Laser Defense Turret

The laser defense turret was an advanced replacement for the Patriot missile system developed for and solely used by General Townes.

Background
"You've tripped our outer perimeter warning lasers general... We know you're there now!"

- Townes

Pioneering the use of deployable laser weapons in the USA military, Townes proceeded to develop the laser defense turret. Like the standard Patriot, the Laser Defense Turret (LDT) could target ground and air targets within range, and relay the position of enemies to nearby turrets that might otherwise be out of range. However, the LDT's high-energy laser pulse cannot be intercepted or evaded, and is far more deadly than the Patriot's missiles.

The advantages of such a defence arguably make it one of the best base defenses in the entire conflict. A solid network of these would stop almost anything dead in its tracks.

Counters
Although not particularly expensive to construct, the LDT cost a lot in terms of base power resources. Destroying Towne's power grid would instantly disable all of his laser turrets.

LDTs can quickly eliminate any enemy, be them infantry, vehicles, or aircraft. They can even intercept ballistic missiles, such as Scud and Tomahawk missiles. However, they cannot intercept artillery shells, making them vulnerable to artillery units like Nuke cannons. Also, they can still be overwhelmed by a large number of missiles.

Of course, General's abilities and superweapons can be used to eliminate these turrets without losses.

Glitches
When two or more laser turrets are near each other, if a target comes into range the nearest turret will open fire and usually annihilate the target. The ones further along that received the ability to assist fire can attack another unit twice as far as the normal range, even more than standard range-assisted Patriot batteries. This can easily destroy even artillery units if they should engage a battery of laser turrets.

Changelog

 * Zero Hour patch 1.03:
 * now spawns the correct number of Rangers when destroyed
 * tooltip changed to show correct power requirement
 * fixed related unfinished building exploit