The Tower Bots: Unlock Costs, Upgrades, Labs and Bot+ Abilities

How bots work

Every bot follows the same loop. It moves around the tower, activates, affects everything inside its range for its duration, then waits out a cooldown. The cooldown is counted from one activation to the next, so a bot with a 50 second cooldown and a 45 second duration is active 90% of the time.

Each bot has four medal upgrades. Three of them are always some form of strength, cooldown, and range. Bot range is not a fixed distance: it is amplified by your tower range, and relics and Vault upgrades can add more. Because a bot only helps for enemies standing inside its circle, range is often worth as much as the headline bonus. The bot coverage calculator shows how much of your tower range a bot actually covers.

• Bots are bought with medals in the Event Shop and are permanent. They do not reset when an event ends.
• You can switch individual bots on and off in the shop between rounds.
• Thunder Bot stun and linger are only 50% effective against bosses and elites, and fleet enemies also resist it by 50%.
• Medals come from event missions, weekly Daily Mission rewards, and the Guardian with the Fetch module. Unspent medals carry over between events.

The five bots

• Golden Bot Economy

  Enemies that die inside its range pay a coin multiplier. This is the farming bot, and its Bot+ ability adds Elite Cells on top.

  • Coin bonus: x2.0 to x8.0
  • Duration: 20s to 35s
  • Medals to max: 56,100
• Amplify Bot Damage

  Multiplies the damage you deal to enemies inside its range. The main bot for tournaments and boss kills.

  • Damage bonus: x3.5 to x15.5
  • Duration: 20s to 35s
  • Medals to max: 54,420
• Thunder Bot Control

  Stuns everything in range. When the stun ends, enemies stay slowed by the linger effect for a few more seconds.

  • Stun: 5s to 15s
  • Linger slow: 20% to 80%
  • Medals to max: 30,600
• Flame Bot Damage

  Burns enemies in range for a multiple of tower damage once per second, including crit and super crit. Burned enemies also deal less damage to you.

  • Burn damage: x50 to x290
  • Enemy damage: -20% to -95%
  • Medals to max: 46,300
• Bot Bot Support

  Boosts the effects of other bots that are inside its radius. It does nothing alone, so its value depends on overlapping with Golden or Amplify Bot.

  • Bonus: x1.05 to x2.00
  • Duration: 20s to 35s
  • Medals to max: 44,440

Unlock and upgrade costs

The price of a bot depends on how many you already own, not on which one you pick. The first costs 150 medals and the fifth costs 1,200, for 3,150 medals in total. You choose the order.

Every upgrade on every bot uses the same price ladder. Level 1 costs 100 medals and each level after that costs 40 more. What differs between upgrades is only how many levels they have, which is why a 15-level cooldown track costs 5,700 medals and a 30-level bonus track costs 20,400.

Bot+ abilities also need 1,250 Power Stones each to unlock.

Upgrade stats for each bot

Golden Bot

At max medals Golden Bot runs for 35 seconds on a 75 second cooldown. With both labs finished that becomes 45 seconds on a 50 second cooldown. The wiki's medal guide suggests buying this bot first and putting medals into range and bonus before cooldown, since cooldown changes how the bot lines up with Golden Tower and Black Hole.

Amplify Bot

Amplify Bot shares Golden Bot's duration and cooldown tracks. Its range track is shorter at 18 levels, ending at 61m.

Thunder Bot

Thunder Bot is the cheapest to max at 30,600 medals. The linger upgrade raises how strong the slow is after the stun. How long the slow lasts is a separate lab.

Flame Bot

Flame Bot is the odd one out. It has no duration upgrade, its base cooldown is 75 seconds instead of 120, and its fourth track is a debuff: burning enemies deal up to 95% less damage. Its range also grows fastest, 4m per level.

Bot Bot

Values follow the wiki cost table. The text of the wiki Bot Bot page describes a 30-level bonus track and an 18-level range track starting at 25m, which does not match its own table. The Events page also lists a 25m base range.

Bot labs

Labs pick up where medals stop. Each bot has a cooldown lab with 25 levels that removes 1 second per level. Golden, Amplify, and Bot Bot have a duration lab that adds 0.5 seconds per level for 20 levels. Thunder and Flame get special labs instead.

Unlock is the milestone tier and wave from each lab page. The wiki milestone table lists Bot Bot Cooldown at tier 6 wave 60 instead.

Cooldown, no upgrades

120s Flame Bot: 75s

Cooldown, max medals

75s Flame Bot: 30s

Cooldown, max medals and lab

50s Golden, Amplify, Thunder, Bot Bot

Duration, max medals and lab

45s Golden, Amplify, Bot Bot

• Flame Bot - Burn Stack: repeat hits stack the burn so it ticks faster. Two stacks means damage every 0.5 seconds. The cap is 10 stacks, and each lab level adds one more stack per hit, so at level 5 two hits reach the cap.
• Thunder Bot Linger Time: the slow after the stun lasts 3.5 seconds at level 1 and gains 0.5 seconds per level, up to 13 seconds.

Bot+ abilities and Synchronicity

Once you own all five bots, each one can be given a Bot+ ability. Unlocking an ability is a one-time purchase of 1,250 Power Stones, so all five cost 6,250 stones. After that, the ability levels up with medals.

• Wild Fire: enemies hit by Flame Bot become Enflamed as well as Burned and take extra damage. How long that lasts depends on your Flame Bot damage.
• Titan Shock: enemies struck by Thunder Bot attack more slowly for the rest of their life. The reduction scales with enemy mass, continuously since v29.
• Bonus Cells: elites killed inside Golden Bot range drop more Elite Cells.
• Echoing Shot: tower bullets inside Amplify Bot range count as several bullets. Ultimate Weapon projectiles get one third of the boost.
• Maximum Power: Bot Bot multiplies the Bot+ abilities of the other bots.

Most Bot+ levels cost 50 medals more than the one before, starting at 100. Echoing Shot is the exception: it has 9 levels that step up by 200 medals each, which makes it the cheapest to finish.

Owning all five Bot+ abilities opens Synchronicity, a stone upgrade that makes assigned bots follow the same path so their areas overlap. You start with two slots. Each extra slot costs 1,500 stones, so the 5-slot maximum costs 4,500 stones in extra slots.

Frequently asked questions

How many medals does it take to unlock all bots in The Tower?

Bots cost 150, 300, 600, 900, and 1,200 medals in the order you buy them, so all five cost 3,150 medals. The price depends on how many bots you own, not which bot you choose.

How much does it cost to max a bot?

Every upgrade level costs 100 medals plus 40 per level already bought. Maxing all four tracks costs 56,100 medals for Golden Bot, 54,420 for Amplify Bot, 46,300 for Flame Bot, 44,440 for Bot Bot, and 30,600 for Thunder Bot.

What is the minimum bot cooldown?

Golden, Amplify, Thunder, and Bot Bot start at 120 seconds, drop to 75 seconds with 15 medal levels, and reach 50 seconds with the 25-level cooldown lab. Flame Bot starts at 75 seconds and reaches 30 with medals before its lab.

What is the max Golden Bot coin bonus?

Golden Bot starts at x2.0 and gains 0.2 per level for 30 levels, reaching x8.0. Its duration goes from 20 to 35 seconds with medals and 45 seconds with the duration lab.

How do you unlock Bot+ abilities?

You need all five bots first. Each Bot+ ability then costs 1,250 Power Stones to unlock and is upgraded with medals, 60,100 medals in total to max all five.

Can you reset bot upgrades?

Yes. A bot respec costs 300 gems and is available once per event. It refunds all medals spent on bots, but not lab research.

Sources and credits

The numbers on this page come from the community-maintained The Tower - Idle Tower Defense Wiki and were reorganized and rewritten for Towerstats.org. Wiki text is available under CC BY-SA.

• Flame Bot
• Flame Bot/Cost
• Thunder Bot
• Thunder Bot/Cost
• Golden Bot
• Golden Bot/Cost
• Amplify Bot
• Amplify Bot/Cost
• Bot Bot
• Bot Bot/Cost
• Events
• Lab Category/Bot Research
• Lab/Flame Bot Cooldown
• Lab/Flame Bot - Burn Stack
• Lab/Thunder Bot Cooldown
• Lab/Thunder Bot Linger Time
• Lab/Golden Bot Cooldown
• Lab/Golden Bot Duration
• Lab/Amplify Bot Cooldown
• Lab/Amplify Bot Duration
• Lab/Bot Bot Cooldown
• Lab/Bot Bot Duration
• Currency/Medals
• Medals Guide
• Footguns
• Fleet Enemies
• Version History/V0.28
• Version History/V0.29