left over, that's between the two Orca's, now you can seriously damage another Harvester if you didn't overkill the previous miner. Micro is key when using Orcas, it helps you do more damage in one run so that the next attack can also deal maximum damage.
A good build order early game would be:- Power Plant
- Barracks
- Refinery
- War Factory
- Refinery
- Power Plant
- Command Post
- Air Field
Once you have an Airfield build two Orcas and move them out together to assault enemy Harvesters, build three Orcas if you feel you would like to do more damage considering at this point in game your opponent should have multiple Harvesters. This can work late game dependent on how much attention and anti air your enemy has in their base.
Here is break down of how many Orca rockets are needed to take down the various Harvesters
Heavy Harvester / Shielded Harvester - 9 missiles
GDI / Zocom / Scrin / Tav59 Harvester - 8 missiles
Nod Harvesters, including MoK & Black Hand - 6 missiles
With this in mind you can put a halt you your enemy's economy taking out about 1, maybe 2, harvesters will level out your Eco with your enemy's paying off for the Orca's & Airfield but you also still have Orca's to kill enemy units that you attack or that enter your base.
With the Refinery's large power consumption, Power Plants are even a bigger priory if your opponent is spamming base defencesThis grants you a few choices in battle and allows a little room for mistake. Meaning if you make a mistake its going to hurt but not as much as if he had his full economy. When you take out 2 - 3 Harvesters keep in mind hes going to either build the Harvesters again
or build anti air defense, if your opponent does both then go for the kill. If he/she is going for both he won't be able to withstand another Orca strike on his Harvesters and will have little in the form of a defense force.
Force your opponent to go for units instead of resources and you can easily win as long as you continue to expand on your economy. Keep in mind the Hardpoints Upgrade can be a great addition to your Orca arsenal it allows extra payloads to do more damage in less time resulting in less trips back and forth to the target.
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