Robocraft

Stingerbar

Anyone playing this? beta is free on steam

good laugh, build robots and fight them, pretty addictive

currently constructing giant shopping trolley robot covered in lasers

mcmoustache

I started a few days ago. It's very addictive. Like minecraft except with lasers, wheels, thrusters and all sorts of other parts. Then you fight in a team deathmatch.

I can see this game getting a good following.

Zillah

Looks kind of cool. Watched this trailer;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VcOhZ78-E4

One question: does your design really matter very much to the gameplay? It looks distinctly like just strapping as many guns onto your robot and spamming lasers at the enemy is the most effective strategy.

RedPandaDan

Zillah wrote: »

Looks kind of cool. Watched this trailer;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VcOhZ78-E4

One question: does your design really matter very much to the gameplay? It looks distinctly like just strapping as many guns onto your robot and spamming lasers at the enemy is the most effective strategy.

It matters a bit, but I reckon thats in later tiers. I mess around in T7 and I can't design for squat and have no problems.

mcmoustache

Zillah wrote: »

Looks kind of cool. Watched this trailer;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VcOhZ78-E4

One question: does your design really matter very much to the gameplay? It looks distinctly like just strapping as many guns onto your robot and spamming lasers at the enemy is the most effective strategy.

It matters a lot.

Most of the new tier 1 players just strap 6 guns to a chassis with 6 wheels and, as you say, spam the enemy. when you have feck-all parts, this is actually the only strategy available.

As you progress, you get armour, weapons and mobility upgrades.

Now, you would probably still try to use 6 guns because, well, why not. Now you have to think about placement. Enemies usually try taking out your guns first so they need to be spread out a bit. You might also decide that you expect to be fighting head on so you could place armour behind them to stop them from being taken out from behind. In the unlikely event that you won't be fighting broadside, you might want to protect them from the side too.

For the weapons to be effective, you don't want one gun blocking another so they shouldn't be on the same plane if they are close to each other. I think that only 6 can fire at once as well so additional guns are mainly for redundancy. The guns also need to be placed on blocks that aren't exposed. If the block on which they're placed gets taken out, so does the gun.

The placement of wheels is also important. If they are close together, they can be protected with armour but will control badly. Too far apart and it might be difficult to stop them from getting blown off during combat leaving you spinning around like an eejit.

Armour is also heavy enough and this affects how well you drive. Wheels have limited acceleration so if they have too much on top, the craft will be sluggish and maybe prone to flipping over.


Things get more interesting as you progress. You can create hovering craft and aircraft and these have their own problems such as thruster placement and balance. Since you need to be able to rise, you can't go overboard with armour. I haven't got this far yet.

There's a lot more to consider than just the above but these are just the things that I've spotted so far.

I've been playing for a few days now and while it seemed limited enough at first, now it seems like there's a crazy amount of possibilities. Seeing the craft that other players have created as well backs this up but you'll see this more in tiers 2 and above.

The game is free anyway, so the only cost is a bit of time and about 800 Megs. Battles are short and every battle gives you more parts so it doesn't take long to reach a point where you can design interesting craft.

mcmoustache

RedPandaDan wrote: »

It matters a bit, but I reckon thats in later tiers. I mess around in T7 and I can't design for squat and have no problems.

Tier 1 is actually hilarious for poorly designed craft that can't move or that spin around in circles or flip over. After Tier 2, the designs get a lot more sensible.

Zillah

mcmoustache wrote: »

Tier 1 is actually hilarious for poorly designed craft that can't move or that spin around in circles or flip over. After Tier 2, the designs get a lot more sensible.

I shall not bother with wheels. I shall be an armoured, stationary turret of doom.

mcmoustache

Zillah wrote: »

I shall not bother with wheels. I shall be an armoured, stationary turret of doom.

And protect the base?

Or, as I saw in a youtube video, you could strap your pilot to nothing more than a lazer and propel yourself around using the recoil. No need for any of the unnecessary cruft.

RedPandaDan

When I first started playing, a lot of players were making fairly static defenses of the base. A pilot seat, some floating cubes and a railgun. Can't move anywhere but float fairly high in the air raining shots down at attackers.

thebag89

Yeah started playing a few days ago . So far I think it's brilliant