Robocraft 2 - Damage System Guide

Damage System

The damage system refers to how weapons reduce the health of the connections between blocks and what happens when the health of a connection gets to zero.

What happens when connection health reaches zero?

When the connection health between two blocks reaches zero they are no longer connected.

If enough connections are broken the robocraft will start to fall apart.

In the case where a group of blocks fall off as a single chunk and remain connected (e.g. when a robocraft breaks into two pieces) then they remain in the simulation on the server and continue to function.

These chunks can themselves be destroyed further until eventually they are just singular blocks when all connections are destroyed.

How do weapons do damage?

All weapons do damage with “ray casts”. Raycasts are lines that have a fixed start point and end point.

Examples:

Laser fires a projectile that hits something and then fires a thin ray cast line into the target at the angle the projectile was travelling
Plasma Cannon fires a projectile that hits something and then fires multiple thin ray casts in a cone towards the target in order to simulate shrapnel
Rail Gun fires a projectile that hits something and then fires a single thick ray cast into the target at the angle the projectile was travelling
Arc Disrupter finds any robocraft in a spherical radius when it explodes and fires multiple thin ray casts in a cone towards each target that is within the radius in order to simulate shrapnel

When a ray cast hits a block it deals a fixed amount of damage to all connections that are associated with this block equally. For example, with the Laser, each shot deals 14 damage to all connections on the block.

Each weapon shows its damage in the Inventory:

Laser has a shot damage of 14

What about Penetration?

Ray casts can penetrate into your robocraft passing through blocks and dealing damage to other blocks behind them. The amount of penetration depends on a few factors:

Penetration Energy

Each weapon has a penetration energy. This is the starting amount of energy the ray cast has when it starts its journey into your robocraft. The penetration energy of each weapon is shown in the Inventory. The Laser has a penetration energy of 2000kJ (kilo joules):

Material Penetration Resistance

Each material has a Penetration Resistance and this is shown in the Inventory:

Ladium has a high penetration resistance, Moderonium has less, and Airium has the least. High penetration-resistant materials reduce the energy of the ray cast quickly as it passes through blocks and this reduces its damage proportionally.

Penetration Distance

The ray cast has to pass through the block. The distance the ray travels through the block affects how much penetration energy is lost which in turn reduces the damage caused.

The angle at which a ray passes through a block is also important as this affects the distance that the ray has to travel through the blocks.