Kanes Wrath

Orbital Strike is one of the two new Tier 4 Support Powers for all GDI Factions. It is available after you placed your Satellite Uplink. If you have enough power and the required 3000$ (v1.02) you can fire. This Support Power has a massive cool down time. You have to wait 7 minutes before you can launch an Orbital Strike again.

Many players underestimate the potential of the Orbital Strike. Often its used when the game is already over as a firework without crucial effect.

The Orbital strike bombards the designated area from an orbital platform, but those projectiles never hit the same position. So take in consideration that an enemy unit (that you want to kill) maybe wont be hit or destroyed. This TotW will show how you can get more for your 3000 Credits than just an expensive firework.

Against Structures

Taking out Power plants
Combined with Shockwave Artillery Strike you can take out some Power plants if they are built close together and your opponent has a heavily fortified base.

Damaging Structures
If your planning to attack the enemy head on with a massive force and he will defend his position with 2 War Factories and units you can launch an Orbital Strike on that structures when you start your attack. It wont destroy the structures but significantly damaging them, so it easier to take them out faster.

Finishing important Structures

Combined with Firehawks or Orcas - Death comes from Above
4 Firehawks (not upgraded) destroy a Techcenter, Epic Facility or Warfactory.
Imagine your enemy is Scrin and is constructing his Eradicator Hexapod. You don't have a counter against it and you need time. So your Firehawks attack his Warp Chasm but your enemy places a Storm Column right in front of your approaching Firehawks and you loose one; the Warp Chasm is at 25% Health and is still constructing the Hexapod. Just blow it away with the Orbital Strike.



Of course this works with ground units, too. If you have heavily damaged an important building and you need to destroy it but you would loose your whole attack force because the enemy sets up some heavy defense, retreat and let the Orbital Strike do the work!

Against Ground Units

Infantry
The Orbital Strike is absolutely devastating against Infantry and it will suppress Infantry in a large area. So even if you don't kill that much infantry the infantry is suppressed and an easy target for Snipers.



Light Vehicles
Pitbulls, Seekers, Scorpion Tanks, Attack Bikes and so on... they have one thing in common - they are fast. So its not hard for them to dodge the red beam. If your enemy defends an position with light vehicles and a Warfactory you can launch an Orbital Strike on his Warfactory to force the light vehicles (especially bikes) to retreat from the Warfactory.

Blocking
Say your Predators are fighting an army of Gunwalkers, Seekers and Disintegrators. The enemy retreats to his Warfactory and your Predators have no chance to stop his force. Place the Orbital Strike beam behind them. They have the choice between fighting your Predators or to getting killed or at least heavily damaged by the Orbital Strike.



Shockwave Artillery Combo
If you are outnumbered use the Shockwave Artillery and Orbital Strike Combo. Its very useful if you and your enemy fight with T1 and T2 Vehicles. Launch the Shockwave Artillery Strike on the enemy. Kill the deactivated Units with the Orbital Strike. This is an easy way to take out these units.

Tier 3 Units
Even with Shockwave Artillery the Orbital Strike doesn't deal much damage. If your enemy has 4 Tripods/Avatars/Mammoth/Juggernauts which are already heavily damaged and tries to escape but you haven't the force to hunt them down then you can try the Shockwave Artillery and Orbital Strike Combo to stop them.



Finishing Epic Units
This can be match-winning! Your enemy plays turtle style Nod and harasses with his Redeemer and this machine is already promoted twice. You could held your position against his attack and heavily damaged the Redeemer but he got away and you have not enough units to finish him. The Orbital Strike can finish enemy Epics. Especially when you use Shockwave Artillery Strike to deactivate the Epic. The Redeemer wont take so much damage like the MARV or Hexapod because of his small form. So a Redeemer needs to be more damaged than a MARV or Hexapod before you can finish him with the Orbital Strike. You pay 5000$ for such a strike, this is not cost effective but necessary in some situations.

Against Air Units

All Tier 4 support powers damage air units. Already light units can dodge the Orbital Strike, so why using it against Air Units?

Planetary Assault Carriers (PACs) and Devastator Fleet
So how do you defeat this nasty combo? Yea here you can use the Orbital Strike. Of course combined with your main anti air force. The Orbital Strike is still a Support Power and not a "one-click army-killer"
An Orbital Strike, as you can see in the screen shots, can heavily damage PACs.



Combined with the Supersonic Airstrike and Firehawks
If you use the Supersonic Air Attack you can kill a fleet worth of 10000$ easily by 4 mouse clicks. Of course a good Scrin player will try to maneuver his fleet away from the red Beam and he will use the Ion Stormm Ability of the PACs which heal the fleet incredibly fast. Timing is important! Although the whole force is healed by the the Ion Storm, 4 Firehawks and a combined Orbital Strike and Supersonic Strike were able to destroy a PAC and a Devastator and heavily damage the remaining Units.



Without these support powers you need 4 Firehawks to shoot down a PAC in an Ion Storm .
If you hit this fleet while not in an Ion Storm with this combined strike, this attack force will fall out of the clouds...in pieces!



Turtle Nod and Vertigo harass
Every GDI player faced such a Nod already for sure. Extreme late game turtle Nod players using Vertigos destroying you effectively and slowly. Firehawks cant reach his Air Tower with bombs, even Strato-ing in is impossible due a massive amount of Anti-Air Batteries. Then try this: Radar Scan his Air Tower and target it when the Vertigos reload. An Orbital Strike destroys an airfield and will still do damage to the Vertigos when they take off. In that moment you can use the Supersonic Strike to get rid off the Vertigos. A fenced Air Tower can survive an Orbital Strike.



I hope you enjoyed reading this Tip Of The Week.
Good luck all GDI-Commanders and show those Nods and Aliens the full potential of your Orbital Strike!

thanks to ~Helli~ for supporting me with the screen shots

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