Gauss (Tower)

## Gauss

### Description

Consumes resources from the miners nearby to charge its coils for a powerful shot.

### Available from level

6.2 (can be temporarily unlocked at 5.b2 via GAU-core)

## Strengths

### Bosses

50%

Very unique and complicated tower. Fires a single, powerful shot that penetrates enemies.

## Unique Characteristics

Gauss has Charging speed as its Unique Characteristic.

**Charging speed** reduces the time needed for the tower to charge its shot, once the required amount of resources has been loaded.

Leveling up the tower increases the Charging speed.

*Charging speed: 9 + 0.09/Tower Experience Level [%/s]*

## Mechanics

* Gauss needs to be loaded and charged before it can fire. Resources, if available, are consumed instantly and the charging time depends on the Charging speed.
* Gauss does not rotate by its own - it needs the player to do it manually.
* Gauss cannot rotate while reloading, recharging, or waiting for a target. It will start rotating when a shot has been fired.
* Unlike any other tower, Gauss does not have the Range characteristic, making its actual range cover an entire map. While it can hit enemies from any distance, it cannot detect enemies further than 40 tiles away.
* Gauss' ability to penetrate enemies is limited by its Damage characteristic. Each enemy killed reduces the shot's damage by its HP value, eventually making it too weak to kill another enemy.
* While the Gauss needs to point directly at an enemy to fire, the actual shot's damage zone is 1 tile wide.
* Each resource gives different amount of charges, needed to prepare Gauss to fire, depending on its rarity:
	+ Scalar = 1 charge per resource
	+ Vector = 1.25 charges per resource
	+ Matrix = 1.5 charges per resource
	+ Tensor = 1.75 charges per resource
	+ Infiar = 2 charges per resource

## Stats

Gauss Tower Stats (not including research, PWR from XP Levels and Tile Bonuses)

## Abilities

 Self improvement
 Superconductors
 Overload
 Ultimate
 Powerful

## Strategy

The Gauss is an exceptionally powerful tower to wield, able to deal significant damage to groups of enemies once properly set up. A single shot can significantly cripple a wave of oncoming enemies, often dealing enough damage to kill a good portion while leaving a few left for supporting towers to clean up. Due to how the tower spreads its high damage shot to enemies in a row, being able to aim a shot down long corridors would help maximize damage absorbed by the oncoming waves.

Unlike most towers however, its unique requirement of consuming resources to fire makes setting up a Gauss both costly and constrained by the map being played. The base cost of the tower, alongside its costly upgrades are the highest base costs of any tower, with that price tag rivaled by the installation costs of an upgraded Miner. The need for a nearby Miner also reveals a second complication, where the only valid bases for this tower only exist around a source tile. This constraint restricts access to invaluable platforms with bonuses.

Due to how difficult it can be to set up a Gauss tower, it would be necessary to set up a strong defense and save up for the set-up.

**Best tile placement: Damage**

Gauss is the main source of damage in late waves, so being able to further increase is incredibly beneficial. Any damage tile located next to a source tile should be reserved for Gauss. **Power** tiles are ill-advised, as they don't offer as much of a damage boost and also increase the resource consumption. While Gauss' kill potential synergizes well with **Bonus coins**, Nanoparticles are often required to reach high waves, rendering the bonus useless.

**Optimal 2 Abilities: Nanoparticles / Self improvement**

**Nanoparticles** can double Gauss' damage, allowing it to keep up with increasing HP of enemies for longer. While it prevents Gauss from scoring kills, this job can be left for other towers, such as Sniper and Flamethrower with its ultimate.

**Self improvement** allows to increase Gauss' damage even further. However, each level of bonus damage requires more XP than previous one.

**Superconductors** make Gauss apply the Bonus coins effect to enemies, which makes them drop more coins when killed. While having no downsides by itself, the bonus damage from the other 2 abilities is often much more valuable, and coins are not much of an issue in later waves.

**Overload** stuns enemies for much longer than Blast and makes the first one explode when killed, dealing additional damage.

## Research

(Doesn't include endless research)

These research are exclusive to Gauss Tower Only. To see all researches, see Researches

**Damage** - Damage dealt to enemies

**Max Upgrade Level** - Upgrade Level Limit

Increases the max upgrade level of the tower (Upgrade level). At level 0, the max tower upgrade level is 3.

**Max Experience Level** - Experience Limit in levels

Increases the max experience level of the tower (EXP level). At level 0, the max tower experience level is 4.

**Rotation Speed** - Degrees per second

**Experience Multiplier** - Each XP point is multiplied by this.

**Price** - Tower Price in Coins

Reduces the cost to build Gauss Tower. By default it costs 320 coins.

**Upgrade Price** - Price of tower upgrades in coins

**Charging Speed** (Unique Characteristics) - Speed of batteries charge

**CHarging Speed** is multiplied by this value. (multiplicative)

**Starting Level** - Initial Tower Level

When purchased, Gauss Tower will immediately start at that EXP Level. At Max level, Gauss Towers will start at EXP Level 4 with 1 Ability Unlocked.

**Passive XP at max upgrade level** - Amount of tower gets per second on max upgrade level.

If not at max level, the formula of XP/second goes by (XP rate / 10 \* tower upgrade level)

Resource consumption - Reduced consumption of resources

**Bonus coins - Superconductors** - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of **Bonus coins - Superconductors** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**Duration - Superconductors** - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of **Duration - Superconductors** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**Bonus double time - Ultimate** - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of **Bonus double time - Ultimate** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**Damage - Nanoparticles** - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of **Bonus double time - Ultimate** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**Damage - Overload** - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of **Damage - Overload** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**Duration - Overload** - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of **Duration - Overload** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**Shots interval - Overload** - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of **Shots interval - Overload** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**Damage - Self improvement** - Tower ability upgrade

This uses the base value of **Damage - Self improvement** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**Burned XP - Self improvement**

This uses the base value of **Burned XP - Self improvement** and adds it per level. (Additive)

 XP Multiplier

**Required XP - Self improvement**

This uses the base value of **Required XP - Self improvement** and adds it per level. (Additive)

**First Generation** - Significant Increase of Characteristics

- Damage +5%, Rotation Speed +5%

**Second Generation** - Significant Increase of Characteristics

- Resource Consumption -4%

**Third Generation** - Significant Increase of Characteristics

- Damage +10%, Charging Speed +3%

## Bugs

* While Nanoparticles should prevent Gauss from scoring any kills, Icy enemies can still die to it if they have their shield up.
* When cloning a Gauss with Basic's ultimate and selecting Self improvement immediately, the excess XP instantly transferred from the Basic will ignore Self improvement's increasing XP cost.

## Trivia

* Gauss' base has the same shape as Extractor's, a scrapped tower.
* Gauss is used as a pointer in the Lucky Shot.
* Gauss is the only tower which has a 50% effectiveness against Boss enemies.
* Along with Flamethrower, Laser, and Crusher, Gauss is one of the four towers not present in the first *Infinitode* game.
* Gauss was added to the game in the 1.7.12 update.
* Gauss is the only tower which can apply the 'Bonus coins' debuff on enemies, using the Superconductors ability.