ACP

Overview

 * The ACP is a heavy tower, that constantly stomps the ground to hit all ground lumes nearby, although with a low DPS per enemy.
 * Each rank up significantly enhances its damage, fire rate and range.
 * ACP stands for Automatic Crowd Pummeler.

Notes & tactics

 * The ACP is the only tower that will never get distracted and will always hit any ground passer-by, therefore having unique reliability in the terms of independent on any tower sight and not having the problems of locking onto a wrong target.
 * It is the most reliable tower against hordes that have average to high density.
 * By calculating how many hits would suffer an enemy who passes through the range of an ACP, one can get the fixed damage it'll suffer from it. Upgrading/overcharging the tower to a point in which the enemy under max health cannot get through, one can ensure that no amount of the same enemies can ever do so.
 * Compared to the Gatling, the one already made for weak enemies, the ACP devotes itself more at crowd control. The Gatling on its own is a single-targeted tower that has a generally better early game than the ACP, can hurt non-boss flying lumes, the Hoverers & the Hoverer queens when it hits their backs, but is behind when crowds of 4+ enemied are faced, although an overcharged Gatling has great long-time potential vs single enemies while also having good scaling with the Amp and all tower-damage perks. Without overcharging, the Gatling would do no damage vs the heavily armoured lumes like Heavy pups, Armoured heavies & Super heavies, and would do very low damage vs Screamer matriarchs, unlike the ACP.
 * The DPS and DPS per resource columns in the table on this page only take single-target dmg into account. The ACP is designed to hit multiple targets at once, so its potential increases when more targets are hit.
 * The ACP cannot damage ground enemies with infinite armor (Bobble Heads, Hoverers & Hoverer Queens) and any flying enemies.
 * In comparison, the Orbital strike relays also cannot do damage vs Bobble heads, although they will fire at them, thus wasting some tower potential in some situations. However, they will hurt Hoverers & Hoverer queens if the beam hits their backs. The Orbital strike relays do nothing vs flying lumes, like the ACP.
 * The tower is somewhat dependent on the Range Spire, since with it the ACP can easily cover a greater area, in which to hit any passing lume. This support tower has bigger importance for the ACP than the Amp.
 * Without this support tower, the ACP is still normally capable, but gets forced to build a smaller killzone for it, like in the end of an U-turn, to evade lumes escaping the damage, particularly some smaller fast ones like Runners & Brood mothers. Without a Range spire, the ACP has limited potential.
 * As a non-projectile tower, the ACP sees no obstructions and will always act, even when lumes in range are behind any obstacles, would it be walls, rocks, rivers, towers or bases, thus making it an unique dmg tower.
 * Overcharging the tower grants 70 damage per 100 resources (=0,7 dmg per resource). This means overcharging gives 82,78% of damage, gained by building level 3 ACP towers.
 * The ACP tends to work better as a sole tower, that is overcharged, instead of stacking multiple ACP towers, similarly to the Focus, Anti-air & Gatling.
 * One reason is the fact that it has to grab all passing enemies, which tends to go complicated if using multiple ACPs. One ACP can be simply buffed by the Range spire with creating a zone for its own radius, while multiple would require careful positioning to utilize all ranges and can easily start to lack efficiency if the range goes into blind zones with no lumes.
 * Another reason is the situation with armoured enemies - an overcharged ACP, buffed for a solid lategame might be capable of killing even hordes of Heavy pups and to do some helpful damage vs lumes with high armour, even Armoured heavies & Super heavies, that would simply walk with very low pain if passing through multiple ACPs. Also some average armoured ones like Screamer matriarchs are more vulnerable to the overcharged tower.
 * Another thing lies in the sight obstruction that this tower can create by itself, although it is independent on tower sight. A part of the projectile-type of towers would either not fire or not deal damage if their sight is blocked by the body of the ACP, so a single one being put carefully appears a better decision for other neaby towers as well. Bearing that the tower can easily function as a sole tower, there is generally no real reason to create sight obstructions, despite of the mediocre attack speed. The cost efficiency of the overcharging is enough to make for good mid/high-resource-game performance.
 * Projectile-using towers that suffer from random sight obstructions are the Scatter lasers & the ones with targeting system.
 * Amp spire correlations
 * A level 1 Amp adds same amount of damage as overcharging the ACP to more than 647 damage and makes for a bigger damage gain if being put before the overcharge.
 * A level 2 Amp adds the same amount of dmg as overcharging the ACP to more than 965 damage and adding such Amp before further overcharging makes for a bigger damage gain.
 * A lvl 3 Amp adds the same amount of dmg as overcharging the ACP to above 1094 damage and adding such Amp before further overcharging makes for a bigger damage gain.
 * Overcharging the Amp for 100 resources adds the same amount of dmg as overcharging the ACP to above 3500 dmg and from then on, gaining a bigger amount of damage requires overcharging both towers.
 * These correlations are valid for the damage value, reached only via upgrading & overcharging, without Tinkerer, Engineer, Core-tower synergy or already existing Amp spire. If any of these is in action, it is needed to calculate the damage, gained only by overcharging + upgrading (or to remove the buffs) to see the real efficiency stats. All these 4 mentioned buffs stack additively with each other.
 * The attack speed of the tower in-game is converted into hits per second this way: One in-game speed unit is 1/60 hits per second and therefore come the calculations:
 * A level 1 ACP has 24/60 = 0,4 hits per second;
 * A lvl 2 tower has 34/60 ~ 0,57 hits/sec (= 34 hits per minute = 1 hit per 1,76 seconds), which is the same as the fire rate of the level 3 Cannons;
 * A lvl 3 tower - 60/60 = 1 hit/sec, which is the same as the fire rate of the Friendship lasers & the level 2 Cannons.
 * This tower finds good use in all game modes. Its capability to hit multiple (theoretically endless) lumes at once uninterrupted is unique and if with a Range spire, the tower can be lead to covering great areas, including the whole map, given that the game is rich enough in resources, which makes the tower unmatched in the Survival mode. The ACP is the tower that can show both the biggest total damage and DPS in the game if assisted with a Range spire, although this is generally vs against average/heavy crowds, leaving even the Anti-air behind in damage done. However, due to its low range, it is somewhat lacking in low-resource games, particularly ones without a Range spire. Against some lumes the ACP is helpless and it has limited single-target capabilities, which might lead to needs of other towers for the purpose. To be ahead of a Gatling in total damage done, the ACP has to hit at least 4 lumes at once, while this number is 6 against the Drone. The Gatling, however, has more trouble against armoured lumes in low-resource games and both it and the Drone need tower sight, which is more problematic for the Gatling.