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Dark Towers create a dark exclusion zone around them, in which packet connections are disabled and where units can't be moved into. Beacons must be used to clear the exclusion zone and allow units to operate properly in the area. Dark Towers can be disabled with a Nullifier.

If even a single tile of a unit is inside the exclusion zone, the unit will be affected by the zone's properties.

Many of the Dark Tower's specific effects are not obvious at first:

• Almost all packet connections are disabled inside the exclusion zone. No friendly units, not even the Rift Lab, can send or receive packets of any kind while inside the zone. Other units such as Totems and Resource deposits can still be connected to as long as the connection is coming from outside the zone.
• Towers and Miners are unable to generate energy (or Bluite) while inside the exclusion field. Towers must regenerate their soylent field once the zone is cleared, but miners will re-activate immediately after the zone is cleared.
• All friendly units, with the sole exception of the Beacon, are unable to move into or out of the exclusion zone. If a unit was already moving to a location that is now inside the exclusion zone, the unit will be allowed to finish it's movement.
• Cannons, Mortars, Sprayers, Snipers, Missiles, and Nullifiers can still operate while inside the exclusion zone, as well as fire into/out of the zone, but as previously stated will not receive any ammo packets if they themselves are inside the zone.
• Bombers and AC Bombers are able to fly over the exclusion zone, but are unable to drop their payloads into the zone.
• Refineries are capable of harvesting Greenar crystals that are inside the exclusion zone.
• TERPs are able to fly into and over the exclusion zone, but cannot terraform or decontaminate any tiles inside the zone.
• Porters cannot place their Resource Pods into the exclusion zone.
• Shields function as normal both outside and inside the exclusion zone, but as previously stated will be unable to get any ammo packets.
• Despite not being player-placed units, Ultracaps and Info Caches are affected by the exclusion zone, and have disabled connections, making the Ultracaps unusable for extra power and the Info caches uncollectable.
• Map-placed Resource Pods are treated the same as ones created by Porters, in that they cannot distribute any of their resources while inside the exclusion zone.

Dark Towers have editable attributes, which can be modified using the map editor:

Width:

The X value radius of the exclusion zone, in tiles.

Height:

The Z value radius of the exclusion zone, in tiles.

Is Square:

If enabled, switches the Dark Tower's circular zone to a rectangular one.

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