Radiant Defense

Radiant Defense is one of my favourite tower defense games that I have played so far. Its simplistic graphics make it very soothing to the eye, and its easy to understand mechanics makes it enjoyable for the user. In addition to the occasional comical dialogue between the commander and the enemy, this makes for a very solid game to burn time.

Besides that, the difficulty level scales quite nicely, though it gets scary at the. The first few missions are really quite easy to clear, until around mission 6-7 where you have to start thinking really strategically (if you're not using the unlockables of course), and then at mission 11 it get crazy hard, though it is still possible (as I shall demonstrate in the coming posts)

Now before starting the walkthrough, there are a few important concepts that are crucial in playing each stage optimally.

1. Understanding Your Turrets

One of the main reasons why Radiant Defense is so fun is that there are many combinations of turrets you can choose from. These range from the standard all-purpose Beliah Gun Turret, to the armor-piercing Starcrusher Cannon, to the high damage Judgement Ray Gauss Gun. Each turret has its strengths and weaknesses, and it is vital to understand each of them in order to use them properly in each stage.

For easy reference, here is a basic list of each turret's strengths and weaknesses:

Basic Turrets (does not require Research Unit)

	Range	Damage (per shot)	Fire Rate	Accuracy
Beliah Gun Turret	Medium	Low	Fast	Medium
Starcrusher Cannon	Long	Medium-High	Slow	Low
Solaris Disruptor Laser	Medium	Low	Fast	100%
	Strengths		Weaknesses
Beliah Gun Turret	·         Good at taking down single targets, provided they are not armoured ·         High damage for its cost		Fairs badly against: ·         Swarms ·         Fast targets, or ·         Armoured targets ·         Does little damage to Anti-Kinetic Forcefields
Starcrusher Cannon	·         Good at dishing out large amounts of damage to clumped up enemies ·         Especially good in conjunction with the Tachyon Warp Generator ·         Moderately good against armoured targets		·         Terrible against fast-moving targets as shots almost never hit ·         Does little damage to Anti-Kinetic Forcefields
Solaris Disruptor Laser	·         Able to take down Anti-Kinetic Forcefields ·         Does not miss		·         Weak against swarms ·         Deals less overall damage when two or more lasers target the same enemy ·         Deals less damage against Energy-Resistant targets

Advanced Turrets (requires Research Unit)

	Range	Damage (per shot)	Fire Rate	Accuracy
Tachyon Warp Generator	Short	-NIL-	Medium	-NIL-
Stormguard Tesla Array	Short	Low	Medium	-NIL-
Judgement Ray Gauss Gun	Very Long	Very High	Very Slow	100%
Pandora Biocid  Dispenser	Medium	Medium	Fast	Medium
	Strengths		Weaknesses
Tachyon Warp Generator	·       Slows down enemies ·       Helps increase accuracy of other turrets (eg. Cannons, Guns)		·       Very limited range ·       If not enough turrets to support, very useless and is a money drain
Stormguard Tesla Array	·       Increases damage dealt to enemies within its range ·       Helps weaken Anti-Kinetic Forcefields		·       Very limited range ·       As with Tachyon, will ot be effective if there are not enough turrets to support it
Judgement Ray Gauss Gun	·       Long range “sniper” --- effective at taking down to single targets that other turrets cannot so easily ·       Effective against armoured targets ·       Also good at taking down high-health regenerative targets		·       Ineffective against swarms of enemies as it cannot fire fast enough ·       Does reduced damage against Energy-Resistant targets ·       Sometimes, multiple Gauss Guns may fire at the same target, resulting in overkill and wasted damage potential
Pandora Biocid  Dispenser	·       Effective against most targets in general ·       Does straight up damage as well as poison damage over time – great for killing of stragglers ·       Ignores armour		·       Does no damage to enemies within Anti-Kinetic Forcefields ·       Ineffective against Poison-Resistant enemies ·       The turret tracks targets rather slowly, which means that for faster enemies, it may be shooting behnd the target instead of at it

2. Understanding Your Enemy

In order to succeed at any game, after you understand your arsenal, you must also understand what your opponent can throw at you (in this case Supercreep). It is no use to have every single weapon in your arsenal yet not know which enemy is weak against what.

However, due to the variety of enemies you can enounter, I will group them by their vulnerabilites and characteristics.
To be continued asap.