Robocraft Robocraft - A Simple Guide

A short guide created in the hopes of improving the quality of experiences with robocraft gameplay.

Introduction

Robocrafts' simple image was born of a simple want by its developers: originally, it was intended to be a simply marriage of World of Tanks gameplay and Minecraft creativity. With the several changes to core game modes along the games' development path, techniques to counteract new weapons and ever-changing meta have constantly followed - not unlike the real-life polarity of offensive and defensive developments in military technology.

As complex as this games' history is, and similarly the meta is ever-changing, this guide will be simple. I only intend to cover a very short selection of general tips, some of which are generally applicable to most competitive and semi-competitive team-based games on the market.

With all of this said, let us begin.

Section 1: The Bot

Before anyone can join a match, they need to design their vehicle. As of the creation of this guide, measures have been taken to make the robot-building experience easier for new players. Despite this, many choose to build bots with CPU ratings below 1,500 - this leaves a quarter of potential armor and gear wasted, often with no positive effects due to the poor situational awareness of newer or less experienced players.

Tip-Set 1: CPU Efficiency

You have 2,000 CPU to use for vehicles in public matches. Anything more is a megabot, and anything less than 1,750 is often leaving something to be desired. Most individuals will choose to create their own robots: With this in mind, all effort should be made to make full use of your CPU allowance.

Only once you decide you would excel in a long-rage or evasive role should you attempt to create low-CPU, highly-evasive robots, and even in these cases a high-CPU-cost vehicle will often perform at a higer efficiency.

Tip-Set 2: Survivability

Survivability is the key to winning an engagement, which often translates long-term into winning a game. survivability can be achieved in two major ways: protection and mobility.

The more recommended method, Protection, comes in two flavors, which are sheer health reserves and elecro shields. The more luxurious option, electro shields, are expensive in terms of both CPU and robits, and are incredibly restricting in terms of weapon and gear placement. The brute option is sheer health reserves, which involves forgoing most, if not all, placement of electro shields and only using light or normal cubes to create a large-profile hull for mounting your weapons and gear on.

Note: When using a protection approach to survivability, ensure that you attempt to encase all mobility in at least two layers of defense(Two-cube thick walls or one-cube thick walls with electroplate).

The more skill-reliant method, mobility, is reliant on player skills and situational awareness, only focused on by the majority of air-based vehicles and ground vehicles that are designed for flanking or long-range combat. Now, this doesn't mean low CPU: these robots may simply be less tanky due to an emphasis on modules or weaponry, or just use an exposed and weak method of movement.

Movement types all have their advantages and disadvantages; Wheels are fast, treads are slower but easier to hide, and mech legs(non-sprinter) are even tougher than that but almost impossible to protect. Rotors and propellers/jets/wings are flying, and fastest, but vulnerable to damage. Hover fans are in-between.

This method of survival inherently requires the player to avoid close-range combat and attention from the enemy, and as such usually involves flying or climbing movement.

Tip-Set 3: Offense

Ideally, you should be trying to eliminate your enemy as quickly as possible. This means having the best weapon for the job. Even with a weapon well-suited to your role, you need to have redundancy and backups. If you have only one flak gun and nothing else, you will be near-useless against ground vehicles and you will be disarmed quite quickly. A better setup would be to have lasers or plasmas for use against ground targets in self-defense, and using two small flak turrets in favor of a single large example.

This is a major selling point in the interest of non-top-tier weapons: not only are they expensive in terms of robits, but they are expensive in terms of CPU, reducing the amount of them and any backup weapons you may wish to mount. This leaves you vulnerable if you lose these weapons. Keep in mind that different tiers of some weapons behave quite differently.

Even with the right weapons, you can die quite easily to someone otherwise less-armed than you if they happen to know where to shoot and you don't. Ensure that you eliminate an enemies' weapons before they can do the same to you.

Section 2: The Match

Tip-Set 4: Combat

While this was touched on in set 3, the elimination of enemy modules is key to winning an engagement. This doesn't just apply to weapons: the elimination of an enemies' ability to maneuver will make them easier prey. This is the major reason you should protect your own mobility options.

Killing them off is also generally the preferable option, even in non-TDM matches. The short respawn time still keeps them out of the picture longer than if they fell back and healed up. As such, focus on a single enemy at a time and kill them off unless another is doing too much damage to sustain. You may want to make efforts to keep your allies alive, on this note.

Speaking of allies, numbers exponentially help in fights. One enemy (who does not know how to focus on a single target) will always do less overall damage to two targers than if you were alone.

Tip-Set 5: Objectives

Unless you are playing TDM, you are going to be attacking and defending some area of the map. Ignoring these will result in the match being lost, and even if you do an incredible amount of damage in a given area of the map, it will probably be your fault for the loss. This is because a singular enemy can capture points quite easily if they don't happen to be contested. Play the objective, and kill enemies in the interest of these objectives.

A key note, and something that can be observed quite often, is that players will often drive off of a point if they start taking fire. Do not do this. What you are doing is letting the enemy contest you. An inverse point is that you should always drive onto your own points in order to defend them; this blocks a capture.

Tip-Set 6: The Team

You will always have an advantage in co-ordination provided you play with people you know over a voice chat. if you work together to create a lineup of vehicles that leaves no weakness to any given mobility type, you will never be caught off guard by something like a missile helicopter or plasma bomber.

Use communication and co-ordination to split your team's strengths across the map. If flying enemies are focusing on your near point, then have your flak vehicle move there. If there is a shotgunner raiding middle point regularly, have tanky vehicles with a lot of redundancies focus his weapons and eliminate him.

Source: https://gameplay.tips/guides/1689-robocraft.html

Robocraft - A Simple Guide

Introduction

Section 1: The Bot

Section 2: The Match

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