Pulse Cannon

The Pulse Cannon is the middle of the three cheap defenses. It costs 8,000 resources, it has 800 hull, 100 shield and it hits for 250. That gun is two and a half times a Laser Cannon's and it is the most attack you can buy before the Gauss Cannon.

The catch is that attack is the stat that matters least on a defense, and at 8,000 each you only get 250 of them for the price of 1,000 Laser Cannons. The Pulse is very good against fighters and it is beaten by something cheaper against almost everything else.

You build it on the Defense page and it stays on that planet for good.

Where it sits in the lineup

The Pulse Cannon and the Particle Cannon cost exactly the same 8,000 and both have 800 hull. The Laser Cannon costs a quarter of that and has a quarter of the hull.

Defense	Cost	Attack	Shield	Hull
Missile Battery	2,000	80	20	200
Laser Cannon	2,000	100	25	200
Pulse Cannon	8,000	250	100	800
Particle Cannon	8,000	150	500	800
Gauss Cannon	37,000	1,100	200	3,500
Plasma Cannon	130,000	3,000	300	10,000

The old advice that this is "four times the cost of a Laser Cannon for two and a half times the gun" only tells you half of it. It is four times the cost for four times the hull and four times the shield as well. What you are really buying is one big body instead of four small ones.

What one shot does

A shield in SFC2 is a pool, not a flat reduction. A shot drains the pool first and only the overflow reaches hull. The shield refills at the start of every round, hull damage does not. On top of that, any unit that has lost more than 30 percent of its hull can blow up at the end of a round it was hit in, at a chance equal to the share of hull it has lost.

Run those two rules on a 250 attack shot and you get this. Research does not change the column on the right, because every level of Weapons Tech adds 10 percent of base attack and every level of Armor Tech and Shield Tech adds 10 percent of base hull and shield, so with matching research on both sides the ratios stay put.

Target	Its shield	What one Pulse Cannon shot does
Hermes Probe, Shadow Probe	0	kills it outright
Helios and Genesis satellites	1	kills it outright
Artemis Class Fighter	10	60 percent chance to kill it
Atlas Class Cargo	10	60 percent chance to kill it
Zagreus Class Recycler	5	30 percent chance to kill it
Apollo Class Fighter	25	225 hull, no chance to kill
Poseidon Class Cruiser	50	200 hull, no chance to kill
Athena Class Battleship	200	50 hull, no chance to kill
Hades Class Battleship	400	nothing, the shield eats it
Ares Class Bomber, Prometheus Class Destroyer	500	nothing, the shield eats it

So the old line about killing an Artemis Class Fighter in one hit is nearly right and worth stating properly: one shot takes 240 off its 400 hull, which is a 60 percent chance it blows up at the end of the round. If it survives, the next round finishes it. That is the best thing the gun does, and it is why a Pulse wall shreds fighter raids.

It is also why the gun is close to useless above that. Three of the four ships anybody attacks a wall with have 400 or 500 shield, and a single Pulse Cannon shot never reaches their hull at all. It takes two Pulse Cannons hitting the same Hades in one round to do anything, and three to touch an Ares.

What kills it

Its own 100 shield is enough to make a fighter raid look silly and not enough to matter against anything bigger.

Attacker	Its attack	What one shot does to a Pulse Cannon
Recyclers, satellites	1	bounces off, no damage ever
Cargo hulls	5 to 10	nothing, the shield eats it
Artemis Class Fighter	50	nothing, the shield eats it
Apollo Class Fighter	150	50 hull, no chance to kill
Poseidon Class Cruiser	400	300 hull, 37 percent chance to kill
Hades Class Battleship	700	600 hull, 75 percent chance to kill
Athena, Ares, Prometheus	1,000 to 2,000	dead in one shot

That bounce line is a real rule. A shot worth 1 percent or less of the target's full shield does nothing at all and also ends that ship's rapid fire chain for the round. One percent of 100 is 1, so both recyclers and both satellites can shoot a Pulse Cannon forever without scratching it.

Two ships rapid fire it

Rapid fire means the attacker gets to shoot again after it kills one, over and over, at the listed odds. Only two ships have it against the Pulse Cannon:

Zeus Class x100
Ares Class Bomber x10

That is a short list and it is the one thing the Pulse Cannon genuinely has over the Laser Cannon. The Prometheus Class Destroyer rapid fires the Laser Cannon x10 and has nothing at all against the Pulse. The Poseidon Class Cruiser rapid fires the Missile Battery x10 and has nothing against the Pulse either.

The Strategy Tips on that panel are old text carried over from the first game. The Artemis line is roughly right, as above. The cost line is misleading, because you also get four times the hull and four times the shield for that money.

Note also what the Unlock Requirements box shows. The game data lists Energy Tech 3 as a requirement, but every account starts on Energy Tech 3, so the game does not bother displaying it. The real gate is Shipyard 4 and Laser Tech 6.

It can never hurt a Zeus

The bounce rule cuts the other way too. A Zeus Class carries 50,000 shield, so anything under 500 does nothing to it. A Pulse Cannon fires for 250 and every level of Weapons Tech adds 25, so you need Weapons Tech 11 before your shots even register on a Zeus with no research of its own.

The cliff sits exactly where the arithmetic says it does. A thousand Pulse Cannons on Weapons Tech 10 do literally nothing to one Zeus and lose 485 of themselves getting nowhere. The same thousand on Weapons Tech 11 kill it and lose 145. Every level of the Zeus owner's Shield Tech pushes that further out: against a Zeus on Shield Tech 10 you would need Weapons Tech 31.

A deployed Hephaestus Class Attack Platform carries 150,000 shield, which needs a shot over 1,500, which is Weapons Tech 51. Pulse Cannons never touch one.

What 2,000,000 of Pulse Cannon does

Two hundred and fifty Pulse Cannons cost 2,000,000 resources. Here is that wall against seven raids worth about the same, with matching research on both sides, averaged over 30 runs of the live battle engine.

Raid	What the raid cost	Result	Raid lost	Cannons lost
500 Artemis Fighters	2,000,000	wall holds	all 500	1
235 Apollo Fighters	1,997,500	wall holds	all 235	50
69 Poseidon Cruisers	2,001,000	wall holds	all 69	60
23 Hades Battleships	1,955,000	wall holds	all 23	33
33 Athena Battleships	1,980,000	wall holds	all 33	68
16 Prometheus Destroyers	2,000,000	wall holds	all 16	33
22 Ares Bombers	1,980,000	planet falls	14 of 22	all 250

Six wins and one wipe. That looks great until you compare it with what the same money buys elsewhere, which is the next section.

That is the Prometheus row in the in-game Calculator. Sixteen Prometheus Class Destroyers walk into 250 Pulse Cannons, the fight is over in three rounds, the raid loses all 2,000,000 of itself and the Plundered row is empty. The 528,000 debris on the board is all from the attacker's own wrecks, because defenses leave none.

What the same money buys elsewhere

Holding is only half the question. What matters over a season is what it costs you to hold. Same 2,000,000 spent one defense at a time, same raids, and the number in each cell is the resource value of your own defense that was destroyed.

Wall	500 Artemis	235 Apollo	69 Poseidon
1,000 Missile Battery	holds, 228,000	holds, 560,000	holds, 1,767,000
1,000 Laser Cannon	holds, 133,000	holds, 462,000	holds, 200,000
250 Pulse Cannon	holds, 10,000	holds, 402,000	holds, 483,000
250 Particle Cannon	holds, nothing	holds, 5,000	holds, 64,000
54 Gauss Cannon	draw, 430,000	draw, 1,149,000	holds, 269,000
15 Plasma Cannon	planet falls	planet falls	falls in 16 runs of 30

Wall	23 Hades	33 Athena	16 Prometheus	22 Ares
1,000 Missile Battery	holds, 71,000	holds, 112,000	holds, 52,000	holds, 1,206,000
1,000 Laser Cannon	holds, 66,000	holds, 98,000	holds, 452,000	holds, 1,048,000
250 Pulse Cannon	holds, 263,000	holds, 546,000	holds, 267,000	planet falls
250 Particle Cannon	holds, 46,000	holds, 571,000	holds, 393,000	planet falls
54 Gauss Cannon	holds, 127,000	holds, 582,000	holds, 740,000	holds, 248,000
15 Plasma Cannon	holds, 139,000	falls in 16 runs of 30	holds in 21 runs of 30	holds, 511,000

Read the Pulse row across both tables. It wins the Artemis column outright and it is never the cheapest defense in any other column. Against fighters the Particle Cannon does the same job for less. Against cruisers and battleships a thousand Laser Cannon bodies do it for less. Against the Prometheus the Missile Battery does it for a fifth of the price. And in the last column the Pulse loses the planet where four other walls hold.

That last column is the important one, because the Ares Class Bomber is the ship people actually bring to knock a wall down.

The Ares problem

An Ares Class Bomber hits for 1,000, which kills a Pulse Cannon outright, and it has rapid fire x10 against it, so nine times out of ten it gets a free shot at the next one. Two hundred and fifty bodies is not enough to survive that for six rounds.

You can brute force it, and the bill is ugly. Same 22-Ares raid, matching research:

Wall	Cost	Result	Value of defense lost
250 Pulse Cannon	2,000,000	planet falls	2,000,000
400 Pulse Cannon	3,200,000	holds	2,004,000
600 Pulse Cannon	4,800,000	holds	1,752,000
1,000 Pulse Cannon	8,000,000	holds	1,550,000
54 Gauss Cannon	2,000,000	holds	248,000

Four hundred Pulse Cannons will beat that raid off and pay 2,000,000 for the privilege. Fifty four Gauss Cannons cost less than the raid, beat it off and pay 248,000. If you expect Ares Bombers, buy Gauss.

Pulse Cannon or Laser Cannon

Four Laser Cannons cost the same as one Pulse Cannon and between them they have the same hull and the same shield, plus 400 attack against the Pulse's 250. On paper the Lasers win everything. In practice it depends entirely on what is shooting at them.

Equal money, no research on either side:

Raid	100 Pulse Cannon (800,000)	400 Laser Cannon (800,000)
100 Artemis Fighters	holds, loses nothing	holds, loses 10,000
30 Apollo Fighters	holds, loses 2,000	holds, loses 37,000
20 Poseidon Cruisers	holds, loses 114,000	holds, loses 51,000
40 Poseidon Cruisers	holds, loses 405,000	holds, loses 150,000

Fighters cannot get through 100 shield at all, so a Pulse wall takes a fighter raid for free while a Laser wall takes real losses. Cruisers and up go through both, and then the wall with four times the bodies wins.

Drop the budget and the Laser wins harder, because at small counts the Pulse simply runs out of bodies. At 200,000 spent, 25 Pulse Cannons lose the planet to 20 Poseidon Cruisers while 100 Laser Cannons hold it in 26 runs of 30.

Pulse Cannon or Particle Cannon

These two are the same price, the same hull and the same build time. The Pulse has 250 attack and 100 shield. The Particle has 150 attack and 500 shield. The shield wins nearly every fight, for the reason in the first table on this page: the gun cannot reach a battleship's hull either way, so all the gun is really doing is killing fighters, and 500 shield kills fighters just as dead by making them harmless.

Raid	250 Pulse Cannon	250 Particle Cannon
500 Artemis Fighters	holds, 10,000 lost	holds, nothing lost
235 Apollo Fighters	holds, 402,000 lost	holds, 5,000 lost
69 Poseidon Cruisers	holds, 483,000 lost	holds, 64,000 lost
23 Hades Battleships	holds, 263,000 lost	holds, 46,000 lost
33 Athena Battleships	holds, 546,000 lost	holds, 571,000 lost
16 Prometheus Destroyers	holds, 267,000 lost	holds, 393,000 lost
22 Ares Bombers	planet falls	planet falls

The Pulse only comes out ahead in the two rows where 500 shield is irrelevant, against the Athena and the Prometheus, and it wins those by a nose. Everywhere else the Particle Cannon does the same job for a fraction of the repair bill, and neither of them stops an Ares.

The Pulse does win the shopping list. Both cost 8,000, but the Pulse wants 6,000 ore and 2,000 crystal while the Particle wants it the other way round. An Ore Mine produces half again what a Crystal Mine of the same level does, so 6,000 ore is quicker to earn than 6,000 crystal. If crystal is your bottleneck, that is a real cost the sticker price does not show.

How many you need

The wall does not scale gently. Below a certain count it changes nothing at all, and a hundred past that it wins outright. Matching research on both sides:

Pulse Cannons	Cost	vs 69 Poseidon	vs 33 Athena	vs 16 Prometheus
50	400,000	falls, 1 killed	falls, 0 killed	falls, 0 killed
100	800,000	falls, 18 killed	falls, 3 killed	draw, 5 killed
150	1,200,000	holds in 22 runs of 30	draw, 31 killed	holds, 50 lost
200	1,600,000	holds, 75 lost	holds, 83 lost	holds, 39 lost
250	2,000,000	holds, 60 lost	holds, 68 lost	holds, 33 lost
400	3,200,000	holds, 42 lost	holds, 49 lost	holds, 23 lost

A hundred cannons against 69 Poseidon Cruisers kill 18 of them and still lose the planet. Two hundred kill all 69 and keep 125 of themselves. Half a wall is not half as good, so if you are going to build Pulse Cannons, build enough of them.

Early game

Shipyard 4 and Laser Tech 6 come early, and this is where most Pulse Cannons that ever get built are built, when 50 of them is real money and nobody has an Ares yet. It works there. No research on either side:

Raid	25 Pulse (200,000)	50 Pulse (400,000)	100 Pulse (800,000)
30 Apollo Fighters	holds, loses 12	holds, loses 2	holds, loses none
60 Apollo Fighters	falls	holds, loses 25	holds, loses 4
100 Artemis Fighters	draw, kills 69	holds, loses none	holds, loses none
250 Artemis Fighters	falls	falls	holds, loses 3
20 Poseidon Cruisers	falls, kills 3	holds, kills all 20, loses 25	holds, loses 13
40 Poseidon Cruisers	falls	falls, kills 5	holds, loses 52

Things that are true of every defense

It leaves no debris. A destroyed ship drops 30 percent of its ore and crystal into the debris field. A destroyed Pulse Cannon drops nothing.
Most of them come back. When the battle ends, roughly 70 percent of the defenses that were destroyed are rebuilt on the spot for free.
It cannot be removed. There is no deconstruct for cannons. Only missiles can be torn down.
Planets only. A Shipyard cannot be built on a moon, so a moon carries no Pulse Cannons. A deployed Hephaestus platform does not get a Defense tab at all.
Missiles can reach it. An Interplanetary Ballistic Missile strike eats defenses cheapest first, and the Pulse Cannon is third in that order behind the Missile Battery and the Laser Cannon. If you are stacking defenses, read the ABM page.
It does not use planet fields. Build as many as you like.

Build time

Build time works off ore and crystal only. Hydrogen never counts toward it, and the Pulse Cannon has none anyway.

Time in hours = 8,000 / (5,000 x (Shipyard Level + 1) x 2^{Foundry Level})

Shipyard	No Foundry	Foundry 2	Foundry 4
4	19m 12s	4m 48s	1m 12s
6	13m 43s	3m 26s	51s
8	10m 40s	2m 40s	40s
10	8m 44s	2m 11s	33s

Ships and defenses share one queue, so a big fleet order will hold up your cannons and the other way round. You cannot cancel an item once it is in, and you cannot start anything at all while the Shipyard or the Foundry on that planet is upgrading.

Cost

Ore	Crystal	Hydrogen
6,000	2,000	0

Stats

Attack	Shield	Hull
250	100	800

Rapid fire against it

Ship	Rating
Zeus Class	x100
Ares Class Bomber	x10

The Pulse Cannon has no rapid fire of its own. No defense in SFC2 does.

Requirements

Shipyard (level 4)
Laser Tech (level 6)
Energy Tech (level 3, which every account already has at signup)