Welcome to my Lethal Laser guide. I hope to be able to make your gaming experience a little less confusing, and hopefully a bit more fun.
Please note, this is a work in progress.

This is a tower defense game in very many ways.

The enemy enters the map, follows a path to the end, and you try to kill them all.

On later levels the game even offers pathing, a mechanism a lot of people (including myself) really enjoys.

It has four strategic options, often a fire ball or some such in a fantasy themed game, and a variety of ten different towers to choose from.

Where it differs, and what makes it unique is that all the potential damage flows from base towers in the form of a laser, and you use nine of these towers to modify and adjust that beam in various ways. (The tenth tower is the blocker used for pathing.)

There are two unique slots for saved games, Commander Mode and Doctor Mode. They save as a pair, so if you start a new game, you reset them both.

Commander is the more basic straight forward mode, pure fighting. Doctor mode has a robust and complex upgrade system, and the ability to make each level more difficult in a variety of ways.

The mode you choose does not change the level maps.

NOTE: I recommend that you look at the map while in the level select screen, as getting a clear look at the map gets more difficult once you start the level proper.

When you start a level, the map will have the Generator Tower, which will be on. There are also a variety of towers scattered across the map. These are the same as the ones you can purchase, with the slight difference that they may have compromised functionality.

If you click on a tower, you will see the various things you can do to that tower. In the preset towers, some of these will show a small padlock icon to show that this function is not available to you. It might be anything as simple as no upgrades, or as significant as no rotation. To date, none of them have allowed me to sell them.

NOTE: If you press the Alt key, a box showing the various functionalities will appear over each tower. Top to bottom, left to right, a gear shows if you can rotate that tower or not, chevrons (three up arrows) show if it can be upgraded, and a dollar sign shows if it can be sold.

PLACEHOLDER: Underneath is a number and the word off, not sure what these mean yet)

NOTE: If you alt-tab away from the game, when you return they will be locked on. alt makes them go away.

NOTE: All towers have a symbol showing what they are. Every tower will show the icon for Reflection Tower. One of the rough edges, but not a big deal.

NOTE: Later in this guide we will discuss the ability to nuke a section of the board. This needs to be done carefully, as it also destroys any of your towers within the radius. I mention this here, because you can also use nukes to destroy pre-set towers that you do not like.

As previously mentioned, there are two modes of play. Commander is straight forward, Doctor Mode is more complex, so I am giving it a separate section to go over the details.

When you start a level, you will see a page with six tabs: Technology, Chips, Mission, Data and Setting.

You will start on Mission, where you will pick your level, see a map of that level, and be given the option to increase the difficulty level in different ways, like giving the units more resistance to a certain attack, improve their ability to heal themselves and more.

These change per level, so I won't go into detail on these.

What they do have in common is the range from Zero to Nine.

Below these six categories is a list of expectations. Total waves, total tech points, chip drop amount, and chip drop rarity. The first two have a second column showing the previous highest number attained.

This gives you some measure of the rewards you can expect for completing the level at that difficulty.

After the level is complete you will come back to this page, but for a different purpose. Hopefully you will have earned some tech points and found some chips.

Technology Tab: this shows an image of a circuit board. There is an array of upgrades on the board that you can purchase, or upgrade.

This is pretty complex and robust, and all upgrades spread from the center out.

The center section increases the top level of the other techs you can have. I will let you learn about the rest on your own.

Chip Tab: this tab has a list of your towers, an array of their abilities (these change as you click on each tower type) and the chips you have found as well as the ones you have already placed.

Once you have placed a chip in a tower, it can be upgraded using tech points.

These cannot be retrieved, if you want to change a towers chip array, you must destroy the previous ones. If you do this, you do get back any tech points invested in chip improvement.

There remaining tabs are less game specific, but I will list then here.

Data Tab: This one has four sub-pages, Achievement, Tower, Laser and Enemy.

Achievement Tab: shows all the possible achievements, and your progress on them.

Tower Tab: lists the towers and what they do.

I will give detailed information on the towers later in the guide.

NOTE: The information and images for the Enhance and Split towers are revered.

Enemy Tab: lists all the enemies, and their characteristics.

I will go in to more detail in this tab in the Enemies section of the guide.

Settings Tab: This page allows you to turn off or on various visual effects, the sound effects, and the pop up tab with the screen info on it. (Useful once or twice, then turn it off, it pops up if you don't move the mouse for ten seconds.)

You can also change the language.

This is also where the quit button is to end the game.

These are pre-set, pre-placed and fixed towers.

They fire a single, potent beam of energy.

In the early going you start with just one. Later levels there can be more.

This is a list of the towers you can purchase, and their icons.

These are shown in the task bar at the bottom of the screen, where you buy them.

Detailed information will be given for each tower on their own individual pages.

Reflection Tower

Enhance Tower

Split Tower

Filter Tower

Separation Tower

Assistant Tower

Wild Tower

Radiation Tower

Combination Tower

Block Tower


NOTE: The game regularly has the Split Tower and the Enhance tower confused. You sill see my guide disagrees with what the game will call them, but trust me, I am accurately reflecting which is which.

All towers have a few things in common, that will be discussed here. Specifics will be discussed in each tower types own section.

All towers have a basic starting cost, that increases as you buy more. The cost is based on how many you built that are on the map, so you can bring the price back down by selling towers that are no longer useful.

When you are placing any tower, a proxy image shows in the map. You can be certain of where that tower is capable of pointing (if it turns) by rotating the proxy image with the Q or E key.

NOTE: This can also save you time, because when you left click to place the tower, it will be in the position you have chosen.

If you sell a tower, you get back half the cost, even if it is before you start the first wave.

If you left click on a placed tower, the task bar reveals six options.

The first two are a mouse-enabled way to rotate the tower left or right.

The third is the basic upgrade.

The fourth is a major upgrade.

The fifth is the sell button.

The sixth and final button shows the full properties list of this tower.

You return to the main task bar with a right click.

Used: Used towers are towers that are already on the map. They do not impact the cost of the towers you want to build.

Used towers can be helpful, but they can also be in the way!

It is important to note that used towers often do not have full functionality. It is useful to check them out before you start the waves.

This can be done in two ways, you can click on them, which will bring up the options listed above. Options that are not available will show a little padlock. This can be anything from the ability to sell them (usually locked) to the ability to rotate them, or upgrade.

The second way is to press the alt button. All of the towers on the map, new and used, will get an overlay showing the functions, the ones which are not available have a red line thru them.

All towers can be destroyed with the nuke Command Attack. It is not uncommon to blow up a used tower whose limitations or location make it a handicap, if it cannot be sold. Be very careful, as all towers in the red target will be destroyed, up to and including you main beam.

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The reflection tower is you bread and butter, a basic tower the deflects the laser.

It is a key of the game mechanism that it also reduces the damage of a beam.

There are two types of upgrades you can purchase for these in game.

The first reduces the amount of degradation the reflector causes. This is incremental, with each level costing a little bit more.

This tower initially has a single face, and can be rotated using the Q and E key in one of sixteen directions.

NOTE: When you are placing the tower, a proxy image shows in the map. You can be certain of where that tower is capable of pointing by rotating the proxy image with the Q or E key.

NOTE: This can also save you time, because when you left click to place the tower, it will be in the position you have chosen.

The starting price for the Reflection Tower is 100. Each additional tower increases the price by 25%.
(100, 125, 156, 244 and so on)

NOTE: The cost is based on how many you have on the map, so if you see one the cost goes down a step.

If you sell it, you get back half the cost, even if it is before you start the first wave.

If you left click on a placed tower, the task bar reveals six options.

The first two are a mouse-enabled way to rotate the tower left or right.

The third is the basic upgrade, in this case it reduces the energy loss to the beam as it bounced off this tower.

NOTE: Experimentation shows that each upgrade increases the damage of each shot by one.

The fourth is a major upgrade, in this case is allows the refection tower to reflect a bean from both sides, should you have two beams hitting it from opposite sides.

The fifth is the sell button.

The sixth and final button shows the full properties list of this tower.

In the commander game this should be all zeroes for this tower, all the time.

You return to the main task bar with a right click.

Increases beam power by 30%.

Does not rotate.

Beams go straight thru.

You can put multiple beams thru it from different angles.

Splits a beam in to two beams.

At this point I assume it reduces the beams power, not sure how much.

Does not change the color of a beam going thru it.

Has four options that rotate which two directions the beams comes out.

It can accept beams from multiple directions.

Changes the color of the beam coming out.

Does not rotate.

Rotation button changes the color coming out, but there is a few seconds delay between times you can change.

Not sure why, but sometimes offers off option. Usually it is red, green blue, but I have gotten yellow or purple on occasion.

Splits a beam into three colors, red, green and blue.

This tower does not rotate.

This tower does have a rotation button which appears to have been designed to rotate which colors went in which direction, but this does not happen.

Need to test how much it reduced the beams potency.

Accepts a beam without putting one out, however it radiates energy that assists nearby tower.

Accepts a beam, then shoots beams of random color and strength in any of the eight directions.

It can put out some very powerful beams, but they are always of a short duration before switching to something new.

It does appear that more often or not, beams coming out of the wild tower will not interact with other towers.

Accepts a beam without putting one out, however it radiates damage, based on the color of the beam coming in.

Pretty useful at the end of beams usefulness.

Takes beams in, and combines them.

Can combine colors, leading to the secondary and tertiary possibilities.

Rotates in eight directions.

Used to block the path of the enemies.

Used in the levels with pathing. Cannot be used to totally block the path.

This tower also blocks beam.

Other towers can be built on top of these towers, to allow beans to pass over.

Pathing I assume pathing is something most TD lovers understand, but I noticed one oddity here that can be quite useful.

Blue arrows are used to show the direction of travel. Every map has at least one showing the entrance(s) and exit(s).

NOTE: All units must be able to reach their designated exit. You cannot merge them to reach only one exit.

Some maps will have way-point arrows however, and the units must be able to go thru all of these as well.

I have found ways to use this to extend their path! Even if they near their designated exit, they will turn away from them to pass thru all of their way points!

These are skills, resistances abilities. I qualify this because they do not have names, you only see their top-down image, as you do in the game.

The skills are speed,
Their skills are rates A thru E, A seems to be the best, and E the worst.
The resistances are listed S, E or D. I am not certain what these stand for.

Not necessary to play and enjoy, but I thought some people might be interested.

When damaging the blue line, the energy shield, the main beam starts out doing 100.

When it his a reflector, that total goes down by thirty percent.

So 100, 70, 49, 34 etc.

The Enhancer adds thirty percent.

Note: 100 - 30% = 70, but 70 + 30% does not equal 100, it equals 91.

RB = Raw Beam

RB = 100

RB > Enhancer = 130

RB > Separator = 60

RB > Splitter = 70

RB > Filter = 80

Odds and ends I picked up on the way.

One of the irritating things I ran across when I first started playing was that if you stopped moving your mouse for a few seconds, an overlay would pop up explaining what things on the screen did. This can be turned off in settings, though it occasionally turns itself back on.

One one particular map I found that a Reflection Tower I build would not point at all sixteen points, but only fourteen, and of course those two were critical to my defense.

Sometimes a beam will not reflect off a mirror. Often times it is a weak beam, which might make sense, but occasionally it is quite a robust beam, which does not.

The games strategic options, known as Command allows you to save up two in Commander Mode, but only one in Doctor Mode.

The tech tree is a vital part of the Doctor More. It is, by default, much more difficult than the Command mode, but the use of the tech tree (along with chips) is designed to make up the difference and some.

The tech tree game me some problems early on, but I finally figured it out, pretty much by accident.

The lay out is a central chip, and an array of chips around it expanding outward. I had erroneously thought each chip-set was a unique entity. Each chip set (minus the core) has multiple upgrade-;points in it, and you need to upgrade all of them to advance to further out chips-sets.