X3: Albian Prelude

Lasertower

“A defense installation typically found around stations or factories to help them against invaders.”

Laser towers are deployed by ejecting them from a ship's cargo hold while in space. Once deployed, they must survive a ten-minute “power-up” period before they begin to target and attack ships.

The towers reorient slowly which limits their ability to acquire and engage targets. They are best suited to long-range engagements against slower targets. Laser towers are lethal when deployed in large arrays, even against faster targets if given sufficient stand-off. Laser tower targeting is a trifle aggressive and may cause friendly fire if not managed carefully. Generally, laser towers are vulnerable to capital ship attacks if not deployed in very large numbers.

Given the expense and rarity of laser towers, players typically construct their own production lines of Lasertower Factories if they intend to deploy very many of them.

Laser towers are often a choice defense for guarding space stations and also have some use when deployed near gates, though this has a higher probability of causing friendly fire incidents. In large batteries, they can be lethal to anything within range, but in small groups, they can be a fairly effective defense for keeping things like pirate raiding wings away from your space stations. Since they are armed with Plasma Beam Cannons, they are very good at hitting anything that they're lined up with. They are equipped with 1GJ of shielding, giving them good resistance to fighter attacks. Their shielding recharges slowly, similar to space stations. It's important to deploy them in very large amounts for use against anything M6-sized or larger so that they can kill their targets quickly, as they will not last long under fire from capital ships or corvettes.

Laser towers contain the rare PBC which can be extracted by using the “Transfer Freight via Drone” command during the power-up period.