Starting Note

It's time for the final dev log of version 0.3, and it's time to wrap this update up with a tower being brought down from 0.4 - Cannon! This basic tower is a lot simpler compared to the other two towers of the update, but will still bring it's own twists to the game!

Base, Up To Tier 2 Upgrades and The Ability

Cannon is a very basic tower - it shoots a bomb that explodes and damages a group of enemies around the impact.

Small note real quick: The 0/0/0 design from the original was so good that I genuinely couldn't think of a way to improve it - so it's the first tower that reuses a sprite from the original!

• Base - $550

  • Shoots a bomb that explodes on impact, damaging 20 enemies in a small area.

• Larger Bombs (1/x/x) - $200

  • Increases projectile size by 20%, explosion size by 33%, and attack range by 10%.

• Violent Explosions (2/x/x) - $700

  • Explosions deal +1 damage.

• Improved Funnel (x/1/x) - $300

  • Increases attack range by 10% and reduces attack cooldown by 20%.

• Missile Launcher (x/2/x) - $400

  • Increases projectile speed by 50% and reduces attack cooldown by 16%.

• Denser Bombs (x/x/1) - $300

  • Explosions have +10 pierce.

• Fragile Casing (x/x/2) - $350

  • Bombs burst into 6 frags, each dealing 1 damage to 2 enemies - but can't hit the enemy the bomb blew up on.

• Missile Strike (2/2/2) - 30s cooldown

  • Releases a fast traveling homing missile that targets bosses, dealing 200 damage to the target, and explodes for 5 damage to 30 surrounding enemies, with a bonus 45 damage to bosses.

Similar to other splash attackers, the pierce is capped now - won't go much into that since it'd be repeating stuff I've said before.

However, you might've noticed that a lot of aspects from the original are no longer present in the base upgrades - no more non-boss stunning with 2/x/x, no more bonus boss damage with 2/x/x, and frags moved to tier 2 with no more grouped explosions.

While the ability, Missile Strike, will still be a strong ability, the base tower will be noticeably weaker to its original counterpart, but I think that's fine as the design has changed quite a bit compared to then.

Top Path - Simply Stunning

Top path focuses on stunning enemies.

• Stunning Explosions (3/x/x) - $3000

  • Explosions briefly stun non-boss enemies for 1s.

  • Ability stuns the target boss for 10s.

• Blinding Impact (4/x/x) - $30000

  • Explosions deal +3 damage, can damage all enemy types, can stun bosses, and stuns for 5x longer.

  • Ability stuns enemies caught in the explosion for 5s.

Just like the original, this upgrade path is built around crowd stuns.

Stunning Explosions pretty much just takes the stun aspect from the original's 2/x/x upgrade, and makes it a tier 3 upgrade. It's a cheap crowd control option that, while effective, is rather restricted. It's good in the lategame to keep Shelled in place so your other towers can take care of them, and thus can be used somewhat reliably in the back of your defense. It can also work pretty well in the front to separate groups, such as tightly packed groups in rounds 55 or 63, for example.

Additionally, the ability changing to Stunning Strike, now stunning its target boss for 10 seconds, is SUPER useful once Medium Crushers start to come around to keep them back for a short bit.

Blinding Impact is what you'd expect from an upgrade to the previous upgrade - longer stun duration and boss stuns. Super useful in the lategame as, at 4/2/x, it can perma-stun every enemy except Hard Crushers, so it's reliable for keeping stronger enemies in place if you need to stall for a bit.

Stunning Strike stunning all enemies in the explosion makes it way better at that point too, as the boss quantity starts to spike severely.

Middle Path - Lighting Up The Night!

Middle path focuses on anti-boss damage.

• Fireworks Launcher (x/3/x) - $1200

  • Explosions deal +14 damage to bosses and attack cooldown further reduced by 16%.

  • Ability cooldown reduced to 20s and direct strike deals +100 damage.

• Showstopper (x/4/x) - $20000

  • Shoots 3 fireworks at once, attack cooldown FURTHER reduced by 25%, and explosions deal another +15 damage to bosses.

  • Ability cooldown reduced to 8s, direct strike deals +700 damage, and explosion damage is doubled.

This upgrade path takes the original design's goal and changes things up a bit.

Fireworks Launcher is where this tower really shines. It already has an anti-boss slant with Missile Strike, but this upgrade path pushes it much further into that direction. Part of the design with this upgrade is spam, since it'll deal decent damage while also being cheap. It can work in smaller numbers, due to Missile Strike cooldown being reduced, but it's meant mainly for spam strats.

Showstopper is similar to the original's Bombing Range - high speed, triple projectiles, and high anti-boss damage. It's super useful on its own due to dealing massive damage and having a fast cooldown ability, but it really shines when paired with the other upgrade paths!

Bottom Path - Bombs Within Bombs Within Bombs...

Bottom path focuses on massive cleanup damage.

• Cluster Bombs (x/x/3) - $1800

  • Instead of frags, bombs burst into 6 smaller bombs that explode for extra smaller bursts of damage.

  • Each smaller bomb bursts into 3 frags.

• Bombpaction (x/x/4) - $18000

  • Smaller bomb count increased to 8, and each bursts into 4 smaller bombs. All bombs can hit all enemy types.

  • Ability explosion now deals full damage.

And lastly, this upgrade path pushes more on the pierce idea, having extra bombs for additional damage and pierce.

Cluster Bombs is just like the original's Grouped Explosions. Trades the frags for bombs, then those bombs release more frags. Cheap, powerful group damage that can clean up small enemies fairly reliably. Just be careful of bosses - This tower will die HARD against them. But hey, at least with Brewing Station you can get a LOT of value out of it!

Bombpaction is the replacement for Never-Ending Explosions. A heavy-hitting bomb that has bombs within more bombs. It'll wipe out groups with minimal effort, and benefits even more from Brewing Station buffs due to the even higher projectile count.

Ending Note

So yea, Cannon is a fairly basic tower that doesn't deviate too heavily from what it had going on in the original... aside from its visual design at least - really happy how those sprites turned out.

With all that said, I hope you enjoyed reading the final dev log for TDTest Unity version 0.3! The upgrade is truly wrapping up now and - if testing goes well - is looking to release very, very soon!

Since I shared the redesign for Loop last update, why not have a look at the second map coming in the update?

Just be careful: The forecast warns of rain!

I'll see you all when the update releases!