I've had several people add me on Steam lately, asking me about my record on Park. Some trying to slyly get me to reveal what towers I'm using, and a couple asking me if I'm cheating. Well, first, let me assure you, I did not cheat to get that score. Park is a very easy map, and given enough time (several days), you too can beat Park.

First, you need to understand conceptually what high level Survival is about: Towers. Eventually, enemies will have 2.1 BILLION HP. All of them. Not just soakers. Not just warriors. Pups and runners will have billions of HP. Your gun is absolutely worthless in the end-game. With all the best perks, and the best guns, you could unload at an enemy all wave and not even do 1% of its health. You must focus all of your weapons, perks, and towers around ensuring your towers are able to do as much damage as they can. What this means though, is that your initial setup will be harder, because before the end-game, your weapons are important, and you will be doing more damage than your towers.


Second, and most importantly, high level Survival is about stopping enemies from progressing through the maze for as long as possible, ideally forever. Your towers do a certain amount of damage per second, and it will not be enough, if you just let the lumes walk through the maze. You have three primary means to doing this. One: Slowfields, which will slow down enemies, but not stop them. Two: Mind Control, which by itself will hugely slow down enemies, but can't completely stop them. Three: Kiting (making enemies chase you), which, when used with Mind Control, will completely stop all enemies that attack. I will go into detail about these later.

Let's start with character selection. Before the Mind Control tower was added, I repeatedly said that Haigen was the best character for end-game play, because he can take several more hits before dying. I also like Skye for this now, because her double jump is effective for staying out of harms way. My top run was done with Skye, but I've done a run where I maxed out HP as Haigen.

Up next: Perks. There are a few different options you can use. Resilient Core (restores core HP) is a must, because you will occasionally have lumes reach the core during your setup. Additionally, even when you do get fully set up, screamers will sometimes hit the core when they're trying to hit a mind controlled lume. It eventually adds up. Phoenix is also useful, because you will be doing a lot of kiting, and you will probably die. If you feel like you won't die, G-2 is useful instead, because he provides an extra meat-shield that will delay lume progression through your maze. Finally, I like to use Tactical Juxtaposition, because soakers are the biggest threat during setup, and even for a while past capping HP. Combined with the drone launcher, you will make quick work of them.

Next: Weapons. Drone Launcher is an absolute must. As I just said, soakers are your primary threat, and nothing does more hits than the Drone Launcher. It also does an insane amount of damage during the early waves. Second, use the Tesla (lightning gun). It too does a large number of hits per second against the Soakers, with the added benefit of hitting the other Soakers when they're near (and they always will be).

ACP: This one is the single tower that will be doing all your damage. It hits everything. You will be pumping this forever.
Range: You need the ACP to cover the entire map. Once it does, you'll never touch the range again.
Amp: Depending on how much money you have in the ACP, pumping the Amp can add more damage per dollar than pumping the ACP directly. Toggling between the two will eventually allow you to raise your damage faster than HP rises.
Mind Control: The name of the game is keeping the lumes held back, and Mind Control is so effective it breaks the game. It would not be possible to reach these absurdly high waves without it. You will have 11 of these.
Slowfield: Helps to slow down lumes. Since Mind Control has a delay before it can re-target, this stops lumes from advancing under most conditions.

But wait, that's five towers! You need at least two people for that!
It's true, you do need someone else. Get a friend to join your game, build the slow, and then kick them out. Or, if you're like me, you bought an extra copy or two during the Humble Bundle, so you don't have to ever interact with another human being ever.

So now we need to talk about the finer points of Mind Control. Generally speaking, what will happen is several mind control towers will control 3 or more lumes at any given choke point. When mind control wears off, the lume will start walking through the maze again. There will be a delay before another tower can re-control him. (Additionally, the same tower can't re-control the same lume immediately.) If he doesn't turn around to attack a lume behind him, this means that mind controlled lumes behind him may move forward to go attack him. Thus, slowly but surely, the lumes will make it past your mind control towers. So, while it is important to have multiple towers together, you need to space them throughout multiple points in your maze. Position each tower so that when lumes make it through one section of your maze, they will re-visit the same tower later on.

You should also understand Mind Control targeting behavior. Mind Control will only target an enemy if there is a direct line of sight, uninterrupted by a base. In other words, even if the range say it'll hit an enemy far away, if there is a base in the way, the Mind Control won't attack. (In the below example, the Mind Controls in the middle will not attack until the lumes reach the middle of the maze, despite being next to a range which should boost their attack range all the way to the edges of the map.)

Here is one sample maze. This is not my most effective route, but it is effective enough to reach max HP.

Now that our preparation is complete, and you understand why we've picked the things we have, we can finally begin! :P

For the first 30 or so waves, you won't need the damage of the towers, as your weapons are sufficient with these low HP enemies. You will use this time to get your maze setup. Put the ACP in the center, along with the range, amp, and slow. Scatter your mind controls around as you see fit, based on the above criteria. Work towards getting everything up to level 3. You will not overcharge the mind controls. If enemies are starting to give you trouble, start overcharging the ACP a little bit.

Once things are all level 3 (you can have some mind control that aren't), you should toggle between pumping the ACP, range, and amp. You can't just focus on the range, because enemy HP keeps going up, and they'll eventually get through your maze. But you need to get the range up enough to cover the core - if just one high HP enemy gets to the core, and you don't have the range high enough, you lose.

Once your range is sufficient, all you have to do now is pump the ACP and Amp. Like I said before, depending on how much you have in the ACP, pumping the Amp may give you more damage per credit spent. With all of your money now spent on these two items, you'll start to add more damage per wave than the game adds to enemy HP. If you see runners getting to the core before this part, don't worry.

At this point, you really only have two enemy types you have to deal with: Warriors and Soakers. Soakers are very easy - just unload into them enough for the ACP to kill them. Warriors are harder. It takes a very long amount of time to kill them at this point - long enough that they can get through your maze, even with Mind Control. You will need to kite them. To do this, get behind the Warrior (behind being closer to the start of your maze, away from the core). Stand right next to him, and shoot to get his attention. Hopefully he targets you instead of a mind controlled warrior. Once he turns around to attack you, move back. Get a feel for the maximum amount you can move back, so he jumps at you. This will pull him backwards through the maze. Keep doing this, and you can pull the whole mob of warriors all the way back to their spawn. If you aren't good with kiting Warriors, practice in Sandbox.

Finally, you have reached the end-game. Enemy HP caps at about 2.1 billion (HP is stored as an int32). You will keep getting money though, so keep pumping! Eventually, you won't have to kite or attack soakers - you just have to press Enter. Thousands of waves of just pressing Enter. You can automate this if you want - it's not exactly a test of skill at this point. Usually people give up around 100ish waves, since it's clear you've chosen to end the game on your terms. I just got tired of the occasional jerk beating my time wasting score, so I decided to solve the problem once and for all. (but-ONCE AND FOR ALL!)

Now that you know how it's done, you can try to take the top spot from me. Or get an easier top score on one of the other maps where this strategy works.

Now hopefully Mr. Lundwall doesn't think I'm haxxing my scores! :mrgreen: