Strategies

Strategies can help you succeed, either by making base defenses more efficient, or by ensuring victory during an attack. Below are a few strategies to help you while playing Comet Crash.

Ladders or Steps
Since you cannot cut off enemy attacks, and must always leave a path towards your base, you want to make that path as long and treacherous as possible. Ladders are built to make enemy units travel through your defense longer. This way the enemy units spend more time being destroyed by your towers, being the most effective way to defend a base from a ground attack. Laddering is a well know strategy, as it is even explained in the tutorial.

Speed Traps
Torpedoes, the unit the basic ops produce when upgraded the most, are extremely fast. Unfortunately for them, they go too fast. When building a ladder, leave an extra space after the turn, and torpedoes will speed into it while trying to take the corner. With luck, the torpedoes will speed back and forth once or twice, attempting to get to your base, and be destroyed in the process.

Effective Laddering
When laddering, using the right towers can make it harder for units to get through. With bomber's range and air defense, as well as pulsar's attacking ability, a very strong defense can be made. However, the price of making one can be severe, as bombers and pulsars are the two most expensive towers in the game.

Pulsars should be used on the ends, or in torpedo traps, where their high damage counts the most. Bombers should make up the rest of the steps in a ladder, with their range helping them destroy units much farther up the ladder, as well as destroying the switches that would normally effect pulsars.

Gateways
Gateways are cheap structures that allow allied units to pass through them, but not enemies. While ladders stall enemy unit movement, you can sneak your units right up to your enemy's base. Gateways are very easy to block, though, so watch where you build them!

Gateways can also mess with your defenses, possibly because of replacing a possible tower, or causing thieves to miss enemy units. Gateways can also be used by enemies, as well, so be prepared to destroy one, or build your own gateway next to it, for a cheap block. A turret might be useful, here, as turrets cost the exact same as gateways.

Anti-air
Unlike ground defenses, there is no way for you to cut of the way from their base to yours. While laddering was the most efficient way to lead ground units through you base, air units will fly straight to your base, without being lead anywhere. The best way to defend from air attacks is just a clump of towers.

Effective Anti-air
With turrets, lasers, and bombers all being to attack air units, you might wonder how you are to best defend your base from them. Turrets, while being cheap, are generally inadvisable, due to lack of firepower. Bombers are the most expensive of the three, has an area of effect, can attack ground units, as well as having homing projectiles.

However, lasers are probably the towers to use here, as they are cheaper then bombers, and are cheaper to upgrade as well. A small clumping of lasers will only fail to destroy medium or larger groupings of flying enemies, while a medium or large sized clumping of fully upgraded lasers will be impenetrable to everything in the air. A clumping large in size made up of fully upgraded lasers will cost quite a lot, but still much less than the same in bombers.

However, lasers cannot defend themselves from a base offense, if an enemy pulsar is built next to it, the laser will not be able to defend themselves.

Bombers are still good ground and air defense, though, if you must lead ground units through towards the other side of you base, bombers are a very good tower to line this with.

Drone Scattering
Drones can be hit by the cursor while they are flying towards your base. This can allow more time for towers to destroy them, however, it can also cause a drone to fly to the other side of you base, and fly into your base from out of defense's range.

Auto Thorium Gathering
While your cursor can grab comets for your towers to break into for thorium, the towers can also do this automatically. Deployment of lasers in corners, other wise unused, would break these comets as they came by, leaving the cursor to come by, and collect. Bombers in an effective ladder can also be used for this purpose.

Cursor Destruction
Cursors are essentially a flying unit, as enemy air defense towers can shoot them down. Enemy cursors want your thorium, too, but they can't get much if they are shot down when they move towards it. This can also help stop enemies from attacking your base. The same strategy can be used against you, too, so beware of enemy anti-air defense!

This only works in battle mode, however. In campaign, the enemy does not have a cursor, but just builds and upgrades his automatically. Be careful, in later levels, you can be shot down quite quickly!

Waypoint
Be careful not to build all of your air defenses on one side of your base, drones could attack your base from the other side! The same thought goes for attackers, don't lead your drones through enemy territory where they are most likely to be shot down!

Drone Clumping
When drones are heading for a waypoint, the waypoint can be recycled, and all of the drones will turn towards the enemy base, even if they never reached the waypoint. This can make your drones more concentrated, and harder for lasers to shoot down! (Arguably, the same can't be said for bombers. Bombers have less of a chance to shoot, like lasers, but they hit more when enemy units are clumped)

Base Offense
Sometimes the best way to get your units to the enemy base is to destroy their defense. Be careful, though, while attacking the enemy base, the enemies can usually attack you, too. The use of turrets or bombers (less turrets, more bombers, due to lack of attacking strength in turrets) can help, as they are both ranged units.

Getting an offensive structure near the enemy base can help stop carriers, as they will launch when they are first hit, even if they aren't full.

During single player, this may be needed to succeed, as the enemy starts with a large base, and defenses that are already upgraded, while still having no cursor.

Timed Launches
Some units travel much more slowly then others, especially considering the speed of a torpedo in comparison to any special ops unit.

Hammers and Thieves
More so with thieves, the slow movement of these units mean that quick launches may be necessary for proper base defense. Thieves work best converting units before they reach your defenses, not when the enemy is right next to your base. Hammers are most useful where the most defenses are, bombers if possible. It is best to make sure these are launched before enemies reach your base, maybe even as soon as the enemy launches their attack, depending on the map.

Switches
Switches also move very slow, but to be effective, must reach the enemy base first. It may take some practice to find the best time to launch the wave after the switches, depending on map size.

Carriers
When carriers are loaded up, they head for the base. Loading up a carrier so that it will be the least effected by the enemy's air defenses is best.

Stacking or "Juggling"
By cutting a stream of units off, and sending them in the opposite direction, you can cause units to double up. Done repeatedly, while constantly releasing units, can allow units, even tanks, to penetrate heavy base defenses, as enemies can only attack them one at a time. (With the exception of bombers, whose area of effect will damage them just as much.)