Imperion are attacking your planet. Make sure they do not get full control of it and kill their Overlord. (More on the Overlord later)

This bar shows how much of the planet each side controls.
If it goes full red, your planet goes boom-boom and you lose the game.
This is the only defeat condition in the game.

How to gain/lose Control:
Keep winning battles to keep your Control high.
Lose battles and you will lose a lot of Control.
If you ignore missions with a high "Abandon penalty" you might lose some Control.








You can see the Abandon penalty in the mission card. Take it into account while choosing which mission you will deploy to.

There are 5 mission types in Taur, which are:

Invasion
Air Raid
Skyfall
Siege
Overlord

Let me explain these in detail:

1)Invasion:
Your enemy will send a mixed combination of forces to attack you in 3 waves. You can see the flares on the map to determine where they will be coming from. You can expect anything in this mode.

2)Air Raid:
Your enemy will send air units to attack you. Expect swarms of agile (and annoying) fighters, waves of bombers and some gunships sometimes.

3)Skyfall:
Your enemy will drop great numbers infantry units everywhere on the map to try and overwhelm you. Expect hordes of infantry.

4)Siege:
Your enemy will send armored vehicles to attack you. Expect only vehicles.

5)Overlord:
The big ship herself. The first boss fight of this game. (And the only one, for now anyways)
Appears for the first time on Day 50 and every 25 Days after that until you beat it.
You probably won't beat it the first time, but you can use this chance to see what you are up against.
When you beat it, you win the game. (You can still continue playing afterwards, but the Overlord won't appear anymore.)

Mission Rewards and Difficulty



All of these missions will have effects on Control and some resource rewards. They will also have a Resistance level (weird as you're supposed to be the resistance in the game), which shows you the difficulty level of each mission.

These difficulty levels are shown with a colored skull, the color of the skull shows the difficulty.
These are (from easiest to hardest):
Light (blue skull), Medium (green) , Heavy (yellow), Massive(orange), Extreme (red)

There are seven types of resources in Taur.

This might sound like a lot at first, but it's really just variations of 3 resources.
I will explain these below (from left to right):


Power (left): It's the most abundant and most used resource. Think of it as your money. You will need this to do ANYTHING in this game.

Power Cores (the three hexagons): These are required to unlock build slots during missions and building defenses on those slots.

The difference between them is that each of these will be required to unlock a different building slot. Their names give it away once you see them. (Standard, Large and Massive cores for their namesake build slots)

NOTE: You will need the lesser Power Cores to unlock Large and Massive build slots (and to build the towers in them).
This means you need: 1 Standard Core to unlock a Standard slot, 1 Standard and 1 Large to unlock a Large slot, and 1 Standard, 1 Large and 1 Massive Core to unlock a Massive slot. Same rule applies to building the towers themselves.

Crystals (the three shards): You will need these to do research. Green crystal is used for basic researches and upgrades, the yellow crystal is for mid-tier research and upgrades and red crystal is for advanced researches.

NOTE: Unlike power cores, you will NOT need the lesser crystals while unlocking advanced research and upgrades.

To stop the invasion, you need guns. And boy oh boy, guns you DO have! I will be explaining everything you have in your disposal in 3 categories: Defenses, Weapons and Abilities.

Defenses are the static towers you build around yourself to create a base. These do all sorts of things from shooting plasma bolts to calling down a bomber to blast your enemies to oblivion.

They come in three different sizes and can only be built in their corresponding build slots:
Standard, Large and Massive.

To build them:

• You need to unlock them in Research.
  
• Unlock the build slot for them by using the Build mode during a mission.
  
• Build the Defense itself. (In Build mode again)

This is the Build mode. (You can access this by pressing SPACE during a battle)





Now that you know how to build them, here's what you are actually building:

a)Raptor (Standard Size)


The Average Joe of Defenses. Provides very cheap damage.


b)Hydra (Standard Size)


A tower that does little damage. Its strength comes from its ability to slow enemies. VERY useful in Air Raids.


c)Talos (Standard Size)
It protects you from missiles launched by the enemy. Considering missiles are one of the greatest threats to your base (since everything is basically on top of each other), you want a reasonable amount of these.

d)Chimera (Standard Size)


Artillery. Does what you think it does. Useful against swarms of infantry. A good tower to have in Skyfall. Napoleon approves.


e)Interceptor Command (Standard Size)


Calls down an Interceptor at the start of a battle.

Interceptors are fast aircraft, with light armor and damage, that can dogfight enemy aircraft.
They also do runs on ground units if there are no enemies in the skies.


NOTE: As with all summoned units, if they are killed, they will not respawn until the end of a mission. You will see them come back at the start of the next mission at no cost.

f)Cyclone Command (Standard Size)


Calls down a Cyclone at the start of a battle.

Cyclones are armored gunships that deal good damage against single targets with their lasers. You will be disappointed if you were expecting a beast like the AC-130.


NOTE: As with all summoned units, if they are killed, they will not respawn until the end of a mission. You will see them come back at the start of the next mission at no cost.

g)Spectre Command (Standard Size)


Calls down a Spectre at the start of a battle.

Spectres are slow, fragile aircraft that drop bombs on your enemies, dealing a good amount of damage in a fairly large area. You can also unlock carpet bombing for these via Research.



NOTE: As with all summoned units, if they are killed, they will not respawn until the end of a mission. You will see them come back at the start of the next mission at no cost.

h)Guardian Command (Standard Size)

Calls down several Guardian droids at the start of a battle. (60 droids max.)

Guardians are your first line of defense: They stand right outside your shield and form a shield wall around your base. Their primary purpose is to keep enemies from just walking through your shield.


NOTE: As with all summoned units, if they are killed, they will not respawn until the end of a mission. You will see them come back at the start of the next mission at no cost.

i)Ranger Command (Standard Size)

Calls down several Ranger droids at the start of a battle. (40 droids max.)

Rangers are ranged droids that pepper your enemies with arrows. They provide good, reliable damage to you as long as the Guardians are able to protect them.


NOTE: As with all summoned units, if they are killed, they will not respawn until the end of a mission. You will see them come back at the start of the next mission at no cost.

j)SAM Site (Large Size)
Fires a Surface-to-Air Missile (hence the name SAM) that destroys most if not all enemy aircraft in one hit.
It doesn't shoot people named Sam, stop giving Croteam ideas!

k)Striker (Large Size)


A generalist turret that deals good damage against all kinds of enemies. Definitely worth the slots.


l)Aegis Shield (Large Size)

Projects a shield around your base, protecting your defenses against direct damage.

You MUST have one of these things in your base, and exactly ONE of them. Building more than one doesn't give you anything.


m)Decimator (Massive Size)
It's a big minigun that fires an impressive barrage of bullets. A good tower to have in Skyfall if you have it upgraded, but lacks in comparison to the Obliterator (Mostly because the bullets move a little faster than Obliterator shells and only hit 1 target for low damage, while Obliterator shells explode)

n)Obliterator (Massive Size)
The biggest, baddest and the most expensive Defense you have. Fires heavy rounds that punch right through enemy infantry and explode when they hit their target. Deals heavy damage. You can make it pierce shields with Research.

Can also fire at aerial targets.

From the very beginning, where you are just a little noodle with a gun shooting some lackeys, to the very end where you're launching SCUD missiles at hordes of enemies and tank columns, you weapons are going to be your most effective tools.

To equip a weapon, you need to:

• Unlock the Weapon in Research.
  
• Equip the Weapon in the Loadout mode, or by pressing its hotkey.

This is the Loadout screen, you can access it by pressing [TAB].

Unlike everything else, you can change your weapons whenever, wherever. It just takes a couple seconds of your time.

There are two types of weapons in Taur: Primary Weapons and Secondary Weapons.
Let's get to the fun part:

1) PRIMARY WEAPONS
These are your main guns. Each have a very distinct role and are very effective at them.

a)Punisher
This is your starting Primary Weapon.
It is accurate and does good damage but suffers from a low number of shots before you have to reload.

You can specialize this weapon to deal with enemy Armor by unlocking its upgrades in Research.

b)Disintegrator
The game tells you it's some sort of cannon. Don't believe the game. It's a laser. It passively reloads when you are not firing the laser, but if you spend all of its ammunition at once, you can't fire the weapon while it reloads. I recommend firing this weapon in short bursts.

You can specialize this weapon to deal with enemy Shields by unlocking its upgrades in Research.

c)Havoc
Anti-air missile launcher. You have to track targets to get a lock on them. You can't fire at a target until you have a lock-on.
Oh and you have to reload the weapon every 3 or so missiles, during which you can't fire. Thankfully you can increase this capacity in Research.

Lock-on takes an abysmally long time at first, but you can shorten it by unlocking this weapon's upgrades in Research.

d)Ravager
Dual miniguns baby! Sports a very high rate of fire, decent damage for that rate of fire and fast projectiles as well.
But with high recoil. And takes ages to reload. At least you can improve its capacity.

You can specialize this weapon to deal with enemy Health by unlocking its upgrades in Research. (does double damage since the last patch!)

2) SECONDARY WEAPONS

These are complementary weapons that bring utility to your loadout.

a)Tempest

This is your starting Secondary Weapon.
It's a mortar. Does decent damage in an area and knocks back enemies.


Most importantly, you can use this weapon to lob shells over obstacles to hit enemies behind them. (Looking at you, the bridge in Standing Rock!)
You have only one shot before you have to reload, but you can increase this with Research.

b)Cleaver

It's practically a shotgun. It fires many shells that go all over the place.
Best used in close range.
You can use this weapon like a flak cannon in Air Raids, it helps a lot.

c)Cryohawk

Anti-air missile that locks on to enemies by itself. Just fire it and it will hit a plane.
It will slow down the target it hits.
Suffers from low damage in my experience.

d)Destroyer
My favorite. Your SCUD missile. I still can't believe it's a Secondary.
Pick a target, press F, and that target and everything in a medium radius will be blown to bits (or take heavy damage).

Just the fact that you have to unlock ALL other weapons before this one should explain the impact of it.
It can get up to 900 damage per hit if you upgrade it to Rank 10. (It will make sense when I talk about Reforge)

Abilities are impactful support powers that you can use to dish out great damage to enemies or save yourself in a pinch. They typically have a short run-time and long cooldowns.

To use an ability, you have to:

• Unlock the ability via Research
  
• Open the Loadout mode in a mission (Hotkey is [TAB])
  
• Hover over the hexagons at the bottom and you will be able to select the icon of your ability to assign to it. The hexagons correspond to Q, W, E, A, S, D as hotkeys.
  
• Press the hotkey.

These are the hotkey slots where you can assign your abilities.

Once you assign your abilities to hotkeys, you should have the ability icon in your status bar.
See the colored hexagons at the top? Those are your abilities. You can use them with the hotkeys now.
Remember the hotkeys, there's no way to rebind them for now.

So, about the abilities themselves:

a)Time Warp
Slows down time, but not you. You can still fire, reload and aim in real time. The game tells you these.
What it doesn't tell you is that you still regenerate shields and health in real time as well. The cooldowns of other abilities won't be slowed either.
It's also cheap and easy to get to (literally the first research in the ability branch).
I recommend getting this ASAP.

b)Photon Flare
You have to select an area when you use this ability.
All the enemies in that will take increased damage from everything except Guardians for a short time.
You can increase the damage modifier via Research.

c)Repair Drone
Calls repair drones that repair your Defenses.
The drones are unexpectedly fast at repairing them too!

You can increase the number of drones via Research. (up to 5)
A great "oh crap" button to have!

d)Seeker Mine

You have to select an area when you use this ability.
A mine is dropped to the area, which deals additional damage over time to the enemies in the explosion radius. That's it.

For something at the end of the ability branch, I honestly expected something better.

e)Shield Surge

You need to have at least one Aegis Shield to use this ability. Just the building, you can use this when your Shield is down.
Immediately recharges your Shield to full.
Recharges the shields of your Guardian droids too.
Another great "oh crap" button to have!

f)Cryo Volley
You need to have at least one Ranger droid alive and out of melee combat to use this ability.
You have to select an area when you use this ability.
When you do, all of your Rangers will turn towards it and let loose a volley of arrows.
These arrows will slow down your enemies and knock back the enemy infantry they hit.

When fully upgraded via Research, and you have all your Rangers intact and out of melee, this ability becomes the most damaging thing you have in your arsenal.
I'm talking about thousands of damage here!

The Research tree is where you unlock new toys and upgrade your old toys.

It looks like this.

You start right there in the middle of the tree and have to unlock each branch progressively.

Rank 1 of each research is enough to advance on the next item, but some items require multiple previous items to be unlocked. You can see these by the connections between the nodes.
(Example: Destroyer requires both Cryohawk and Ravager to be unlocked first)

All nodes will require Power to be unlocked and ranked up, as well as a crystal depending on the tier of the item.
(Green for basic items and upgrades, yellow for mid-tier and red for advanced)

Taur has a loot AND a weapon upgrade system, but they are combined and crammed into one thing: The Forge.

This is the Forge.

In the Forge, you can "Reforge" your weapons, which means spending resources to re-roll and upgrade their damage.

Here's how the system works:

• There is a MIN (minimum, the red number) and a MAX (maximum, the green number) damage value each weapon can get in a reforge.
  
• When you reforge a weapon, a random value is selected between the MIN and the MAX values (the number below the bar, it shows you the current damage of the weapon).
  
• Each weapon has a Rank which is increased by reforging the weapon. This increases the MAX damage value for that weapon. (Rank X is the top Rank)
  
• As the Rank of the weapon increases, the resources required for another reforge also increase.

So, in short, if you want the big damages, reforge each weapon at least 10 times to get to Rank X, and then try to get the damage value as far to the right as possible.

The enemies can be divided into 3 groups: Infantry, Vehicles and Aircraft.
Now let's show you these guys and explain what they do.
(Click on the images to make them bigger, you know the drill.)

1) INFANTRY
Mostly not a threat by themselves, they will come at you in numbers. Try not to get overwhelmed.

a)Maraduer:



The first enemy you will see in the game. Standard foot soldier, true cannon fodder. Won't give you much trouble (unless in huge numbers).
Threat: Low



b)Vanguard:



Pretty much the same thing as the Maraduer, but faster and half of its health is armor instead.
Threat: Low




c)Trasher:

Infantry with a rocket launcher. In a horde of infantry, these guys are your high-priority targets. They might be hard to spot in a blob of enemies, but they will stand back and shoot rockets at you as the other infantry push forward. You can easily see them then.
Threat: Medium


2) VEHICLES
All vehicles have a glaring weakness: They are all deployed in the field with Helios aircraft. You can destroy the Helios to destroy the vehicle before it becomes a threat to you.

a)Scorpion:

Main battle tanks with somewhat low durability and mediocre damage. But they come with a surprise: a shield that protects everything in a large radius. This shield makes them dangerous as they can protect other, more dangerous allies with it.
Threat: Medium-High (depends on what's under the shield)


HINT: You can destroy the tank itself without having to deal with the shield: you just have to destroy it right after it is dropped by the Helios. You can harm the tank itself until the entire shield deployment animation is done. After that, you will have to deal with the shield first.

b)Hellion:


Long range vehicles that will unleash multiple missiles at once, dealing lots of damage. Among the vehicles, these are your high-priority target. Kill them as soon as possible.
Threat: High



c)Mammoth:


Big brothers of the Imperion Armor Division. They boast heavy armor and are heavily armed. Not as damaging as the Hellion, but they can dish out some damage with their twin cannons and take some in return.
Threat: Medium


3) AIRCRAFT
These enemies are almost as dangerous as vehicles by themselves, but on top of that they will make you question your choice of weaponry with their ability to... fly! (duh)
Oh and they tend to crash fall into your base, damaging your buildings even with your shield up.
So beware!

a)Scarab:


Basically cannon fodder, but in air. They are somewhat durable and very fast, you will have get a lead on them to score a hit with most weapons. Low damage, but dangerous in numbers.
Threat: Low



b)Stingray:

The most dangerous aircraft Imperion has, for two reasons: They will drop bombs with high splash damage on your base, and the splash damage actually gets through your shields and hurts your higher towers. Luckily they are only slightly tougher than a Scarab.
Among aircraft, take these out first.
Threat: High

HINT: Their weakness is that they have to get right on top of your base to drop the bombs. Try to kill them before that happens.

c)Firefly:


Somewhat durable aircraft with some armor. They will stop close to your base and fire at your base. Their damage is not too much of a concern but don't let too many Fireflies fly around your base.
Threat: Medium



d)Helios:


They are exclusively used to deploy vehicles on the battlefield.
If you destroy these, you don't have to deal with the tank it carries.
They can take a punch though, just so you know.




SPECIAL MENTION: OVERLORD
Millenium Falcon and a Starcraft Battlecruiser had a love child and fed it solely on steroids and gunpowder. Now the child is all grown up and HELLA ANGRY. God help you.

I'm not going to spoil the fight for you guys, tell me in the comments if you want me to cover the Overlord though.

• Build symmetrical. You don't want your base to be weaker on one side while you're being attacked from all sides.
  
  
• You can use the 1,2,3,4 keys to switch between Primary weapons and the 5,6,7,8 keys for Secondary weapons. Keep in mind that empty weapons will still have to be reloaded when you switch back.
  
  
• Press Shift to toggle air targeting mode. This can be very important when you are trying to get a lead on enemy aircraft. Also gives you a wider view of the field. Just don't forget to switch back.
  
  
• Do NOT over-invest in Research and advanced towers at the early stages of your campaign. If you unlock lots of things but can't actually deploy them, what's the point?
  
  
• If you lose a tower, you will be refunded 100% of the resources you spent to build it. If you see a sudden spike in resources, it's unwise to spend it on other things.
  
  
• You're probably not beating the Overlord on Day 50. You will have the chance again once every 25 Days after that. Don't panic, and don't hurry to fill your building slots for the fight on Day 50. Just try and use the chance to see what you're up against. It costs you no Control to lose the fight anyway.
  
  
• Try to keep a balanced defense. You want to have an answer to every problem, especially more since you can't destroy and replace a tower on the same Day.
  
  
• You can sacrifice SOME Control to get a specific resource that you need. Just don't overdo it.
  
  
• I don't recommend Reforging your weapons until after Day 75. If you're going to Reforge your weapon, even after Day 75, make sure you have a good stockpile of resources in case you get a bad roll in a tight spot. Use the RNG if that's what you want to do, but don't rely on it.
  
  
• Getting lots of Standard towers is better than getting one Massive tower.
  
  
• Try to destroy Scorpions before they deploy their shield, unless there are more dangerous targets outside of it.
  
  
• Kill Stingrays before anything else. They can damage your defenses even when your shield is up!
  
  
• Repair Drones work really fast. Keep that in mind when your shields are down.
  
  
• Go into Build Mode to check the health of your base every once in a while, especially when your shields are down. (You can see the health by the colors of the tower slots)
  
  
• You can use the Right Mouse Button to zoom in on targets.
  
  
• Don't put your Aegis Shield Generator into the upper left corner of your base. The Overlord will target those spots in its final phase. (Tip by OneSan)
  
  
• Be careful when destroying objects (pillars, trees etc.) Sure, it clears your line of sight, but it also clears your enemies' line of sight as well. That gives them more opportunities to shoot at you. Remember; if the enemy is in range, so are you.

So, I actually found some time to play the game. There wasn't too much to change in the guide itself, so I will summarize everything here:

• Striker tower got its damage doubled with the Research that adds 3 more ammo to it.
  
• Spectres can carpet bomb with 3 bombs now.
  
• Decimator got well deserved Researches that increase reload speed and add some crowd control.
  
• Obliterator got a Research that lets it pierce shields!
  
• The Chimera can now fire twice with Research, doubling its damage.
  
• The Raptors got a research that lets them fire much faster.
  
• Aircraft are much better now. Interceptors became the kings of crowd control.
  
  In short: Area of effect defences and the Striker tower are the headliners of the update. Some early game towers (and aircraft) that didn't scale well into the later days got utility upgrades that made them much better.
  
  Heavy and Massive towers are also much better now with damage and fire rate upgrades.

If you have any tips & tricks you want me to add to that section of the guide, please tell me in the comments and I will add them as soon as I can (with due credits of course).