AR-Mine Dispenser

Total Cost
 Mines Dispensed(per Wave)
 Mine Damage
 Explosion Range

## Overview

* The AR-Mine Dispenser generates 1 to 3 storable landmines at every start of every build phase and when the tower is deployed, which can be picked up and placed anywhere on the map by the player.
* If the mines are not picked in the building phase/starting wave, no new ones would be generated in the next building phase.
* The mines triggers roughly 1 second later once any enemy steps on them and deal massive damage in a small area, which is maximum in the centre of explosion (= the displayed tower damage) and goes less the further the lumes are from it.

## Trivia

* The AR-Mine Dispenser is named after Armin Ibrisagic, a Coffee Stain Studios employee.

## Notes & tactics

* Players usually should utilize these mines in large amounts for a later, troublesome wave or as a cover against potentially penetrating lumes, although they randomly can serve as the only damage tower type if there aren't too many lumes, or for a separate part of the map, like in Cliff lodge, Abandoned lab and SOKOL or for other purposes. One of their best uses is against the ground bosses, mainly vs Walker Patriarchs & Hoverer queens. Mines generally do a tremendous amount of damage and can even destroy armored enemies. However, they are single-use only, so it is recommended to only use them carefully.
* The AR-Mine Dispenser will only generate new ones if it's holding no mines.
* If a dispenser is removed, all mines that it generated will also be removed. Unless the tower is constructed at the same wave, there will always be waste of mines. Therefore, one deciding to remove an AR-Mine Dispenser should think twice before it.
* The dispenser generates an additional mine each rank up, with no damage decrease on each mine like with the Cannon's fire rate. So it's highly recommended to have a dispenser ranked up to 3 ASAP, with this being worth all the resources spent.
* Mine have no friendly fire, but when detonated, the knockback for the player is high and can sometimes be hardly to evade, especially if the dispenser is buffed by a Range spire for a higher explosion radius.
* Usage vs some enemies
	+ The **AR-Mine Dispenser** can be great against the Walker Patriarch due to the immense damage of each mine. There are random effective techniques to apply the mines vs him:
		- The player can put the mines on his head or another player's head. If the player goes into the boss, this kills will trigger the mines due to the proximity and the damage will be done. This can be particularly risky if there are enemies nearby, since they also can trigger the explosion if too close, or to be dangerous around them for the player.
		- The player can go close to the spawn point of the boss and put the mines very close to where he appears, and if the player is around there, the boss is likely to go straight for the player(s). This, however, cannot be properly done if other enemies are coming before him, e.g. is not a proper method in The gate, but is great in most other maps with this boss.
		- The mines can be placed on top of a tower base, where he **is guaranteed to destroy**. However, this randomly requires tests for the boss' path(s) as he may situationally go for another bases without triggering the mines. Good thing about this is, that this way no other enemy can set it off, and the Walker Patriarch will detonate the mine when he destroys the tower base or a bit after, when he continues for the next base. A great method in The gate.
		- The mines can be put in the path where the boss is 99-100% likely to walk. A great method for Roadworks if the build with the towers is on the lower side - then the boss is going to head to the nearest path to the core, unless kiting leads him somewhere else.
	+ The Hoverer queen is also susceptible to them and is a good enemy to use the mines against, since if she goes closer to the damage towers, she can cause real trouble due to blocking a lot of the tower damage. However, applying them might be situatuoanlly tricky or less efficient. While in Canopy it is fine to place the mines closer to her spawn point and in Field the two queens progress faster than the Soakers and further in the maze they would be the ones to trigger them, in other maps like The Slums they can be put as a last resort that 'd kill the boss, but this hardly would protect the towers from the damage-blocking issue. It should be stated that, since only the back is vulnerable, here enraging effects (kiting, Mind control spires) can be problematic and to cause the explosions to hit only the front of the boss lume, which wouldn't do any damage. The method with stacking mines on a player's head and exploding into this particular boss is generally a bad option as well.
	+ The other ground boss (The Super heavy) is usually a lot less problematic than the other two and is less often a reason for mines, although he is also susceptible and blocks just a small portion of the huge amount of damage that the mines deal.
	+ The Hoverers are another enemy, highly susceptible to mines as well. The treatment to them should be similar to that with the queen variant, since their front is invulnerable to the explosions - if they trigger the mines and walk away, they will suffer the damage in the way in which other lumes do, but if they are stopped exactly in the moment when the mine explodes, the explosion might hit only the front, dealing no any damage, similarly to the scenario with Hoverer queens. The method with stacking mines on a player's head is generally a bad option here as well, since then the explosion would most likely hit only the invulnerable front.
	+ Fast enemies can be very big problem if they pass through the mines, since their extreme speed can cause multiple mines to trigger, dealing damage only to very few of them.
	+ Low-health enemies can be problematic if they happen to trigger mines, since this usually means high overkill damage, which, with this particular tower, is the biggest possible in the game. On top of this many low-health lumes are fast and this can lead to unpleasant scenarios, one of the worst being the situtation when a Runner triggers multiple AR mines.
	+ Bobble heads & Fiskeplaske are invulnerable to AR mines, regardless of the method of application.
* This tower functions in a similar fashion to the Slow Field Dispenser, although the Slow Field Dispenser only generates slow fields when built rather than new fields on each new build phase.
* Placing a Mine Dispenser within the range of a Range Spire will increase the blast radius of the mines, making them more effective at taking down crowds or for reaching bosses/other key targets in case other lumes happen to trigger the mines.
* If a Patriarch or a Super Heavy destroys the tower or a Hoverer queen stuns it, the placed mines will remain **active** on the field and new ones will be generated after repair like normally, like how it is for the Rupture mines and Slow fields.
* Overcharging the tower gives 600 damage per 100 resources. This is ~ 20,87% of the damage per resource, gained by building level 3 AR-mine dispensers, which is the lowest overcharge ratio of this type in the game.
* Environmental AR mines, scattered in a part of the maps are Rank 1 AR-mines (dealing 7500 in the center of explosion). In comparison, the orange mines deal more damage, equal to a rank 2 mine (9500 in the center of explosion). The yellow plant (or "jellyfish") mines deal minor damage, equal to that from a level 1 AR mine, regardless of their size.
* Amp spire correlations
	+ Adding an Amp of any level makes for more damage per resource than overcharging and correspondingly makes for a bigger damage gain if being put before overcharge.
	+ Overcharging the Amp has the same effect as overcharging the dispenser to >30000 damage and from then on, maximum damage gain can be reached by putting equal amounts of resources in both towers.
	+ *These correlations are valid for the damage, reached **only** via upgrading & overcharging, without Tinkerer, Engineer, Limiter removal, Core-tower synergy or already existing Amp spire. If any of these 4 buffs is in action, it is needed to calculate the damage, gained by pure overcharging/upgrading (or to remove the buffs) to see the real efficiency stats. These 4 mentioned buffs stack additivelywith each other.*
* The tower can find random use in all game modes, but it shines mainly in the Campaign & Easy ones, since the overcharge leads to very low improvement when it comes to a need of such. The solo play of the **Survival** mode can keep high quantities of mines and damage for particularly long, but at a certain moment when the health of the lumes has risen too much, and especially if there is no Amp, the AR-mine usage goes noticeably behind the results of other damage towers such as ACP, Drone, Anti-air & Gatling.

1. ↑ Coffee Stain Studios Forums