Scatter Laser

Overview

 * The Scatter Laser is a moderate tower that, as its name implies, attacks random targets within range. This cannot be modified by the targeting system.
 * Its rate of fire is greater than a Cannon's and less than a Gatling's.

Notes & tactics

 * Its fast fire rate and random attack pattern make it good for taking down all but the heaviest of enemies, even in groups. The randomness of its shots ensures that it will not 'lock on' to armored enemies which may be impervious to its attacks.
 * Overcharging the Scatter Laser increases both its range and its damage, which makes it unique among the damage towers, but it is just 0,05166 range increase in blocks per 100 resources (=approximately half-a-base range gain per 1000 resources and almost 1 base range per 2000 res).
 * Overcharging the tower gives 20 damage per 100 resources. This means it gives just 27,59% of the damage, gained by building level 3 Scatter lasers.
 * Since the overcharge efficiency is the lowest in the game, Scatter lasers are towers, that find use mainly in low-resource games in the Campaign & Easy modes, since one can rely on them well up to the moment when it comes to needs of overcharging. As a comparison, the Gatling has a bigger dmg gain per shot when overcharging, while having ~twice the Scatter laser 's attack speed. The ran ge gain just can't overcome this weakness, so Scatter lasers are better off left as level 3 towers than in overcharging even if they partially obstruct each other's sight, and with enough numbers, they can be effectively boosted with support towers like the Range spire & Amp. Despite of all this, Scatter lasers have to also be upgraded to level 3 as soon as possible since the upgrade itself is worth every resource spent, due to the range gain and better damage vs armoured lumes. Mixing these towers with other tower types is mostly fine, but one should be careful about the sight obstructions that these towers can cause, especially if there is a Focus or a Gatling. The Scatter Laser is behind the Drone and the Gatling at making Soakers more vulnerable. Although if you put in a ton of effort in overcharging one in endless it could have a range that covers the entire map and slaughter hordes of lumes even in their spawn areas.
 * Amp spire correlations
 * Numbers of towers
 * A level 1 Amp adds more damage per resource than adding a 4th Scatter laser of level 3.
 * A level 2 or 3 Amp adds more damage per resource than adding a 5th Scatter laser of level 3.
 * A 15th Scatter laser is usually not a recommended scenario, partially since games with such abundant resources often feel a great hunger for other damage tower types as well. Anyway, overcharging an Amp would grant more damage than putting a 15th one for a while.
 * Overcharging
 * A level 1 or 2 Amp adds more damage per resource than overcharging a sole Scatter laser.
 * A level 3 Amp adds the same amount of damage per resource as overcharging a Scatter laser to above 313 damage and adding such Amp before further overcharging makes for a bigger damage gain.
 * Overcharging the Amp adds the same damage per resource as overcharging a Scatter laser to >1000 damage and from then on, max dmg gain can be reached by putting equal resources between them.
 * These correlations are valid for the damage value, reached only via 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 (or to remove the buffs) to see the real efficiency stats. These 4 mentioned buffs stack additively with each other.
 * The fire rate of the tower in-game is converted into shots per second this way: One in-game speed unit is 1/60 shots per second and therefore come the calculations:
 * a level 1 Scatter laser has 150/60 = 2,5 shots/sec (=150 shots per minute = 1 shot per 0,4 seconds), which is the same as the speed of a level 3 Focus;
 * a lvl 2 one has 171/60 = 2,85 shots/sec (=171 shots per minute ≈ 1 shot per 0,35 seconds);
 * a lvl 3 laser has 199/60 ≈ 3,32 shots/sec (=199 shots per minute ≈ 1 shot per 0,3 seconds), which is almost half the fire rate of the Gatling.