Command and Conquer 4

The Titan walker made its debut in Tiberian Sun before returning in Kane's Wrath and finally again in Tiberian Twilight. It has always been a slow, heavily armored unit with a lot of firepower. In Tiberian Sun the Titan had a long range and was able to shoot Nod defenses from a distance without taking any damage itself. In Kane's Wrath the Titan could kill enemy tanks with just a few shots (and if that wasn't enough, it could always crush them by walking over them). In C&C4, its role changes again, and that is what we are going to look at.



This tip pertains to Tiberian Twilight version 1.3, parts of it may no longer apply to future versions.

Basic Information

The Titan Mk. II
Class: Offense
Tier: 1
Build time: 0:12
Command points: 6
Armament: Laser (Strong vs. Heavy)
Armor: Medium
Hit points: 900
Speed: Medium

Role and Purpose

The Titan carries a laser and can fire at both air and ground targets. This means you can use the Titan against any unit. These walkers are pretty slow, and you might find it hard to outrun opponents. They also lack the ability to reverse-move, but their ability to rotate their bodies and weapons by 360 degrees usually makes up for it. A direct approach is often the best tactic when you're building Titans.

As a laser unit, Titans can shoot through multiple ground targets in a row if you aim at the farthest unit at the back (for more information please visit One Percenter #27). Even if you can damage multiple aircraft huddled together, this only works against ground units.


Another special ability of the Titan is to slow-down enemy units with its laser. This is really useful against targets trying to retreat from a losing battle or just to prevent a Raider from running away with a blue Tiberium crystal.

The Titan is highly effective against heavy units and some defense structures of the Nod Defense Class. Therefore, the most efficient use of the Titan is for destroying heavy units and structures. They are also a very good option when it comes to killing Crawlers. When you're facing a bunch of medium Nod units, the Titan should rather be avoided. Hunters serve as GDI's main tank and will therefore be a better option against Nod Offense players early in the game.

It's a common mistake for beginners to build a huge army of Titans when they really need Hunters. Yes, Titans are cool and look futuristic, but avoid building them if you don't really need them.

Performance

Titan Speed

To determine exactly how fast the Titan is, it was decided that we will have a little race. All the units of the GDI Offense Class got together for this special occasion. The race took place on the map Pipeline Plateau where the units had to run between nodes 2 and 4 as quickly as they could. Some of them were pretty nervous, as you can expect, especially the Mastodon. The tier-1 units were not allowed to use the tier-1 Speed Boost upgrade.

After the race the average speed of all the units were 38.8 seconds. The Titan took a total time of about 45 seconds, marking it as one of the slower units. Actually, there was only three units that were slower than the Titan, the Mammoth Tank (50 seconds), the Refractor (54 seconds) and the Mastodon (67 seconds).

Compared to tier-1 units, the Titan is a lot slower, the average time being 32.3 seconds. In the beginning of the game be careful when you're building Titans if you need to move your army quickly around the map. They are your slowest option in the beginning of the game.

Titan Firepower

To give you a good idea at how much firepower the Titan has, here's a little list which shows you exactly how much damage the Titan deals to the following (DPS values are calculated by attacking units from the front):

• Light units/aircraft or Reinforced Structures: 6.25 DPS*
• Medium units/aircraft: 9 DPS
• Enemy Crawlers: 12.5 DPS
• Heavy units or Structures: 25 DPS

*) DPS = Damage Per Second. Example: If a unit does 5 DPS to a unit, then that unit loses 5 hit points per second on average. From this list you should see why it is so important to attack with the correct counter. Titans do much more damage to heavy units or structures than they do to anything else.


But how does the Titan's firepower compare to other units? The Titan has on average 11.8 DPS. Divide that by the amount of Command Points for one Titan and you get 1.97 DPS/CP. The average damage-to-cost ratio for tier-1 units of the GDI Offense Class was 1.75 DPS/CP, making the Titan a very good unit when it comes to firepower.

If you add this to the fact that the Titan can fire at both air and ground, its laser can penetrate multiple ground targets and what a big difference a Blue Tiberium Core makes to the Titan (refer to page 2 for more information) then you have a pretty powerful unit.

Titan Armor

If you want to know exactly how tough a unit is compared to other units, you need to find out how you quickly you get hit points for every second you build the unit, and how many hit points you get for every command point you spend.

The average across all the units of the GDI Offense Class is 73 hit points per second of build time ("HP/s" henceforth). The Titan gives you 75 HP/s. Without counting tier-3 units, the average is 60 HP/s, making the Titan pretty good unit when you need a lot of armor quickly.


Next up is the ratio of hit points per command point ("HP/CP"), which measures how much armor your get for the command points you spend. Here the average is 116 HP/CP for the Offense Class and 150 HP/CP for the Titan.

In summary, the Titan is a tough but slow unit with a lot of firepower (when compared to tier-1 and -2 units). Titans work best in large groups and with a direct and brutal approach, using their armor and firepower to clear the way. Do not use them for running around after fast units or if you need to move around the map very quickly.