Defense Grid: The Awakening Version 1.1 - Last Updated Oct 4/09 By: Brixx79 Table of Contents 1) Introduction - - - - [IN1] 2) Updates - - - - [UPD] 3) Legalese - - - - [LE1] Part I: The Game 1) Story - - - - [GA1] 2) Description - - - - [GA2] 3) Strategy: layout - - - - [GA3] 4) Strat: Mazes - - - - [GA4] 5) Strat: Upgrades - - - - [GA5] 6) Line of Sight - - - - [GA6] 7) Shields - - - - [GA7] 8) Orbital Laser - - - - [GA8] Part II: Towers 1) Gun - - - - [TW1] 2) Cannon - - - - [TW2] 3) Inferno - - - - [TW3] 4) Concussion - - - - [TW4] 5) Meteor - - - - [TW5] 6) Missile - - - - [TW6] 7) Temporal - - - - [TW7] 8) Tesla - - - - [TW8] 9) Laser - - - - [TW9] 10) Command - - - - [TW10] Part III: The Aliens 1) Alien Note - - - - [AL0] 2) Drone - - - - [AL1] 3) Swarmer - - - - [AL2] 4) Walker - - - - [AL3] 5) Rhino - - - - [AL4] 6) Racer - - - - [AL5] 7) Rumbler - - - - [AL6] 8) Dart - - - - [AL7] 9) Manta - - - - [AL8] 10) Bulwark - - - - [AL9] 11) Spire - - - - [AL10] 12) Lurker - - - - [AL11] 13) Decoy - - - - [AL12] 14) Seeker - - - - [AL13] 15) Turtle - - - - [AL14] 16) Crasher - - - - [AL15] 17) Juggernaut - - - - [AL16] Part IV: Wrap Up 1) Questions - - - - [WU1] 2) Contact - - - - [WU2] 3) Thanks - - - - [WU3] == INTRODUCTION [IN1] == Hi everyone. This is my first FAQ I've actually written up so hopefully I'll have all the major bugs worked out by the time you've seen this! I started playing Defense Grid when it first came out as downloadable content for the XBox 360. Instantly I was hooked on tower defense and the intricate strategies you could come up with. It was a puzzle I could not only tinker with and solve, but also take apart and put back together in a new way. After scoring a 63 on the leader boards in Forge's campaign, I wanted to try and help those that were struggling with this gem instead of tossing it away in frustration. == UPDATES [UPD] == V1.0 - 09/24/09 Writing up the basics! V1.1 - 10/04/09 Re-editing after getting info from DG staff == LEGALESE [LE1] == This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. This FAQ has currently been submitted to: http://defensegrid.hiddenpath.com/ http://www.gamefaqs.com/ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ -+-+-+-+- PART I: THE GAME -+-+-+-+- +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ == STORY [GA1] == (Copied directly from the games files) "The invasion began without warning. After a thousand years of peace, the aliens have returned. The planet's survival depends on activating the ancient Defense Grid...if it still functions at all" == DESCRIPTION [GA2] == Tower defense is what we're all about here folks! Our ruthless alien invaders will march themselves lemming like from one starting point on the map over to your power cores. After snatching up as many as their greedy hands can carry, they'll then take the shortest available route to the exit point. Let them do this with all of your power cores and it's game over! Place towers on the map to kill the aliens, hinder their movement, and possibly change their path. The game has a reasonable learning curve and tends to give you a new tool to deal with a new enemy. Every level has the aliens coming in waves which will start small, gradually getting bigger, and having the last one smack you with a challenge. == STRATEGY: LAYOUT [GA3] == One of the first things to do when entering a level is to get a good look around the map and see what you're dealing with. Take your time since enemies won't start coming until you place your first tower. Some levels will have seperate entrances and exits, while others will use the same place. A shared entrance will force the aliens to take the exact same path to the core housing, letting the same turrets have a second gun at them on the way out. Problems on these maps tend to happen when aliens catch up to another retreating with a core. When the core holder is killed, the new alien grabs it with much more hp and less distance to the exit. This can be piggy backed repeatedly if there's enough of them in the wave to a red bar on your core meter so be careful. The answer in these maps then tends to be building long dangerous mazes, and or good use of temporal towers. Temporal towers are your best friend once you get them, especially since they'll slow the aliens movement but not your cores! Long mazes mean more time to kill things before they even get to your cores, and tend to be the easiest way to gold medals. With seperate entrances and exits, you usually have to rely more on proper tower placement. While you can still maze the aliens (and you should maze given the chance in a level), your towers tend to get only one pass on them. Do your very best to maximize the firepower leveled against them before they get to the core housing. Cores can be piggybacked out still if aliens hit the housing when it was empty or a seeker is spawning allies. == STRATEGY: MAZES [GA4] == On a lot of the maps, you'll be given the opportunity to change the aliens path that they take by placing towers. When given the opportunity to maze, I suggest stopping at the start of the level and moving your cursor along the path you want the aliens to end up walking. Check to make sure your path doesn't overlap itself incorrectly at any point so there are no wasted paths. This will also help with tower placement later so you can remember not to block off needed paths. Try to be careful when building up your maze that you remember to upgrade the towers as well. Many levels will throw heavy waves at you with a lot of durability if you can maze, so you'll need every bit of firepower available. For initial tower placement, look for any spots that allow you to change movement the greatest with the fewest number of towers. Working backwards in some levels is effective, since you know aliens will always head in that direction and can be easier to control their movement. Aim to have aliens walking around long S paths if possible to maximize towers firing time, and get the most use out of area effect towers like temporals. Don't try and completely block off their path though. If aliens have no other choice, they will be allowed to walk right through your towers! == STRATEGY: UPGRADES [GA5] == Upgrading your towers can be a hard decision at times, but is almost always worth it. While some upgrades don't give you as much bang for your buck, most will improve the damage output by at least double. Maze building should be a careful balance between expansion and upgrading. Command towers should always be built around heavy traffic areas, especially if most are being killed off. Those upgraded towers will pay themselves off faster near one, even more so if it's upgraded too. One last thing on upgrading; It takes a long time for your tower to sink into the ground and redeploy itself when you upgrade. Try to save an upgrade for a time it's not shooting much and won't be for a bit if possible, especially for your temporal towers since they'll take a second to charge up their first pulse. Try not to boost too many meteors or temporals at once either since you'll feel their loss more. == LINE OF SIGHT [GA6] == Line of sight is applied to all of your towers before they can damage their current target. A gun tower placed in the middle of a 3x3 surrounded by other towers won't have much line of sight. If you want an excellent example of just how much this can hinder your towers, go to Ancient Research and try putting 3 inferno towers beside the path on the 2x2 spot in the bottom right. Not only will they not be able to shoot in their radius most of the time, but the left tower actually won't shoot at all occasionally as it tries to target enemies passing out of it's line of sight between the other 2 towers! This rule is applied to almost all your towers including meteors. Usually this isn't much of an issue but be careful of bridges and higher paths that might neuter your line of sight. == SHIELDS [GA7] == Enemies with shields up will take no damage from lasers, half from infernos (no burn damage over time), and 80% from meteors. Once the shields are down though, they are vulnerable to all towers. Heavy guns and cannons near the entrance will help thin out any shielded aliens as they first appear (and also help with most flyers since they tend to start near the same spot). The reduced damage on the inferno towers will make the basic greens pretty useless, but upgraded versions can still be handy against the swarmers + spire combo. == ORBITAL LASER [GA8] == Once you reach the level 'Flight Plan' you will be given access to the orbital laser satellite. This isn't a tower but a new unique weapon you control yourself and works as a kind of panic button. Target a spot on the map with it and in a second it will aquire lock on the area and blast anything in about a 2 square radius (around inferno tower range). This will kill any alien from swarmers to juggernauts in just one hit, but you will get -ZERO- resources for the kill. All levels can be beat without using it, but works nicely when a cores about to reach the exit out of your tower range, or if you are worried you won't be able to conventionally take out a large alien. Turtles will be killed, but their passengers won't be harmed so be careful where you blast them on the map. I try not to use the laser unless in a really tight spot since those are resources I could have used. +-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+ -+-+-+-+- PART II: TOWERS -+-+-+-+- +-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+ == GUN [TW1] == "The gun tower makes up in versatility what it lacks in efficiency. It can hit any enemy within range, and is essential for defending against shielded and flying enemies. It is weak vs. groups, but strong vs. shields and good vs. fliers" Your first tower is pretty weak but has it's uses. They're cheap so some people like building their mazes with them early. They do a great job of ripping up shields and admittedly are kind of decent against darts, but these get left in the dust by most of the other towers when it comes to killing things. The upgrades on this are cheap and do the work of a handfull of green guns so upgrade them early! Class: Projectile Cost Range Damage Green: 100 210 10/ 1 sec Yellow: 200 225 30/ 1 sec Red: 400 240 70/ 1 sec *60 range = 1 square == CANNON [TW2] == "The cannon tower is powerful but slow inflicting heavy damage at a low rate of fire. It works very well against strong and shielded enemies although it's power can be wasted on weak or heavily damaged units. It can't hit enemies directly next to it, and is not very effective at stopping tight groups, but it can target flyers making it a great second row tower." These things are amazing and should be a heavy factor in most of your maps if you have them. They work above average on pretty much every unit and take down shields fast. Rumblers may go by them quick, but they'll take a beating on the way and racers tend to get taken out about as well as a laser could do. Any of the big heavys will need cannons and you'd need luck to take out a juggernaut without them. Don't worry about the ability to not target up close either since it's such a small distance. The upgrades double then triple the rate of fire, add damage and range boosts. The red upgrade is expensive but gives you triple the firepower and almost double the damage but you might find you get more use out of upgrading 2 to yellow instead of 1 to red. Class: Projectile Cost Range Damage Green: 200 90-330 80/5 sec Yellow: 400 90-360 107/5 sec, x2 barrels Red: 800 90-390 150/5 sec, x3 barrels *60 range = 1 square == INFERNO [TW3] == "The inferno tower can take out many enemies at once, but is fairly limited in it's range. It is especially effective against swarmers or any aliens which clump together, but not as powerful vs. single strong aliens. Because it is fire based, it is weaker against shields. It can't target fliers." Your first crowd control tower and not too bad one at that. The damage isn't too fantastic, but all the aliens under the stream are hit and will continue to take damage as they burn after they are out of range. The range on this tower is the smallest (tied with teslas and temporals), so make sure line of sight is minimally hindered and maximize amount of time aliens walk through it's path. Note that shielded enemies will take half damage and no heat against this tower. The yellow upgrade is almost 3x the damage of a green, while a red does about the work of 6! If you're going to use these, upgrade early for some real damage and make good use of them on grinder levels. Class: Fire Cost Range Cone Damage Green: 150 150 70 degree 4.17 and 0.96 heat/1 sec Yellow: 300 150 80 degree 11.25 and 7 heat/1 sec Red: 600 150 90 degree 23.86 and 31.53 heat/1 sec *60 range = 1 square == CONCUSSION [TW4] == "The concussion tower fires explosive grenades in all directions, decimating everything nearby. There is no better solution when enemies are concentrated in a large dense area, but it is not as effective against single strong aliens or shields. It can't attack fliers." The last crowd control tower you get access to is an interesting tool in your arsenal. Unlike most of your towers which will only attack what it's targeting, this one spews grenades all over it's radius the moment an alien steps in it. The area of effect is a good size lets you be a bit more free with where you place it. So what's the catch? The pathetic attack power at basic green reduce it's use at default level to killing off swarmers and tickling everything else. Upgrading is expensive, only up's the attack a bit, and you can get more bang for your buck elsewhere. A couple of these around to take care of swarmer masses will let your big guns do more good however, and red's can thin out other weak aliens. Infernos are better placed in spots where the tower will be fixed on one area, while concussions get more use when aliens are walking through the path area as much as possible and vs shields. Class: Energy Cost Range Damage Green: 200 180 4.56/ 1 sec to all aliens in range Yellow: 400 180 13.75/ 1 sec to all aliens in range Red: 800 180 32.08/ 1 sec to all aliens in range *60 range = 1 square == METEOR [TW5] == "The meteor tower targets ground based units at long range. It fires a superheated fireball that inflicts heavy area damage on impact. The meteor tower can't target units close to it, but it has the longest range of any tower making it an ideal second row tower. It is weaker against fast aliens and can't target fliers." The game description actually covered this one pretty good. It's high damage, maximum range, splash hits, and special line of sight make this tower a fantastic addition to your arsenal. If you find big aliens are running off with your cores you probably need more of these. Damage will affect aliens standing directly next to each other in a small radius at green level, but increase with upgrades. Those upgrades also give a massive damage boost making this one of your best towers for damage against ground units. Line of sight works on the path the fireball would take for these guys so it won't shoot if something's above the tower or an alien goes under the landscape. Class: Fire Cost Range Splash Area Damage Green: 250 120-510 25 50.60 and 0.88 heat Yellow: 500 120-510 30 114.75 and 5.04 heat Red: 1000 120-510 35 201.69 and 17.53 heat *60 range = 1 square == MISSILE [TW6] == "The missile tower is the strongest defense against flyers. It can easily take down several aerial units at once at great distances, but can't target ground units at all." In almost any levels with flyers, you should probably be using a couple of these. Putting down even one of these can save a lot of work from your cannons and guns that could be split with land aliens. An odd problem due to placement you can run into is missile towers side by side sometimes fire at flyers at the same time, overkilling and wasting shots. Put 2 or 3 spread out a little near the start of the flight path to kill them before your cannons/guns waste shots. In later levels when you get big flocks of mantas try to spread upgraded towers across the flight path to counter their formations. The yellow tower is a great upgrade but don't worry about the red unless you really have massive flocks attacking. At any level, all missile towers have a 2 second cool down between shots. Class: Projectile Cost Range Splash Damage Green: 225 510 15 128.57 Yellow: 450 510 15 205 x2 missiles Red: 900 510 15 250 x4 missiles *60 range = 1 square == TEMPORAL [TW7] == "The temporal tower emits an energy pulse that disrupts nearby aliens, slowing their movement to a crawl. It's expensive to build, but cheaper upgrades extend it's range." Once you get access to these use them and use them a lot! As an enemy enters it's radius, the tower will send out a pulse that slows enemy's movement to 30% normal! This means your other towers basically get over double the amount of time to kill any aliens in the temporals range. Spread them across the map to slow their movement as much as possible to make things easier in the long run. Pulses come every 5 seconds, lasting for about 3 seconds. Interestingly, temporal towers that overlap each others radius will synch their pulses for maximum effect. Upgrades increase the radius by about an extra square in every direction and only cost 300 for each let you get some good use out of these. Class: Special Cost Range Green: 300 150 Yellow: 300 210 Red: 300 270 == TESLA [TW8] == "The tesla tower fires a powerful energy bolt. It is effective if it has time to charge up since the last discharge. Time without firing greatly increases the amount of damage when it does fire, and each tower upgrade provides an additional charge up capacity. This tower is an effective last line of defense when placed at base exit points. It can't target fliers" These are a very unusual tower. If these are left with time to store up their charge they can do massive damage to the first alien that walks in their small radius. Each charge does 1.5 damage cumulative each (2nd 2.25x up to 6 charges at about 11.4x) having the potential to about as much damage as 5 fully upgraded meteor towers! The shots from this tower can also chain to another alien in a 90 distance from the hit. Each chain does 2/3's the damage the last hit does so a red tower uncharged would do about 60 to the first chain, 40 to the 2nd, and 26.7 to the 3rd. Placement for these are kind of odd with their small radius. You don't want them in your temporal radius if possible since they'll be firing constantly instead of charging. A few of these deep in your levels can make a nasty surprise for rumblers and help take down other boss aliens quickly. Class: Energy Cost Range Charge time Charges Damage Green: 175 150 3 sec 4 32.81 chains 1x Yellow: 350 150 2.75 sec 5 57.75 chains 2x Red: 700 150 2.5 sec 6 90.07 chains 3x *60 range = 1 square == LASER [TW9] == "The laser tower is extremely efficient, burning aliens and causing damage long after they've moved out of range. It works very well against fast enemies, but is useless against shields and flying enemies. Multiple laser towers firing on a single unit are not as effective, so careful placement of laser towers can increase their effectiveness." One of the earlier towers you get and a pretty handy one but nothing fantastic... at first. If the laser tags a target it will take heat damage afterwords like an inferno turret does. Works really nicely on fast mobs or groups of weak mobs as it tends to tag multiple ones quickly as they leave it's radius. The heat damage isn't cumalitve from multiple towers but they still do their basic attack damage. AI is programmed to have the towers not target the same mob unless they have to so don't worry if two lasers overlap some. Just remember shields will completely negate all laser damage. Upgrade these quickly since the damage jumps through the roof with each boost, especially the final one. Heat damage is hard to calculate so don't get too excited at that 224.2 damage number. I won't get into the details since you can't normally tell one of the variables, but just trust me when I say it does good damage (or see for yourself!). Class: Energy Cost Range Damage Green: 200 210 4.58 heat every 0.25 seconds. Yellow: 400 210 41.18 heat every 0.25 seconds. Red: 800 210 224.2 heat every 0.25 seconds. *60 range = 1 square == COMMAND [TW10] == "The command tower reveals stealthed enemies and increases resource recovery within range. There is little benefit when the ranges of two command towers overlap. You will recover extra resources from any alien that dies within range of the command tower, and any stealthed alien will be revealed." Proper use of these beauty's will make your work so much easier and increase your bank substantially. In a heavy traffic area, these will really pay off with a 25% kill bonus at green and increasing 10% every upgrade. Negating stealth will help take them out certain aliens even faster so double bonus. To put even more icing on the cake, each upgrade is a flat 300 resources and increases it's radius! There is no bonus to overlapping command towers so keep them spread out. Usually 1-3 of these on a level will be enough, especially after upgrades. Class: Special Cost Range Kill bonus Green: 300 210 25% Yellow: 300 270 35% Red: 300 330 45% *60 range = 1 square +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+ -+-+-+-+- PART III: THE ALIENS -+-+-+-+- +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+ == ALIEN NOTE [AL0] == Base health: Every alien is given a wave multiplier to it's health, making the later waves tougher to kill. You can notice the multiplier in general by looking closely at the aliens colour. They use the same system your towers do with greens being weakest, yellow medium, and red toughest. Speed: Default movement rate with 45 being average. Kill value: The reward given when the alien is killed off. Carries: How many cores they can hold at once. Stealing cores: Basic ideas on how to improve your tower layout if many of these are taking cores away. Note that no aliens are strong or weak against specific tower types with the exception of their shields (and flying aliens if you count the fact that only projectile towers can hit them). == DRONE [AL1] == "Drones serve as test targets to ensure proper functioning of the tower defense system." Only place you'll run into these is in the first tutorial level. Easily killed and nothing special about them. Base Health: 30 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 10 Carries: 1 Stealing cores: Um... if you've got drone's appearing you must have put down one tower. Now put down another. There you go. == SWARMER [AL2] == "The swarmer is a weak alien which comes in large packs. Area weapons are particularly effective." These guys love to come in large groups, occasionally with a larger alien in the center to use them as cannon fodder. Easily taken out unless in very large numbers or having a spire shielding them. Base Health: 50 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 10 Carries: 1 Stealing cores: More inferno and concussion towers will thin them out. Try more upgraded guns if it was part of a shielded group. ==WALKER [AL3] == "The walker is the basic field unit of the alien army. With no particular strengths it is single-minded in its mission. It can carry one core" As their basic grunt you know you'll be seeing these guys regularly. In later levels they'll come in large groups like swarmers and you'll see nothing but these in waves for grinder levels. Base Health: 100 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 20 Carries: 1 Stealing cores: Need more firepower. Try using more damaging towers, upgrading or making sure line of sight isn't hindered. If coming in large numbers try a fully upgraded inferno or two. == RHINO [AL4] == "The rhino is the basic elite unit of the alien army. It has good armor, and is single-minded in its mission. It can carry 2 cores." It's pretty much just a walker with more hp and can carry 2 cores. Base Health: 200 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 40 Carries: 2 Stealing cores: Need more firepower. Try using more damaging towers, upgrading or making sure line of sight isn't hindered. == RACER [AL5] == "The racer is a fast alien which rushes to the cores as quickly as possible. It is weak against heat, which continues to hurt it even after it leaves targeting range. It can carry one core." These fast little guys will test the power of your first few hits on waves. Not a ton of health on them though so lasers heat effect takes them out nicely as well as a few cannon hits. Temporals will nerf their speed for a bit so make sure you're getting good use out of them. Base Health: 100 Speed: 90 Kill Value: 30 Carries: 1 Stealing cores: Add more lasers and cannons. Spread them out a bit to take care of larger groups. Upgraded guns can also help whittle them down and make sure you've got temporals around. == RUMBLER [AL6] == "The rumbler is a fast boss constructed solely to recover power cores as quickly as possible. It is weak against heat, which continues to hurt it even after it leaves targeting range. It can carry three cores." These can be one of the most troublesome boss aliens you run into. They have a ton of health, high speed, and can carry the 3 core max. You better have temporals around to slow them down so you have enough time to take them out. Teslas can give them a rude surprise when they get to the front of the pack but make sure you have a lot of firepower in general and maze them up if possible. Base Health: 1000 Speed: 90 Kill Value: 500 Carries: 3 Stealing cores: Temporals to hinder their speed help tons. Teslas, lasers and cannons can help eliminate them faster. == DART [AL7] == "The dart is a small flying alien with poor defense that floats on the air currents directly to the power cores. It can only be targeted by the gun, cannon, and missile towers. Cores captured by flying aliens are unrecoverable. It can carry one core." These are the first flying enemy you'll run into and really aren't much of a threat in small numbers. They have as much base health as a low ranked walker so a few cannons can take them out or a missile tower can usually 1 shot them. They are only really a threat in large numbers or when you don't have enough anti-air towers up in time. If a flying alien grabs one of your cores it's gone for good even if you kill them off right after so try to kill them early! Base Health: 100 Speed: 60 Kill Value: 20 Carries: 1 Stealing cores: More guns, cannons or missiles if available. Later levels have these and mantas flying in formations that can make tight groups hard to take out so spread your missiles along the flight path to counter this. == MANTA [AL8] == "The manta is a flying alien with strong defense that floats on the air currents directly to the power cores. It can only be targeted by the gun, cannon and missile towers. Cores captured by flying aliens are unrecoverable. It can carry one core." The only other flying alien in the game is a nice upgrade from the weaker darts. Increased speed is their main advantage as large groups can fly past your main anti-air defenses quickly if not taken out. Remember if they grab one of your cores it's gone for good so try and be quick in taking them out. The extra health and speed on these make cannons and especially guns less useful so stock up on missile towers. Base Health: 250 Speed: 80 Kill Value: 50 Carries: 1 Stealing cores: More guns, cannons and especially missiles. Later levels have these and darts flying in formations that can make tight groups hard to take out so spread your missiles along the flight path to counter this. == BULWARK [AL9] == "The bulwark has a protective shield which dissipates incoming damage and is strong against heat-based attacks. use the gun or cannon to whittle it down quickly - once the shield is gone, it is vulnerable. It can carry 2 cores." The basic shield unit is a pretty weak grunt with some good shields on him. Cannons and upgraded guns will tear through their shields in no time and they die soon after so don't worry too much when you see them. As long as you're not relying too heavily on laser turrets or they come in large numbers that is. Base Health: 50 Base Shields: 150 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 50 Carries: 2 Stealing cores: Make sure you have a healthy dose of guns and cannons, upgraded if possible. Walking them through an upgraded concussion tower for awhile can help take out larger groups too. == SPIRE [AL10] == "The spire is a shielded alien that protects nearby aliens with a projected shield. The shield dissipates incoming damage and is strong against heat- based attacks. A gun or cannon will whittle the shared shield down. The spire can carry three cores." This shield boss alien can be a major pain if you aren't ready for them. It would be one thing if they were just a big alien with super shields, but these cone heads can project a bubble shield around nearby aliens. If the shields on the spire are taken out, the nearby aliens will lose theirs as well. They love surrounding themselves in swarmer groups for cannon-fodder to make taking out their own shields more difficult. Paired with lurker groups, they can try and push the stealth units past your command points if not killed in time. Base Health: 100 Base Shields: 500 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 200 Carries: 3 Stealing cores: Upgraded gun towers work well to weaken the spire and hopefully take out a few minion shields. Cannons are effective and meteors can be as well despite the 80% reduction since they do so much anyways and can hurt the tightly packed aliens. A lucky tesla chain can do wonders as well but don't depend on them too much. == LURKER [AL11] == "The lurker can only be detected by towers at close range. A command tower will expose stealthed enemies in range to nearby towers. Stealth aliens are still susceptible to any area damage they may encounter. It can carry one core." Your basic stealth alien isn't anything too scary to deal with usually. Stealth severly reduces the range towers can detect them in, allowing mostly minimum range shots. There isn't much health on these aliens though so a standard command tower kill zone should take most of them out. Base Health: 125 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 25 Carries: 1 Stealing cores: Command towers will remove stealth so make sure you have as many upgraded damage towers surrounding it as possible to take these out before leaving the radius. Lasers, guns and teslas are close range towers so don't seem to suffer from stealth as much too. == DECOY [AL12] == "The decoy projects a stealth field around nearby aliens, hiding them from long range towers. The decoy itself is not stealthed. Stealthed units are still vulnerable to short-range and area damage. A command tower will expose stealthed enemies in range. The decoy can carry two cores." Your boss stealth alien itself is nothing that dangerous to deal with, but the stealth field it projects can protect more dangerous aliens from your cannons and direct meteor hits. On large levels where you can't control the aliens path and concentrate your firepower these can be more annoying. Base Health: 400 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 100 Carries: 2 Stealing cores: While stealth protects the other aliens around it from meteors, the decoy doesn't get that defense and tends to get targetted instead (hence it's name). Upgraded meteors and a command kill zone are your best bet to making stealth a non-issue. == SEEKER [AL13] == "The seeker periodically summons an unstable portal to the alien home planet. Kill it fast if possible to prevent it from spawning more aliens. The quicker it is killed, the more resources can be recovered from it. It can carry one core." The basic spawner unit can be the worst of all the basic aliens to deal with. It slowly plods along spewing out other aliens every few seconds. The spawned aliens tend to absorb fire that would be directed at the seeker instead so it pays to have groups of upgraded towers together. While the kill value on them isn't that high, you will get a bonus amount for every alien it didn't get to spawn equal to their kill value! Base Health: 500 Speed: 30 Kill Value: 50 + any unspawned aliens value Carries: 1 Stealing cores: The slow speed of these can make meteors very effective if there are multiple around to help with any spawns. A cluster of upgraded towers can help take out both at the same time. == TURTLE [AL14] == "The turtle contains several aliens that are released when it is destroyed. It can carry three cores, but the enemies inside can potentially carry many more." These armored behemoths can take a massive beating before finally falling and releasing even more units like an armored APC. It should be rare that one of these exit the map with cores but aliens that pop out will usually grab one of the 3 it was carrying and make a bee line for the exit. This can cause some real problems depending on what's inside, especially in later levels when rumblers come rushing out. Base Health: 1000 Speed: 45 Kill Value: 300 Carries: 3 Stealing cores: Upgraded towers, plenty of meteors with temporals to give you more time to kill is my best advice. You might want to consider that orbital laser cannon to pop them early if you don't think you can handle one yet. == CRASHER [AL15] == "The crasher is slow but has a tremendous amount of armor. It has no special vulnerabilities, and it can carry three cores." The basic boss alien will test the firepower of your towers to it's fullest. With 4000 base health you'll need to pull out some upgrades if you want any chance of taking them out. Luckily they have the slowest speed of any alien type so you'll have plenty of time to shoot them. These can be one of the major causes of cores being piggybacked off the map since they travel so far before being taken out usually. Base Health: 4000 Speed: 25 Kill Value: 500 Carries: 3 Stealing cores: Upgrade as many heavy hitting towers as possible. Meteors, cannons, lasers, and to some extent teslas will help beat them down in time. == JUGGERNAUT [AL16] == "The juggernaut is slow but has a tremendous amount of armor in addition to a heavy shield. The shield dissipates incoming damage and is strong against heat-based attacks while it lasts. The juggernaut can carry three cores." I'll do everyone a favor and skip all the bad juggernaut jokes here. These big bosses are a bit of a twist on crashers as they took half their health and turned it into shields, basically giving them some extra resistance for the first bit. Luckily they only really show up in the larger levels giving you a good time to whittle away at them. Base Health: 2000 Base Shields: 2000 Speed: 25 Kill Value: 500 Carries: 3 Stealing cores: Upgrade as many heavy hitting towers as possible. Cannons and meteors will probably help the most for the first half, but everythings fair game once it's shields are down. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+ -+-+-+-+-+- PART IV: WRAP UP -+-+-+-+-+- +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+--+-+-+-+-+-+-+ == QUESTIONS [WU1] == Q: What platform were you playing on? A: Been going through on my X-box 360 as downloadable content Q: How do I beat level XYZ? A: I'll be coming out with a set of FAQs for each level to help people out soon so be patient. There's a lot of general info in this FAQ to help out most people till then. Q: How is heat damage calculated? You said it was complex... A: Whew... well here's what I got directly from Michael Austin at Hidden Path Entertainment: "Basically aliens have a statistic ‘heat’ – shields negate 90% of heat. Heat dissipates over time (and the amount of heat is reflected by fire on the aliens). Laser towers apply ONLY heat. Aliens are damaged according to the squareroot of heat. So an alien with 100 heat might take 10 damage, and alien with 50 heat would take about 7. Heat is actually pretty good on damage, it just doesn’t pay to stack it. Accordingly, a level 2 laser tower does 9x the heat of a level 1, and a level 3 does about 6x the heat of a level 2." "Heat has a half-life – i.e. something with heat 100 will have heat 50 x seconds later, and heat 25 x seconds after that. It’s kind of complex, unfortunately, but had good behavior. Enemy A in a beam for 3 seconds will take significantly more damage than something in the beam for 0.5 seconds, but it won’t be 6x as much." So like I said, you can never directly calculate a lasers damage since you don't have that variable of 'heat' at it's current amount. Even if you did have that number it decays over time so just trust what the man says: Heat is actually pretty good on damage. Q: What's the most damage a red tesla tower can do with full charges? A: Well the full 6 charges give a multiplier of 11.390625 with a base damage of 90.07 for a whopping 1025.95359375 total. I'd assume there's some rounding done in the math so the numbers so this might not be exact. Don't count on your teslas to be left alone for a full 15 seconds to reach this point too often though. Q: Why didn't you include 'bouncing' the enemy in your strategies? A: I find 'bouncing' to be a cheap tactic that abuses the game mechanics instead of working with it. You shouldn't have to rely on it to beat a level normally and requires little to no skill not to mention can backfire on you. (Bouncing is abusing the fact that aliens will take the shortest path possible to the core housing by placing and deleting towers over and over to pace the enemy in a confined space). == CONTACT [WU2] == Note that I'll probably ignore most direct requests for help on individual levels for now as it's in the works and will be out eventually. Any constructive feedback is appreciated and I hope people were able to get some use from this FAQ. (I apologize for the 'texting' of symbols in my email but it helps filter some spam) the_modern_knight at hotmail dot com Brixx79 on Xbox live (No gold here, sorry!) == THANKS [WU3] == My biggest thanks go out to Michael Austin at Hidden Path Entertainment who helped me with tons of information and raw numbers for things. Without him I'd probably still be trying to determine aliens kill value and counting what's in every wave. Not to mention the great game they made! Isaac May for always helping me find a good game. Wayne and Michelle for helping me stay sane. Mona and Stumblebutt for actually leaving me be while writing this for once Copyright 2009 Matthew D. Wilson