Xeno Tactics Strategy Guide

Xeno Tactics started out as just a cool little flash game. Over the past month, since I last told you about it, I’ve spent an unwholesome amount of time playing this game. Part of that is because it takes a while to play to the high levels but mostly it is because it is very good game. Also I feel I am close to winning this game. That keeps bringing me back.

Disclaimers:

First off all advice in this article is meant for Xeno Tactics’ Mission 6. The rules for Missions 1-5 are pretty much ‘Do whatever you want.’ Compared to Mission 6 they are a cake walk.

Second, I am still working on beating this game. I am not sure if it is possible right now. I’ve only made it to Lev 93. However I did manage to kill 5 or 6 guys on that level so if I made it there with more than 2 lives left I might have made it past. It is that chance that I may be able to get thru that keeps bringing me back.

It’s all about the Anti Air:

That’s right; it’s all about killing those air units. This is the limiting factor in the game. You can kill every ground unit as soon as they show their faces but those air units will soar right over all your defenses and blast you right out of the game. You have to plan your strategy around the stages where you have to stop the air units. There a few key stages that you can use to measure your progress. Lev 49: You must stop these 2 Boss Air Units. Not only to save the two lives they would steal but also for the 140 gold you get from each of them. This money helps a lot in building up the necessary anti air defense. If you fail to kill them it is a good idea to restart. This does happen sometimes if you have a lopsided air defense. The AI can choose to send them out along the side of the entrances on the side you are weak so they can slip past. Lev 51: Coming only 2 stages after 49 this is a surprise the first time thru as you’ve probably been expecting an air wave every at every 7^th level. This is the restarting point for that pattern. If you managed to kill the 2 boss guys on 49 you should have enough air power to stop this wave, but if your towers are off line for upgrading then you might have a little trouble. Lev 86: This is the next challenging air wave. Hopefully you’ve killed every air unit up to this point. These guys are tough and I’ve yet to make it thru unscathed. I died here a lot until I finally committed wholly to the air defense school of thought. And then there is Lev 93. As I said, this is as far as I’ve gotten. If you make it past these 104,000 hit point guys you are a better man than I. The hopeful part is that if you make it past here you probably won’t have to face any more fliers until the final level.

Let your missiles do your killing

Sam Turrets (which only work on ground units. Go fig.) are your friends. They might not have the fancy fire rate of the plasma turrets but when the bad guys are stacked deep and clustered tight there is no competing with a Sam Turret’s kill power. DCA towers are going to be your most valuable units. As I said above it is all about killing the air units and when they have over 100000 hit points they take a lot of killing. Getting enough Anti Air is the main challenge of the game.

Building a perfect maze

You have to find a way to keep the groundlings busy. I still am working on different mazes trying to find the perfect one. Important features include:

It has to be long enough to take contain the waves of guys without spilling over.

It has to be careful of diagonals. Remember that splitters that die on diagonals will force their offspring out thru the cracks. Use straight lines and right angles whenever possible.

Keep the central area free for anti air emplacements. This is the area of overlap and most of your killing will be done here.

Make sure you have a way to regroup the aliens you are marching thru the maze. The more you can group them together the more damage your Sam Turret will do to them and the easier they are to contain.

Make sure you can easily reverse the field to get them marching the other way should they be approaching one end of your maze.

Remember that this maze is going to have to hold some incredibly tough aliens. Those splitter guys on Lev 48 often don’t die until somewhere in the 60’s.

Penny pinching

Don’t over spend on anti ground units. Aside from the Vulcan Turrets used as walls the only anti ground units you should be buying are Sam Turrets. The Plasma Cannons just aren’t worth it in the later levels and you’ll need that money for DCA Towers. Don’t buy too many. You just need enough Sam Turrets to keep the income rolling in. Last time I made it to Lev 93 I had only the one Sam Missile Tower for the first 50 levels or so. Also make sure your maze is long enough that you are not constantly reversing the field. Every time you open one end and block the other you are losing 3 gold. Yes it is worth it to keep the groundlings contained but try to make a maze that is efficient about it.

The Great Tower Debate

I am currently trying to figure out which is better the DCA5 or the THW Tower. DCAs 1-5 each double the damage dealt at each stage. The final upgrade to the THW Tower only increases it by 50%. It takes 330 gold to make a DCA5 and then another 310 for the final upgrade. Mathematically it looks to be a better deal to build a second DCA5. However, in practice the THW Towers definitely seem to be killing more units, especially at the higher levels. You can see from the image above that I went almost exclusively with the THWs and made it all the way to Lev 93 and when I tried the lesser towers I have trouble getting that far. So maybe there are some things beyond the onscreen stats that justify the final upgrade.

Speeding things up

When there are dozens of units on screen my system, which admittedly is a little old, has a rough time with it. I find that if I minimize the window it will run at closer to real time. This can be a huge time saver when you are just walking guys from one end of your maze to the other. Just be careful that you don’t get distracted with something else. Just a few seconds off and you could lose your game.

Another Glitch

In addition to the ‘NAN’ bug and the splitters squeaking thru on the diagonals mentioned in the last article there are a couple of more things to watch out for. First off the DCA/THW towers claim to have splash damage. I’ve never seen any significant splash damage on air units. I’ve seen great splash damage done by Sam Turrets against ground units so I know the code is in there. It just doesn’t seem to apply to the air defense.

Wish List

As good as a game as it is there are a few things I would like to see added to make it a better game. The first is a way to save a game. The game takes so long to play and the first 40 levels are so tedious it sure would be nice to be able to save off. Not only would you not have to pause the game overnight but you could also restore to the save point if you made a mistake or wanted to try something different.

I would also like to see Sonic Turrets effect air units or be a heck of a lot cheaper. Since the entire game is about stopping the air units it seems pointless to have these in the game.

I would like to see a one square unit. (if you break the arena down into a grid each unit takes up 4 squares.) Expensive or cheap, air or ground, just having something that would expand maze possibilities would be great.

And the thing I want more than anything else is a little more control over my units. I want to be able to tell them to shoot certain target over others. Nothing is as painful to watch as a Sam Tower firing at a boss creature all by him self when also in range is a pack of 20 or so guys all grouped together and you just know that the Tower is going to be firing at that boss guy until it leaves the Towers range ignoring all the better targets. Even just a way to mark a unit as ‘fire at air units only’ would be great but what I really want is a way to say ‘You shoot here.’

I hope you can take what I’ve learned and use it in your games. Let me know if any of you have other ideas and/or how these work for you.

V1.2/1.3 update:

The walls are a huge plus. They save money especially when turning the mass of ground creatures. I made it to level 100 in v1.2. Of course my four remaining health were no match for the 190000hp fliers at that level.

Game Tactic Xeno

Place turrets on the field to keep the aliens from reaching the other side. Click on a turret to display it's information and then click on the field to build it. You can upgrade or sell the turrets once they have been placed on the map. Try to defeat enough waves to unlock the next mission.

Instructions: Tips: -Select an existing turret to see it's range (The red dotted circle). -Upgrade your existing turrets for greater effectiveness. -Force the Xinos to walk farther then they normally would by building maze-like paths through the turrets. -Use turret combinations to maximize their effect. -Watch out for waves of flying Xinos that move right overtop of your placed defenses.

Defend your tower by puchasing different war weapons and placing them strategically so enemies may not pass by. Towers can be upgraded to increase their power. Good luck!

Xeno Tactic



Click here to play this game


Vulcans, at $5, are the cheapest way to create the maze of your choosing. They do 10 damage, but have an extremely short range (which almost never improves) and a long cooldown between shots. Use it for the basic maze, but don't rely on level 1 vulcans to do any sort of reasonable damage during later waves, even over long distances.

Upgraded vulcans, however, can be somewhat useful. Their range still stays at 60, but their power doubles with each upgrade. Early upgrades are rather cheap, as well. If you're planning on using a vulcan to actually do damage, upgrade it to at least level 3, if not level four. A level four turret only costs $50 to get up to speed, which is a rather cost-effective way to lay the smackdown on enemies. It's fully upgraded version has a massive range of 180, three times that of the other versions. In addition, it deals out a massive 400 damage with each shot. It's also tied for the cheapest turret to get up to full, with $200 for a fully upgraded vulcan. However, its rate of fire seems to get even worse, so make sure that any sniper towers are located centrally so that they never have to fall silent.


Plasma Turrets

Plasma turrets have a slightly longer range than vulcans and have a rather fast rate of fire, making them excellent point-defense turrets. They are best placed along areas where they will have plenty of chances to shoot at enemies, and unlike vulcans, they can shoot 3 squares away, so it can fire over other turrets. It can also hit air.

The major downside to plasma turrets is the cost. The turret itself is in the middle area in terms of cost and early upgrades (absolutely VITAL for getting any decent amount of damage) are relatively inexpensive (and worth it), but the later upgrades cost an arm and a leg (toenails and all) to get. The final upgrade costs over $250, which more than doubles the cost of the turret. However, unlike other upgrades (all of which increase firepower by 90%), the final upgrade adds 20 extra range (up to 90) and adds a MASSIVE 400% to shot power. It's a monster investment, but a well-placed fully upgraded turret can easily be the most power weapon in your arsenal.

SAM Turrets

Not including highly upgraded versions of other turrets, the SAM turret has the longest range of any turret. It has a long cooldown and does relatively little damage per shot, and thus is one of the worst 1-st level turrets. It's rather cheap at $20, though. They are the obvious choices when you've got an unused area that is within easy range of enemy lines. The main advantage of SAM turrets is their splash damage, allowing their slow rate of fire to do quite a bit of damage, though spread over a small area.

Upgrading SAM turrets is an excellent cost-effective way to spend money. Early upgrades cost from $20-$40, and each upgrade adds to range, power, AND splash radius, by 5, 100%, and a little, respectively. When upgraded, they can wreak havoc on any tightly grouped enemies, and can potentially be the most powerful turrets you have. Just remember that they purely act as support, so don't expect them to stop invasions on their own. They cannot hit air.

DCA

The DCA is purely meant to be used against air units. Considering that air units only pop up in about 1 out of every 10 waves (and that they cost so much), they can seem to be rather useless. The main fault in this is that air units are quite possibly the worst enemies you will ever face, and they pass over your other turrets without much trouble. Other turrets will stop the first 1-2 waves of air units, but it is absolutely imperative that you have a few of these by wave 20. Place them near the center so that they can fire on both lines of air units when they are the most bunched up, so that the splash damage (if applicable) can be used to its greatest effect. It fires up to 4 missiles at up to 4 different targets at once, though level 1 turrets have an extremely small range and do very little damage for their cost. The rate of fire is also quite decent.

Upgraded DCAs are capable of the highest damage per second of any turret. Upgrades improve power and range, and from upgrade 3 onwards, splash is added and improved. Three or four centrally-placed highly-upgraded turrets can stop virtually any air assault, so long as you have vulcans and plasma nearby to pick off any survivors. DON'T SKIMP ON THESE. Air units are one of the nastiest units in the game, and the mission 5 boss air units can be impossible to stop without a generous application of DCA missiles.

Freeze Turrets

Freeze turrets aren't terribly important for earlier missions, but they become absolutely vital later on. Freeze turrets are rather expensive to place, but the slow-down on enemies is an EXCELLENT way to keep enemies in range of your most powerful turrets for as long as possible. They are somewhat similar to vulcan turrets in range and their power is absolutely horrible, but the slowdown spreads to affect any enemies in the area and has quite a decent effect on enemy speed. If you're creating a specific area where you plan to brutally destroy anything, freeze turrets can double or even triple the effectiveness by keeping them in the killing zone for as long as possible. Spread them out along your killing zones so that enemies are always affected. In addition to this, SAM sites are greatly improved, since enemies group up quite tightly when affected. It can also hit air, so it can be quite effective for keeping air units in range of your DCAs for even longer.

They are also the cheapest units to upgrade, contrary to their initially high price tag. Each upgrade costs $25 ($50 for the final upgrade) and increases slow and power. the power upgrades are rather paltry, but the extra slowdown is an excellent and cheap way to spend money. I'm not quite sure if the splash, slowdown effect, or both are affected by the upgrade, but it's still a useful upgrade. Due to the lack of inflation, they're also one of the cheapest units to get to max.

Sonic Turrets

To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of sonic turrets. they affect any enemies immediately adjacent to them and hit all of them simultaneously, with a chance to stun. Each upgrade slightly increases the chance to paralyze (up to 20%), but the short period of the paralysis and the small chance makes it really only useful to deal out damage. the damage it deals is decent, but the huge cost to upgrade makes each turret a huge investment. It's best used with freeze turrets and powerful turrets nearby to take advantage of the paralysis. Only use them on double-back spots of your killing zones. They can get quite powerful when highly upgraded, but again, they're not a turret that you're going to want any more than 1 or 2 of.

Turret upgrades:

Vulcan Turret: $5, 60 Range, 10 Damage
Vulcan Turret 2: $15, 60 Range, 20 Damage
Vulcan Turret 3: $10, 60 Range, 40 Damage
Vulcan Turret 4: $20, 60 Range, 80 Damage
Vulcan Turret 5: $50, 60 Range, 160 Damage
Vulcan Tower: $100, 180 Range, 400 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $200)

Plasma Turret: $25, 70 Range, 5 Damage
Plasma Turret 2: $10, 70 Range, 10 Damage
Plasma Turret 3: $20, 70 Range, 18 Damage
Plasma Turret 4: $35, 70 Range, 34 Damage
Plasma Turret 5: $70, 70 Range, 65 Damage
BFG Tower: $290, 90 Range, 320 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $450)

Missile Turret: $20, 90 Range, 8 Damage
Missile Turret 2: $15, 100 Range, 16 Damage
Missile Turret 3: $35, 110 Range, 32 Damage
Missile Turret 4: $60, 120 Range, 64 Damage
Missile Turret 5: $110, 130 Range, 128 Damage
Missile Tower: $160, 140 Range, 256 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $400)

DCA: $50, 60 Range, 20 Damage
DCA 2: $30, 60 Range, 40 Damage
DCA 3: $50, 65 Range, 80 Damage
DCA 4: $75, 65 Range, 160 Damage
DCA 5: $125, 70 Range, 320 Damage
THW Tower: $310, 75 Range, 480 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $640)

Freeze Turret: $50, 50 Range, 10 Damage
Freeze Turret 2: $25, 50 Range, 15 Damage
Freeze Turret 3: $25, 50 Range, 20 Damage
Freeze Turret 4: $25, 50 Range, 25 Damage
Freeze Turret 5: $25, 50 Range, 30 Damage
Zero Tower: $50, 75 Range, 40 Damage
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $200)

Sonic Turret: $30, 40 Range, 10 Damage, ?% chance to paralyze
Sonic Turret 2: $25, 40 Range, 20 Damage, 6% chance to paralyze
Sonic Turret 3: $50, 40 Range, 40 Damage, 10% chance to paralyze
Sonic Turret 4: $100, 40 Range, 80 Damage, 13% chance to paralyze
Sonic Turret 5: $185, 40 Range, 160 Damage, 15% chance to paralyze
Hypersonic Tower: $355, 40 Range, 320 Damage, 20% chance to paralyze
(Total cost to fully upgrade: $745)