Tower Lab Enemies and Materials

Tower Lab enemies are physics objects, not hit-point bags. Steam Early Access is scheduled for September 7, 2026. You do not last-hit a robot. You change its mass, conductivity, bounce, or path until it leaves the floating lab. This page is the enemy desk: materials the demo and official videos actually named, how Tesla treats Copper, and why a leak to the exit is a routing failure, not a DPS failure.

Read this after physics basics. Pair it with the tower roster when you pick a counter. Do not invent extra species names. If a robot is not described as Plastic, Iron, Copper, or Rubber in footage or patch copy, this wiki will not give it a Latin binomial.

No health, only mass and path

A wave starts at a spawn portal and wants the exit portal. Between those two holes is open space you fill with cubes. Robots walk. They also slide, bounce, orbit, and fall. The HUD does not print a damage number when a Tesla arc hits. The robot either still has a walkable line to the exit or it does not.

Mass is the first filter. Light bodies leave a cliff with a modest Fan. Heavy bodies need Shrink, a longer shove, or a pit. Grow makes a body pay more Matter when it finally leaves, and it also makes the next shove harder. That risk-reward loop is why matter farming and this page share a sentence: bigger Copper is both a jackpot and a leak if you fatten it on the wrong tile.

Pathing is the second filter. A June 2026 demo patch overhauled enemy pathing physics after robots could stop walking. Treat that as a warning: if a body sits in a Gravity well forever, you have not won the wave, you have paused it. The same patch rebalanced Gravity projectile lifetime so upgraded wells would not capture units permanently. A hold is a tool. A freeze that never releases is a bug the developers already had to fix.

Adding a new enemy type to Tower Lab

Materials the footage actually uses

Official and playtest language names materials, not a twenty-row bestiary.

Copper is the one with a published multiplier. A January 2026 progress update called Copper extremely heavy, attracted to electrical effects, and more vulnerable to them. Tesla deals 3x knockback against Copper. That is the hard counter, not a rumor. Place Tesla where Copper actually walks. A Tesla aimed at Rubber is a weaker shove; gameplay commentary in demo videos treats Rubber as a common filler next to Copper counts on the same wave.

Plastic is the light body the physics basics page already uses as the easy knockoff. Plastic is how you learn Fan corridors. It also pays poorly. If your Vend-O-Lab feels expensive, you are probably clearing Plastic and ignoring grown Iron or Copper.

Iron sits between Plastic and Copper on mass. It is the body you Shrink before a Fan, or Grow before a Grinder if you want Matter. It does not get Tesla’s published 3x. Do not pretend it does.

Rubber shows up in demo HUD counts beside Copper. It is bounce and knockback resistance in practice: Fan still works, Tesla is the wrong first buy. Deflector plus Fan is the rubber plan, not a bigger arc.

Conductive versus insulating is the Tesla rule. The roster page already says Tesla prioritizes conductive materials and nearby enemies. Copper is the published conductive jackpot. Rubber is the published-feeling miss. If a wave is mixed, Tesla will spend its cooldown on the wrong body unless you place it on the Copper lane.

How leaks actually happen

A leak is a robot that still has a walkable path to the exit after Start Attack. Common demo leaks:

• Tesla on Rubber, cooldown wasted, Copper still heavy behind it.
• Grow on the cliff tile, body too fat to shove, no Shrink leftover in hand.
• Gravity well with no Fan, orbit that never reaches a void.
• Grinder with no Conveyor Line, Scrap pile that does not move mass off the lab.
• This Way trap treated as a wall. The follow chance is 10%, not 100%.

Watch the leak, then shop. The how-to-play loop is the ruleset; this page is the autopsy. If Copper leaked, buy Tesla or Shrink, not a second Rocket. If Plastic leaked, you aimed the Fan at a wall. If everything leaked, you pressed Start Attack before the corridor existed.

Counters without a damage wiki

Offense cubes apply force. Control cubes change size, direction, or grouping. Production cubes convert bodies into Scrap or extra pieces. The tower synergies page is the combo list. For enemies, keep three pairings in muscle memory:

• Copper: Tesla, then a Fan or pit so the 3x shove has somewhere to go.
• Plastic: Fan or Shrink-then-Fan. Do not Grow Plastic unless you need Matter and have a second control piece.
• Iron: Shrink for knockoff, Grow for Matter, never both on the same tile without a plan.
• Rubber: Deflector and Fan. Save Tesla energy for the Copper in the same wave.

Region 1 no longer starts with Tesla. A June 2026 patch pulled Tesla, Salvage, and Hot Swap from that deck. If Copper shows up in hour one, you buy Tesla from the Vend-O-Lab or you Shrink. You do not assume the starter hand.

Modes and the same robots

Campaign, Standard TD, Endless, Puzzle, and Workshop use this material language. Endless on a procedurally expanding map will mix counts; that is why leaderboards track waves and Matter instead of a kill score. Puzzle asks you to optimize a physics objective, not to farm a species. Workshop lets you spawn whatever the sandbox grants; it is still the same Copper 3x rule.

Steam Early Access lists more units as a 1.0 promise. Until a patch names a new material, this page will not. Confirm new types on the patch notes desk and the Steam news hub linked from community links.

If you only remember one sentence: Tesla is a Copper tool, Fan is a Plastic tool, and a leak is a path you left open.