Executor vs Sniper?

[MyUrp1]

So I came back to this game recently, and at the end of last night's game I was pleased that my 30 executors and 30 titans were able to mop up the final wave at Nightmare difficulty. In the past I've had trouble with this; 30 titans alone often can't do the job because chubbies soak up their shots while venom trash the walls. I was happy that the executor complement solved that problem.

My question is, would I be better off using snipers instead? I hate snipers, and I've complained about them in plenty of posts in the past, so I'm not going to repeat that here. I'm just looking to compare sniper vs. executor effectiveness. On a raw upkeep basis an executor at 50 is equal to 10 snipers. But each sniper eats a unit of food that could be used to feed an extra colonist (1.25 colonists with Market), so that's an additional 3 gold cost, meaning the executor only has to outgun 6 snipers.

If those 6 are elite snipers firing once a second then the executor has 1/3rd their dps, but the executor has splash which probably compensates for that. So they seem to be about even. And against recruit snipers the executor is probably better. Does that seem right?

Also, I think I figured out the right wan to balance executor / titan recruitment. Half a dozen titans can handle waves 6-9, so once I have those recruited, all the rest of my cash goes into housing, and when I run out of food, then drop executors everywhere until my gold income is below 2k, *then* recruit the titan mob (so that way the titans sitting around don't deprive me of oil income to recruit executors).

[abaoabao2010]

It's usually worth getting a vet wonder for ~50 noob snipers, so if you're getting 300 snipers in the place of the 30 executors, you DEFINITELY want a vet wonder unless you have a way to vet 250+ of them.

Pure executors are better against massed low level infected, having some snipers mixed in is better when there's some chubbies and harpies/spitters mixed in (set them to strongest).

Usually the chubbies are sparse enough that the splash won't hit a second one, and they're the main bottleneck for pure executor/titan defense.

Edit: above is for survival. If you're talking about campaign, just skip titans/executors altogether and go pure shock tower + soldiers.

[MyUrp1]

Yeah, this is survival, soldiers dominate in campaign.

And that's a good point regarding qty of snipers. I forgot that regardless of how good snipers might be, I'd still need a ludicrous number of them to equal 30 executors. Just organizing that many and getting them to the right chokepoints in time is a hassle; dropping executors on site is much more manageable, even if they are inferior.

So I'll just focus on a monster economy that can support executor overkill rather than get frustrated with snipers.

[Steven]

As a veteran to this game I would say the problem isn't what it seems. Mowing down zombies isn't the issue, the issue is priority targets. Walls will always stop zombies, but spitters will eat your towers, and fatties soak dmg. Snipers are always good but unless veterans they are quite terrible for final waves if few a veterans.

Your problem is priority targets, the button that switches what it targets. The number of towers is irrelevant, you need to be picking off fatties and spitters. There are two ways to do this, have half of your towers target close and half target high priority-- or have towers target close and have snipers in towers with high priority. Without the priority button you will find your defenses failing very quickly and snipers wasting shots on targets that really are not a threat. Never underestimate a sniper group in a wooden tower, their range is amazing. They can pick off the targets like spitters and fatties that ruin towers and walls, allowing the splash to mow down the ez zombies hordes.

[MyUrp1]

I always have everything set to prioritize strongest -- which the game has decided means harpies, then fatties, then spitters.

Executors and snipers both do this well. My question is the relative effectiveness of each. Executors also splash trash. Snipers don't cost oil or power. So it seems to be a bit of a tossup. I was wondering if anyone had evaluated it more thoroughly.

[red255]

OK, so, final wave is final wave.

the issue of sniper upkeep is clearing. executors can't clear. so you need snipers or soldiers for clearing (since the oil for titans is difficult to get) its very easy to get a few soldier centers and crank of 200 snipers and clear the map.

the added range of snipers allows them to pick off threats like spitters, giants and mutants before they become too bothersome.

so the whole 'food' thing is assuming you somehow cleared the map without snipers? since having the snipers allows you to take more of the map which ends up being more food and housing from having more space.

executors upkeep is rather expensive, you'd only really use them for defending a wave before ripping them back down and replacing with ballista towers. a wave defense its nice to have a few towers with snipers in them on highest target priority ripping down the spitters and other big enemies and allowing your AOE towers to deal with the rest.

final wave assuming you've cleared the map, AOE defenses in a choke are good, but to CLEAR the map, you want snipers (and eventually titans) after which you select your chokes you want to defend and build up those)

since upkeep doesn't really matter after the map is cleared. depends on the choke. and enemy pathing.

[MyUrp1]

I find soldiers work much better at clearing the map than snipers. It drives me crazy when a squad of 40 snipers stops to kill a single stray walker. And crazier when I push too far and a swarm of 20 harpies eats my squad. Soldiers can run if needed.

So my concern is the end wave. My 100-ish soldiers stand in reserve to help in a breakthrough, and it's a question of titans and executors or titans and snipers to hold the line.

[abaoabao2010]

Originally posted by MyUrp1:

I find soldiers work much better at clearing the map than snipers. It drives me crazy when a squad of 40 snipers stops to kill a single stray walker. And crazier when I push too far and a swarm of 20 harpies eats my squad. Soldiers can run if needed.

So my concern is the end wave. My 100-ish soldiers stand in reserve to help in a breakthrough, and it's a question of titans and executors or titans and snipers to hold the line.

Soldiers in wood tower functions about the same as snipers, and personally I'd much rather pull titans from a overdefended spot instead of having soldiers in reserve, since they run much faster.

That way you don't need to spend money on sniper and can utilize what you have from clearing a lot more fully.