The Solaris Relay is the ECA's main superweapon, which is capable of relaying a directed Solar Burst from ones of its solar energy satellites.
Lore
Since the inception of the European Space Agency's famous Solaris energy project, high-ranking Russian officials have heavily criticised it for its possible use as a highly devastating orbital weapon and missile defence. While much of the criticism at the time was in no small part motivated by the fact that a self-sufficient Europe put an end to the long-standing fossil fuel deals that kept the Russian economy going, the alleged military potential of Solaris turned out to be more than just a slanderous conspiracy theory as early as 2046, when the Russian aircraft carrier 'Peter the Great' got melted to slag by a pillar of sunlight striking down from the sky without warning in the Baltic Sea. In addition to these short, concentrated bursts, European commanders can also experiment with a longer, broader solar saturation to turn entire areas into cooking wastelands for extended periods.
Description
Competitively, this superweapon has the least damaging capability compared with other superweapons, and it even loses against the Particle Uplink Cannon because it lacks the ability to move its beam. However, this is counteracted by the fact that it has a very short waiting time of 4 minutes. So, the usage of the Solaris Relay is not mainly concerned with base-busting, but rather precision strikes against massive tank blobs and/or expansion supply centers. Also, unlike other superweapons, the damage of the Solaris Relay is the same regardless of where in the area a target unit or structure is.
Unlocking the Pandora Protocol upgrades the Solar Burst to affect a larger area and maintain its beam for a longer period, greatly increasing the superweapon's destructive power. However, none of the ECA's other emergency protocols affect the Solaris, so care must be taken in choosing which to enact.
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