Below are some common topics for beginners or people who haven't yet found out all the nooks and crannies. To be perfectly honest, Machine Craft lacks clarity for beginners, and has a high learning curve. If you've made a couple of machines, here are some things you might want to know.

Unlocking Expert Mode:
Not all properties and settings on parts are available to begin with. This requires unlocking through "Expert Mode".

You can unlock expert mode by going to the menu menu in options > misc and depressing "Expert Mode".

Sample Machines and You:
When loading mechs, there is a "samples" folder, including a large number of machines beginning with "_PARTS_" and "_TECH_". By opening these machines in build mode, you can analyze their properties and press "Tab" to see some developer commentary.

There are countless topics to learn of various difficulties, so these are handy for newbies and veterans alike, in case you don't know something elusive or forget something.


Multi Block Placement:
This is a little one, by holding Left Alt by default and pressing left click in build mode, you enter multi-place mode. Let go of left click immediately, and feel free to let go of Alt to not move at x4 speed when placing your box. Hold alt again and left click once more briefly after moving to define your click and drag area. This is a huge time saver.

WARNING: This does not work with right click and subtract. Doing so will wipe a large area of blocks, if not all.

The Undo Button:
The undo button is a key mechanic for any busy artist. It seems as though there is no default key for this, or it is not listed immediately.

However, you can access the undo button as a physical UI button in the tab menu when in build mode. I (quite embarrasingly) failed to notice this for the longest time, and I quite regret it.

You can choose how many undo steps MC stores in options > misc.

Using Multiple Action Pages:
Action pages are used to store various controls. You use these controls by binding the control as the triggering event for an action, inside a part's properties.

By pressing F4, you cycle through the 3 potential pages of actions for input events. Once again, I list this solely because it is done quite unconventionally for many gamers.

Extra Part Settings:
There are about 3 extra settings one should know when setting sliders.
1. "Free" is accomplished by setting a slider on Joints, Hinges, and Pistons to 0, then clicking the left arrow again. This causes a temporary release of all spring and dampen settings, but they will restore when the event ends.

Listing "Free" twice for a single input event (and ONLY twice, or it will not work) will destroy a joint in question. This will also destroy any other connections linking to the piece, such as a 2nd piston, rotator or hinge, regardless of the type destroyed. NOTE: This Feature doesn't work in battle modes.

The section that leads away from the core will be destroyed several seconds later. Health damage will be inflicted proportionally. Oddly, if a piston is attached to a core and destroyed, the core can exist with 1/2 piston on it with very little health, assuming the robot was at full health.

Free setting exists on scopes as well. This enables variable zoom with Mouse Wheel and page keys.

2. "Stop" is accomplished by moving a slider on Joints, Hinges, and Pistons to 100, then clicking right once more. Stop will cause the moving part in question to cancel ALL input events active, and, if set, revert to a neutral length or neutral angle.

3. "MAX" is a setting currently only found on Sleds and Thrusters, to my knowledge. It is accessed by setting a slider to 100, then incrementing upwards once more.

On a thruster, it will activate "afterburner" mode EXTREME force (up to almost 1000 KPH on some configs) for high energy cost. It makes an excellent addition for quick getaways or forcing a plane out of water easily.

On a sled, it will engage "sticky" mode. Do NOT use in multiples, or else the machine will jitter and cause client vs server physics errors. Not pretty.

Sticky mode does NOT stick to other mechs. This is only accomplished with X. It will, however, stick to terrain, loose ragdoll objects, and other parts of the same mech, although the last of which is also quite buggy.

Bonus tip: You can use alt to modify increment rates, and in most menus, A/D will move the slider, depending on mouse area.

Cyan and Purple settings:
Purple settings permanently change the way the object reacts. For instance, setting spring or dampen on a piston will change how it reacts to and receives force. By setting a purple "underwater" property on a thruster, it will only operate underwater. Purple events are NOT affected by listing order. Listing multiple will NOT cause a periodic shift, like it would other properties.

Cyan settings affect all events listed after the event in question. As a result, these are quite particular as to where they are placed. Using cut and paste is a quick way to remedy event order issues.

Intervals and Delay:
Interval and Delay are cyan settings available on almost all parts. These seem to operate in terms of frames per second. Most games, including robocraft, aim to operate at 60 frames per second.

In short, this means that 60 delay or interval is 1 second. Interval will cause delay between events after the first event listed. Delay will impose a delay for starting the evenst in question altogether, but after the delay is passed, will have no effect otherwise.

Preventing Block Sticking:
When using pistons, hinges, and rotators, having blocks touching the moving part can cause the part to no longer operate. You can see if a joint is stuck by pushing tab, and seeing if it starts to flash. This flash will persist until you modify properties or leave build mode.

Rotators and pistons can have blocks touching the part's side faces with no impact. Hinges however, do not share this grace.

There are many techniques to reduce or prevent block sticking. Here are a few:
-Spacing the blocks out directly with open air, of course.
-When using barrels and cannons, using rounded vs square shapes. Squares will stick to all adjacent blocks, but rounded only stick to the front and back facing blocks that do not touch rounded faces.
-Using slabbing with slab tool. If placed opposite from a face, it will deny that face as contacting. If placed in the middle, leaving 1/4 block's thickness in both directions, it will not stick to either face along that axis. Equally, cutting a 1/4 volume face can deny 2 or 4 directions, depending if it is centered.
-Using sculpting cuts. Say you cut a wedge shape to 1/2 volume. If you cut out the points facing Forward/Upward/Right and Forward/Upward/Left, blocks in the direction of forward or upward would no longer register as having contact, but the other 4 directions still would.
-Grouping. This one is complex and I'm not entirely sure about the parameters, but it seems using dummy group eliminates material collision, but will still stick without telling you under normal circumstances.

Example:
Say you cut a wedge between a rotator's "slave" and the block next to it. This would not stick or collied, but leaving a full block would indicate with no flashing, yet still stick in game.

I suspect different group numbers operate under a similar rule, but with collision depending on dummy vs non-dummy type groups. If I'm wrong about this, please let me know, as I'd love more info on the topic.

"III. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

~Newton's Third Law of Motion

Perhaps my favorie section: Physics. Machine craft's open nature and adjustable parts leaves a lot of observational science to be done, and there are lots of fun fascets explored and unexplored alike.

Got suggestions or burning things that need answers? This section is extremely open to fan topics and suggestions. If you have data to prove me wrong or assert new hypotheses into theories, feel free to screenshot the test environment, describe it, and/or send me a download mirror of it.

"Science is 99% peer review and 1% misquotation" ~ Benjamin Franklin

General Gravity
Gravity is complex as heck. I'm not gonna pretend to know all the mathematics and solutions to everything, but a simple way to put things is that weight is a major force. Gravity enacts movement, movement enacts momentum, more weight is more momentum, more momentum is harder to stop, in short.

1 Block, including chassis, is 1 unit of weight. Heavy blocks weigh 10, and dummy blocks weigh 0.1 units. This was previously 0, but is no longer. Sculpting seems to scale mass to match volume, although with some potential errors. Recently, I've seen wedges weigh 0.45 instead of the logical 0.5.

Antigravity units also weigh 1 block, and 1 unit of gravity is 1 block's weight. AG units can be amazing for aircraft, boats, or imbalanced vehicles, although great caution should be taken as to the fact that AG units will emplace massive quantities of weight or anti-weight to small spaces. In aircraft and boats, this can cause unwanted effects that exacerbate issues with weight distribution.

Piston Weight
I have ran a variety of experiments on pistons and gravity. It seems that each half of a piston weigh 1/2 block's mass. The same may also be true with rotators or hinges, but is mostly easily measured with pistons.

Experiments using resistanceless pistons and antigravity units have concluded that a block linked by 1 piston, containing 1 chassis, and 1 AG unit will either sink when set to 2 or rise when set to 3. The same setup with 2 connecting pistons will not move. If gravity is temporarily modified to 4, then 3, the object will lose energy before stopping and floating evenly.


Chassis Friction
We all know that sleds set to 0 have less friction than chassis blocks, and most all settings have more friction than a chassis block. So that begs the question: How much friction does a chassis block possess?

The answer is clear, yet not exact. Experiments using rocket sleds (pictured below) with different 2 block bases, but identical weight, shape, and thrust, were used to propel sleds across the ground, under the force of gravity. Top speed was the determining factor for perceived "friction" and 2 points of contact were used universally. Experiments with more points of contact may conclude differently or yield more precise results.


From this experiment, it was decided that chassis blocks have a friction of somewhere between 3 and 4, although closer to 4. Four was an incredibly close match, but not exact. This is currently merely observational data, but I hope someone out there working on sleds, breaks, or other friction sensitive tech can find this data useful.

Producing Decimal Gravity and Forces
Sliders in MachineCraft do not support decimals, this is a fact. Further, if one sets two settings on one event, it will toggle between the values provided at an interval determined rate, which is about 60 frames/1 second by default.

What is very interesting is that two inputs inserted from different input events will cause the output to average between the settings. Using toggleable controls, one can produce more precise outputs on thrusters, rotators, grav units, and more.

(Edit 4/12) Buoyancy and Water
Water physics are relatively simple, much to one's surprise. The only 3 things needed for succesful boats or possibly even subs are Mass, Buoyancy, and Balance.

Mass: Mass is produced by block weight. All blocks weigh 1 unit of "block weight" mass unless they are sculpted or heavy group. Heavy blocks have 10 BW per meter cubed instead of 1 unit. Sculpting reduces mass to match volume, but is known to have slight error margins, such as a wedge weighing 0.45 BW instead of 0.5.

Bouyancy: Buoyancy should be made to match mass as exactly as possible. Heavy blocks produce 10 BW but still exhibit 1 unit of bouyancy. Recall that 1 unit of Antigravity force represents 1 BW in counter-force. Thus, one should add 9 AG units of force for every heavy block used. To avoid boats flying out of water, exhibiting weird gravity in open air/land, or sinking, cutting back on heavy blocks and using selectively enabled AG units is key. The "underwater" purple setting will limit an AG's usage to water only, regardless of manual input.

Balance: Balance is a key obstacle. However, it is easier to define its opposite, imbalance. Imblance is the result of gravity or buoyancy being enacted upon an object with unevenly distributed mass. A robot with a heavy head and small feet will fall on its head, since its head weighs more and is more receptive to gravity. Likewise, a boat with unevenly distributed heavy blocks and AG units (not set to underwater) may make it behave oddly or even capsize. Heavy weight should be distributed as evenly as possible, and heavy blocks should be used sparingly to produce a smaller force of excessive mass to buoyancy ratio. Likewise, AG units should be set to underwater and placed in an arrangement that balances the craft when active, meaning closest ot the center of the boat's gravity.

In summary, by avoiding AG units and heavy blocks, most boat builders can still build massive vessels with compromising balance or combat ability. This is highly recommended for all the reasons listed above, and perhaps more.

A huge part of machinecraft is engineering. What you produce in one project can, without a doubt, become more compact, more reliable, and more easily made in another project. Real world technology largely follows this trend, and MachineCraft mirrors it wonderfully.

About pitch, yaw, and roll: Pitch, Yaw, and Roll are used to denote any configuration of orientation. Roll is obvious, it denotes turning something on its side, while not changing the facing of its forward and backward faces. Pitch is relatively easy as well, as it denotes turning something "up or down" (like sound pitch), while not changing the facing of its left and right faces. Yaw is the odd man out, and denotes the turning of an object "left and right", while not changing the facing of its top and bottom faces. I find these, along with the phrase "newtonian reaction", to be some of my favorite terms for machine craft.

Here's some things I've found that are noteworthy for engineering.

Trackers: Debugging and Operation
Trackers are the absolute core of most firing systems. The ease and precision they offer makes calibrating complex mechanics fast, easy, and inuitive.

I've even made a robot that uses a sword + shield setup using tracker powered arms and intelligent robotics. Don't ask me about legs, though, those are a domain best reserved for demigods.

Common problems with trackers:
(1.) Neutral Event Not Set By setting an input event in the tracker's properties (along with an optional offset), you enable its ability to move according to mouse movement. It can be selectively activated or left on using "Neutral" type events.

Setting neutral angles is also handy for resetting an aiming apparatus when not in use. For aircraft using adjustable cameras and guns, having a "lock" switch on these moving parts can have massive impact on how well they fly and balance on the go.

If nothing else, you can try enabling the trackers only when the fire button is depressed. For land vehicles using medium or small weapons, this will slow down your aiming when you need to re-engage a target.

(2.) Tracker Orientation Trackers will work in any orientation, except when facing upwards and downwards. The waffled edge should be facing Backward, Forward, Left, or Right. The orientation will influence the tracker's offset, so waffled edge facing Backward is handy for aiming "forward", so to speak. Offsets in the input event can also compensate for issues.

You may need to place temporary blocks to orient the tracker properly, and later remove them.

It is the opinion of the writer that up/down trackers fail on rotators in particular because rotators that control yaw are incapable of adjusting for an innate offset set in terms of pitch. Further, up/down oriented trackers have very little, if any, conceivable usage in engineering, and can thus be avoided without major consequence.

(3.) Surfaces Stuck Together Sometimes it's not the tracker's fault, but the joint or material's. If the tracker or its adjacent material is bonded to a surface, it may impede the ability of the entire apparatus to move, and hence, adjust to mouse position.

Higher Yield Turrets
Setting more trackers and hinges/rotators increases the aiming speed of an apparatus, as well as adds more weight tollerance and balance against extreme forces. Below is one of my inventions, I dub the "collosus turret" configuration. It is advised for heavy weapons, as it has extremely high yield, and hence, high space consumption.

The collosus turret yields 4x as much as a "standard" turret. Wherein, a standard turret is denoted as using one rotator that affects yaw and then a single hinge that affects pitch. The collosus configuration, by contrast, uses 4 hinges for yaw, all placed vertically parallel to another and converging to a single "spine". This use of joints covers 180 degrees, 90 degrees left and right respetively. From there, 2 groups of 2 rotators handling pitch are placed in series, which relative to their rotation angle, is parallel. The turret is placed on a forward C shape of sorts, and some dummy grouping is used to make the rotators spin to +90 or higher, and as low as they want, more or less.


And, at the end of the day, the gun operates quickly and precisely, even toting around some pretty hefty guns.


NOTE: I am aware the collosus system is far from perfect or boastworthy. There's probably some tricks with trackers one could use to compact it, and arguably better configurations of rotator vs joint, especially width wise. However, if used for a giant tank cannon, it is quite effective and with a bit of work can be armored significantly. Screenshots are from a proof of concept basic tank for the system, and the tank does quite well, surprisingly.

Stable Camera Tech
Precise optics are key for being able to lay down fire at long ranges, or even just accurately. Try to avoid placing scopes on tracker based guns, as this will cause the gun and scope to fall. This is a common issue I see on guns, and you owe it to your hard hours in whipping up creations to do better.

Further, I've reduced passive sway on camera configurations using a "robotic camera" setup, as I dub it. In my experimentation, testing 2 rotator vs 1 rotator 1 hinge vs 2 hinge based cameras, 2 hinges seem to operate with low space efficiency, but extremely little drift. Ideally, an embedded hinge is used for -90 to +90 yaw, and leads to another hinge that covers +90 to -90 pitch, with a camera mounted on the latter's tracker.

EDIT: After some dicussion with a friend who has read the guide, he has concluded that scopes placed upon tracker guns can be made significantly more stable, if tracker offset is adjusted to match, primarily for the axis of pitch. For reference, the person in question employed an offset of 25 degrees to the pitch-handling tracker, and reports it is signicantly more stable, and exhibits behavior incredibly close if not identical to the listed "robotic camera" coonfiguration seen below.


If you can do better with rotators OR have better overall, I'd love to hear about it, as always. I'm definitively convinced better always exists, and cameras/turrets, while my specialty, are by no means an exception.

Making blocks invisible:

You can set blocks to become invisible once in play by painting their color 0,0,0 (Black) with Translucent enabled. Emit or Glow will counteract the effect, so avoid using them.

Invisible blocks have no collision in game, except for sleds and possibly grouped lamps. Their mass is also negated (set to 0, it seems) but they CAN still function as normal.

Weapons, Amps, Barrels, Shields, Wheels, and Shafts cannot be made invisible. Cores, however can. Invisible cores isolated with only invisible blocks (this needs to done with piston breakage) will RAPIDLY destabilize your game if you somehow do this, or get you booted from a server automatically if not.

Invisible chassis do not contribute to the 1 block minimum of chassis for a machine to run.

Invisible mechanics (hinges, rotators, pistons) are highly recommended for compression. Seek to apply if a machine (regardless of weight) falls through the floor on spawn or collision with the floor. This is a system of, say, two rotators compressed onto the same block without one or more being invisible.

However, Extreme weight can also induce floor falling, while AG units and sleds can increase resistance in some cases.

Compressing space with L Type Pistons:

Here's a neat trick. Coloring a piston invisible, assigning it to "merge" group in groups tab (black and black, easy, right?) and setting two events set to a specific length will make the piston actually shrink space between blocks on a machine, pulling everything along with it.

As mentioned above, be sure to make moving parts compressed in on each other invisible, for the hinges pistons and rotators, to avoid physics breakage.

Weapons can be compressed on themselves without issue, so long as they don't move. Dummy group can also stop unwanted collision issues, in some cases, but WILL disable the ability of a part to operate its events.

Whatever the pistons are set to in length (100 being 1 block) will determine the space shrunk. Add 100 for the piston itself, as well. Setting a compression piston to "200" will cause the piston and 1 block after to compress into the block the piston is attached to. 200 is the most common use.

The same trick works with A type Rotators and Hinges, and creating angle offsets.

Merge mechanics do NOT increase body count if done properly, but do register as a "Split" it seems, which are not an error type.

For more advanced space compression or offset tricks, see our section on couplers and grouping!

Dummy vs Heavy Material:

Dummy material removes collision and eliminates between all and 90% of mass, depending on physics version. Dummy material blocks can still connect, making it handy for very specialized moving parts to not muck things up.

However, dummied functioning parts will no longer be able to operate, but size settings (say sizing or offset on wheels or shafts) is kept. Dummy blocks produce almost zero difference in stats. Some figures offer a few hp for every 10 or so blocks, but it is unknown precisely to the writer..

Heavy material increases weight to 10x its value, but leaves a mere 1 buoyancy. Heavy increases health and energy capacity by triple and double respectively it seems, roughly.

Heavy material can be counteracted by AG units and sleds, as to not fall through the floor by extreme measures of mass.

NOTE: Most servers don't allow > 5000 mass, or a mere 500 heavy blocks. Aim for under 5000 to play in most servers.

How and why to use different group numbers:

Different group number blocks (but NOT same number of heavy vs dummy) need to be connected by either a piston, rotator, or hinge, or by a "merge" (black) group block. If not, the blocks will not be included on the machine.

Different groups or group numbers can sometimes reduce physical reactions from one part of a machine to another, by margins that seem to be roughly half.

Different group numbers will not stick together, even if colliding. Grouping can make compact sets of moving parts not stick and still function. Couplers and compression can produce similar effects, but primarily grouping is the simplest method to do so.

Couplers: Bending space and adding sanity!

Two couplers painted to the exact same color will snap the two parts together once the game starts.

Couplers can be spaced by any measure of area and still connect, meaning well used couplers can keep your work space tidy and help debug other issues. For this reason, couplers can move two bits of a machine together without part sticking, similar to grouping.

Couplers are always merge group, and as such will stick different group numbers together, so be careful how you use them in delicate situations.

The piece of the machine containing the core will never be moved by couplers, but rather all other parts to it. Closing the same space with 2 sets of couplers is redundant and should be avoided.

Further, setting the coupler on the piece moving away from the core to different offsets of space and/or rotation (ranging -500 to +500 per axis and -90 to +90 on only one rotation axis at a time!) allows you to bend space in fun ways, and can become a key replacement for not only grouping but for merge type connectors as well.

100 units is 1 block's space, and 1 angle offset is one degree.

You can have as many couplers of one color as you want, so long as they aren't looping in a way that would try to move the same piece twice. The game will alert you of such an error by flashing couplers white once "Tab" menu is opened in building.

It is the opinion of the writer that couplers virtually make most applications for merge connectors and grouping numbers obsolete, but can be used in any ratio you so desire. There are many great builders that just don't bother with couplers, but the writer disagrees heavily purely on the basis of work space.

Telling hinge and rotator orientation: As shown in the figures below, you will see arrows in sets with a "forward" and "backward" direction. Don't be deceived. Look at the rotator. The arrows are opposing, but indicate what direction positive moves. If the new section leads away from the core, the indicator will be relative to that side. Note the two figures seen below.


Propellers vs Thrusters (Water): When it comes to moving through water, wheels are obviously not an applicable option, and robotics equally so. As such, this leaves the infamous thruster and the less appreciated shaft, for use in propellers.

There is much debate about which medium is superior for which application, but the general opinion seems to be that thrusters provide superior output for aircraft and land vehicles, but propellers produce superior output for use in aquatic environments.

Regardless, it is worth noting that due to the rotator powered nature of propellers, a newtonian reaction occurs that may invoke rolling or other rotational type drift when using high yield propellers. Use of AG devices may be desirable for those in aquatic environments, and perhaps air, but it seems probable that setting up a "counter propeller" that produces an opposite newtonian reaction (but equal forward force and lift) can be the most profitable. I, (YCCCM7), have not yet learned the trick to counter propellers, so if you know of how to produce them, please be sure to lend us a hand and we'll be sure to credit you as needed.

Below is an example of a propeller and some example shafts properties. The shaft is facing rearward in this picture, and producing counterclockwise force to move forward.


Also note how there are 3 propellers in this picture. All 3 currently rotate in the same direction (an inferior configuration perhaps), but the rearward propeller is directed by hinges. Right is positive output and left is negative output. Using turning controls and partial angling of this propeller towards the rear of the vessel creates a rudder. Rudders are used in real life to steer boats in a similar fashion. Without multiple propellers, it is probable that rudders will not work.

Automated and Manual Gyroscopes:
Gyroscopes are in many senses quite surreal. In many ways, they seem to defy logic and order, and almost seem like an exploit of sorts. Regardless, Gyroscopes are perfectly legitimate, and are even feature in a couple of sample crafts. Gyroscopes utilize rotational force in an isolated, abstract manner to produce rotational movement along a particular axis.

Gyroscopes, while very clever, are not particularly high yield. For this reason, using multiple gyroscopes may be needed to produce maximum yield and concise control, especially on large craft.

Automated Gyroscopes: Automated gyroscopes are powered by trackers. The tracker will attempt to match the axis in question to the mouse location, and for this reason should be considered for selective usage only.

Below is an example that has been seen in another guide in a nearly identical form. For this we apologize, but cite that information is objective and a public resource. In an effort to produce a comprehensive, one-stop guide, we are choosing to include this topic. For the guide in question, see "Basic Mech Building & More!" by BaronBrixius at the URL: http://sp.zhabite.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=652529544


The automated gyroscope works with 1 tracker for both modules because the tracker is still moving away from the core, and is an equal number of blocks away from both of the rotational parts in question.

Manual Gyroscopes: Manual gyroscopes are powered purely by input event. Taking yaw as an example, we can see from the construction is quite different in the figure below. The one on the left is disassembled, and the one on the right assembled. Red faces indicate similar points between the split model and the base of the model. Green faces indicate shaped cuts used to prevent block sticking.

Manual gyroscopes benefit heavily from heavy material, no pun intended. More mass = more reaction, and hence more turning.


It appears that the top and bottom rotators should match input polarity and strength, despite the fact that they should be opposites, logically. Further, in this configuration it seems as though right is positive and left negative. This compact gyroscope can be stacking in large quantities in otherwisie innate chassis sections, thus producing high yield, as seen in this submarine sporting a symetrical, 24 gyroscope configuration. Apologies for the jet black paint job in advance.


EDIT: Here is a simpler and more compact gyroscope made clear. The "pillar" slab cuts make it not stick to other surfaces without changing neighboring blocks. While this reduces block weight to somewhere around 1/4, turning the column into heavy group brings that mass ratio back up to 2.5 units of weight per block.


You can reorient gyroscopes for any axis. Seen above are just two Yaw gyroscopes, which are the most popular turning axis.

There are quite a few number of weapons in Machine Craft. Some of them are hidden, to a fair extent, even if listed in the samples folder. This is a basic rundown of various weapons, uses, and how to make them.

Cannon Based Weapons:
(1.) Basic Cannon; Requirements: 1 Cannon, Any number of barrels.
A basic cannon exhibits poor accuracy, a refire time of 16 units of cannon delay, and low damage. It generally does NOT produce a level of arc, from what I can tell. By listing the "cannon" or other input event twice, you can make the gun fire semi-auto instead of full auto.

Cannon and barrel quantity determine energy cost and recoil. Square barrels/cannons will stick to all faces adjacent to them, possible causing "stuck" mechanics. Round barrels only stick to those facing their non-rounded edges.

Damage formula: Special shoutout to one "RA2Lover" for linking us some damage formula stats on the matter. The damage multiplier seems to be as follows for cannons:
(1.0 + 0.1*(Number of Barrels)) * (Number of linked Cannons) * (1 + 2*(Is Mortar Gun?))

EDIT: Mortars got nerfed hard. Damage is no longer calculated as x3 for them.

(2.) Machine Gun Array; Requirements: >1 Cannon, Any number of barrels.
By placing multiple machine guns next to each other, with variable delays on the "cannon" event call, one can produce a rapid fire MG. Any barrels placed on the end of a "tube" of machine guns seems to affect all machine guns in the array. Aim for an even interval of delays, equal to 16 / number of machine guns, and starting on 0.

IE: For 2 MG's, use 0 and 8 delay. For 3, use 0, 5, and then 10. For 4, use 0, 4, 8, and 12. So on and so forth. Adding more barrels will increase accuracy/decrease spread. More machine guns in a "tube" will increase spread. This can be tactical.

A true "minigun" usually exhibits 8 to 16 guns firing in a perfect rythym. Do not exceed 16 cannons, as it will not work in MP.

(3.) Shotgun; Requirements: >1 Cannon, Any number of barrels. A shotgun is just like a machinegun, except with all weapons firing on the same delay. Semi auto is kinda fun here. More shotguns arranged in a "tube" will increase spread. This can be tactical. Barrels will counteract spread and increase damage, and seem to be shared by entire "tubes".

(4.) Mortar Gun; Requirements: 2+ Cannons, Less barrels than cannons. A mortar gun exhibits high arc, but extreme blast radius, yet low damage. A mortar gun is arguably one of the single hardest to use weapons in game. EDIT: As of recent patches, mortar damage went to crap. You were warned. Place one cannon with a "cannon" event. Place another cannon with NO events or properties in front.

(5.) Tank Gun/Blaster; Requirements: 2+ Cannons, Equal or more barrels than cannons. The tank gun is an oddity. Create a mortar, as listed above, but add an equal or greater number of barrels than cannons. By doing so, you create the tank gun. Note the very low arc and difference in sound/blast radius.

It is the opinion of the writer that, after experimentation, tank guns deal less health damage than vanilla cannons and have slight arc, but deal more concentrated damage for destroying moving parts, in addition to much wider damage radius.

It seems contrary to some data from earlier, tank guns are NOT perfectly accurate. References to a lack of "diffusion" on the japanese wiki may seem to reference not accuracy, but perhaps some other relation instead. It is the opinion of the author that, after extensive testing, this may be misinformation altogether. It wouldn't be the first time the JP wiki was wrong.

The tank gun is the sniper weapon of the game, and a fine choice for heavy vehicular combat. You can even make a giant cannon out of one for precise long range shooting, yet high precision punishment.

EDIT: As of the combat revamp, tank guns are meta. They bypass sword and shield absorption. Coupled with wide radius and high destructive force, a tank gun is a must for armor-piercing capabilities and some reserve high octane destruction.

EDIT2: Shooting swords with MGs nukes energy on enemy bots.

More cannons and barrels increase power.

Footnote: For whatever reason, the community seems to call tank guns with more barrels than cannons "blasters". Mechanically, it is the opinion of the writer that there is no discernable difference.

Swords:
Swords come in only one configuration, themselves. Adding amps in chains adjacent to the block increase power, yet increase energy cost. Longer blades also increase energy cost, and combat effectiveness. Movement speed seems to increase damage briefly, and adds more incentive for length.

Swords have the unique property of deflecting standard bullets and other swords. They appear to increase energy cost for parrying, and parry best in large batteries at long lengths. Such "shield" formations can destroy your energy easily, so use with caution and don't be afraid to turn them off. Tank guns, mortars, launchers, beamers, and dischargers all will bypass your swords, so by now it is highly recommended you use shields instead.

If you bury the "blade" of your sword in dummy blocks for decor, the blade itself will stop rendering and it will shift into "antiparry" mode. Antiparry does not block bullets (a tradeoff, depending) and most certainly adds 50% MORE damage!

Beamers:
Beamers have limited range, but instant hit time and high damage output. You can gauge them 1 to 10 in power. Placing more beamers in front of another, with the frontmost beamers having NO events or properties, will increase the range of the weapon, as well as the energy cost. Beamers are quite energy consuming, and are arguably the anti to the sword based shield, being another limited range stream weapon with adjustable, high energy cost.

It is the opinion of the writer that beamers, while costly, are a cheap (entendre intended) method of attack. They are so simple to use, they may arguably be one of the most popular and deadly weapons, second perhaps only to cannon family weapons unless energy is unlimited. Beamers can carry an ethically questionable amount of damage relative to their number of attacks, so if no energy budget is in sight, the beamer is the unequivocal deadliest weapon.

Dischargers:
Dischargers are unusual, but handy. By activating them, you must lock onto a target, usually, and it will teleport around the target repeatedly at long range. Dischargers can be charged up to devestating extent.

Dischargers best act as antiair or anti-speed "stoppers" to slow down your foes, but they are by no means an effective as a main weapon. Bear that in mind.

It is the opinion of the writer that dischargers are best for antiair vs small targets. Ascending 0-70 delay, in 10 piece chunks, makes for an excellent 8 piece volley.

Oddly, dischargers can be set with 2 input events to become "flares" of sorts. These flares fire in a straight line instead of jumping. If any lock on launchers are chasing the machine in question the moment the flare is fired, they will be scrambled if within effective range. More charge time = more range, HOWEVER, since launchers are most effective at close range for maximum DPS, this feature should be used cautiously and sparingly.

Shields: [NEW]

Shields previously used to passively eat energy and reduce damage, period. Now shields are manually turned on and off, taking time to fade once turned off. Input power decides shield radius. Shields can absorb one hit ONLY from a machine gun round before fading, only to reappear in a few seconds. Multilayered shields are great for a thick barrier vs small arms. Translucent shields will be invisible in game. Shields consume 1 attack each while turned on, so use them wisely. It is the opinion of the writer that 3 is the magic number, while 5 is a good overdrive setting.

Ran out of characters in the first section. Steam guides have a few issues I have beef with, so suffice to say this section was inevitable, frankly.

Anyways, not much to see here, but it's better than nothing.

Launchers:
Launchers are the new kid on the block. Not to be confused with the OLD launchers, named dischargers, these new launchers fire explosive projectiles that emit smoke and detonate like mortars. They are, however, significantly deadlier than mortars, but less accurate than dischargers, and feature no charge up for bonus damage, unlike their cousins.

To use launchers, keep in mind that launchers add 1 body per color used, and same color launchers automatically clone each other's projectiles. Add any blocks you want to the front of a launcher. Group doesn't matter, but dummy is recommended to cut down machine weight. Whatever blocks you add TO the launcher will be cloned as its missile and fired with a smoke trail upon use.

It is currently theorized with MORE evidence that blocks and overall dimensions add explosive size, not volume or total polygons. Adding forward size to a missile's dimension does not pay off, comparatively, and will often result in the missile not registering hits as well or not at all, even given the enhanced blast radius. Blocks will equate to collision size, but adding more size may limit the amount of explosion that contact the opposing target.

Targeting Computers:
Launchers need a lock on like dischargers, but also like dischargers, they now share locks with all individual launchers and dischargers. This is highly tactical for those looking to use launchers to their max effect.

To make a "targeting computer" for rapid fire launchers, program at least 1 launcher to always be on. "Neutral: 5" will do. This will never fire, but will acquire locks rapidly. From there, you can make a non-toggle control for other launchers to fire, causing them to let loose with just a mere tap, assuming you have your lock.

Their tracking issues alone dictate that you should only use launchers against very slow, very large and/or very close range targets. If you're in confined quarters and there's not much of anywhere to dodge, absolutely consider using launchers there, too. Most of all, practice and try out your launchers routinely. You'll get a feel for when to or when not to fire them off, trust me.

Dumbfire Launchers:
As a bonus feature, you can actually fire launchers without any need for lock ons or reliance on targeted aiming. That's right, we're talking "dumbfire"!

To fire launchers without lock on in the picture, list the same input event twice in a row. This will cause it to fire where it's aimed, and nowhere else!

A major issue many large caliber cannons have is kick back, or recoil. However, through some random tests and a few accidents I (Jenkins Naval) came up with a triple piston recoil system that, with minor adjustments, can reduce all recoil to virtually 0. Heads up. If you are looking for a compact design, have fun with that! :P This is device consumes a pretty decent amount of space. I have found that the longer that you make the piston or spring, is in direct correlation with how much lower you need to set the damper and spring is in direct correlation.

For example, the gun above is a twin 6 gun (12 cannon, tank gun) firing with 20 barrels. This produces high recoil and it takes up a large amount of space. However, by slightly increasing the width of the gun overall you can add two more springs, and set the main piston behind the gun to around 350-450 length, and set the pistons to a distance of maybe 10 units behind the gun mantle (a mass of blocks around the gun barrel). The long distance, in combonation with the small amount of resistance, causes a steady loss of energy while the gun fires. Hence, it produces less-to-no recoil. An important trick to remember, though, is the longer and slower, the better, but there are also ways to compact this design, which i am looking for and have some idea for. Also The longer the main piston is, the lower the dampening and higher the length of the side pistons. This gives the gun more distance to travel with a less steep of an energy loss, or less recoil.The design itself is fresh, and I am still testing many designs on future machines, as well as within new test enviroments. Until then, feedback is aprreciated, and test ideas will be considered. ~LeeRoy/Alex

P.S the examples above are set so main piston is 330 length, and the two side springs are 929 length, so the this one takes up a decent amount of space.

Dislocation Tool (Sculpt Tool #4)

For help using this tool, check out the Samples folder and some of the Tech section. This isn't an easy concept, so be prepared to have to look at it, experiment, and look at it again, repeat. Big concepts tend to do that on occasions.

The dislocation tool is odd. I may have the wrong name for it, so please let me know if I do. The first time I used it, I thought I broke something with slab tool, as this weirdly colored black star appeared and my block shoved itself somewhere somehow.

When using the dislocate tool, the black star represents the original location of the block you are dislocating. You use the tool to shove things around both visually and physically. You can move the block in question around in a 3x3x3 cube area, assuming the middlemost block is the original position. This is handy for complex visuals or weird things in compact spaces. Use for various decorative purposes as you want. (Example pictured below. Because 'Merica.)



Requirements for displace tool to stay connected in play or test mode:
-The block the object has been dislocated into MUST have a block inside its space already.
-The block must be the ORIGINAL location of the block, NOT a displaced block visually existing in that space.
-And the block that originally existed there must NOT be dislocated itself.

That being said, happy decorating. Combination with slab and "standard" angle based scuplt tools can make impressive effects.

Blowback Guns: From Blunder To Thunder

This one's a vanity piece, I warn in advance. But it's a really cool vanity piece.

Mechanical basis: In modern firearms tech, we note most conventional, gas operated arms being "Blowback action". In short, this means that the gasket takes gas forces generated during a bullet's explosion, and uses them to actuate a bolt or slide back on a weapon, using a shaped ejector and extractor system to jetison a spare casing, and to load the next cartridge.

Oddly, there is something called a "blowforward action", in which gas actuates the barrel of the weapon forward, using shaped parts to eject the cartridge and load a new one. A few japanese firearms from WW2 as well as the infamous Pancor Jackhammer are a couple examples of the very few guns that use blowforward actions. They look really cool, though. (As seen here at Forgotten Weapons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKo06FgXlMM )

But here's some fun science behind these actions. Blowback actions slightly reduce recoil by newtonian reactions enacted by the force of the action, whereas blowforward actions moderately increase recoil. With this in mind, I did some tests a while back on the effect of "mock" blowback actions vs blowforward actions vs stationary weapons without action.

I found that static guns and blowforward actions receive identical recoil forces. Strangely, blowback actions (originally made for asthetics) seem to almost invisibly reduce recoil transference. The following screenshot shows this invisible difference after nearly 20 shots.



The front is static, the 2nd is blowback, and the 3rd is blowforward. Notice the lessened return on blowback, if even by a fraction of a block.

I've gone through various phases of making blowback actions compact.

The first method used fitted parts and a combination of Spring: 1 and Dampen: 4, along with a cannon event that changed up the length a bit. This was initially complex, hard to armor, and space/time consuming. Pictured below.


Just look at all those fitted angles. NOT practical by any means.

Next I compacted the mechanism using Length type pistons with a neutral length of 200 and a cannon event of "Free", with 50 spring and 100 dampen when not freed, allowing for a good "snap" back into place. This operates quicker and more compactly, and no longer needs to have the bolt of the weapon "keyed" to limit its movement against spring forces. Pictured below for "Howard the howitzer, MK2"


But as you may have noted, I still had to fit some of the armor to not stick the gun shut. We can do better. This is always true. Note the clip in the middle of the barrels was to reduce damage to the gun in combat, by means of a shield.

Finally, for the MK3 we use rounded barrels for the inside of the gun. As listed in the cannons section, square barrels/cannons stick to all 6 faces, whereas rounded barrels only stick to 2.

"GENTLEMEN... BEHOLD!" ~Aqua Teen Hunger Force


Now if THAT isn't intimidating, I don't know what is. I find blowback guns to be really cool. These only actuate as one presses and releases the trigger, so semiauto fits best, in my opinion.

At the time of writing, health is now calculated by the number of unique blocks occupied, and what they are first occupied by, or so it would seem. Basically, volume, but stacking doesn't count. (Thank goodness)

Boxes and capsules, when set to heavy material, provide HP roughly 1/2 that of competing volumes of chassis. For this reason, boxes and capsules should be used sparingly when performance is desired, or added on as a decorative afterthought or layer.

That being said, boxes and capsules can be adjusted in offset, size, rotation, and color, and even used with stamp parts if one has premium. They are incredibly useful in terms of decor. Capsules can be set to cylinder, hemisphere, capsule, or cone shapes. It is unknown if round or specialized shapes possess accurate collision, but it is known that capsules and boxes possess collision of some shape or another, and this should be accounted for near functional parts. Setting a capsule or box to dummy will make them purely decorative, so knock yourself out if you're using dummy material.

Using Stamps:
Took me long enough, eh? Anyways. To use stamps, one must have machinecraft premium. Once you have premium, assuming you're interested in using stamps that badly, you can reference any .PNG file located in your user_data/_images folder.

Enter the file name, minus the .PNG extension, into the "Advanced" > "Stamp Image Name" field in build mode. The image's dimensions should be a power of 2 (32, 64, 128, 256, up to 512) and its name should end with a Hashtag, followed by 2 single digit numbers. For instance, #21 would indicate that the image should be split into two pieces width wise, but one height wise.

These will be assigned to a stamp "frame number", so use an F type stamp with 0 or 1 to use the said resulting 2 images. S type stamps cause movement of the stamp's orientation, so they are used much less often.

Attach a stamp to any box or capsule, if the writer is not mistaken, and it should load if all went well. If you make the box or capsule translucent, the image can use the transparency capabilities of .PNG. I don't have room to cover that here, so look that up on the web some time. Spoiler alert: MS Paint removes transparency from PNGs once edited in said program.

The Key for Science
If you want to explore robotics or other timing sensitive areas of research, you need to play with interval and delay, and you have virtually zero margin for error. Below are some statistics and examples for how quickly Rotators, Joints, and Pistons move relative to delay and interval in frames. Default interval is 60 frames, or about one second. If you need 1 second intervals, you don't need to set the property.

Note: Delay and speed are inverse, meaning that to have 2x more speed, you have 1/2 the delay, and visa versa, so on and so forth. This field is highly experimental, and I would love to hear better stats as they become available. Thank you.

Test environment:
-Three of each object were placed, one with no delay or interval, one with delay, and one with interval and a MoveForward event of 0, followed by matching speed to other objects of its type. It appears 2 interval works the same as 1 delay, but it's very unclear why.

Hinges: At 50 speed, one will want 9 units of delay or 18 units of interval for every 90 degrees traveled by a hinge. 50% Speed on an angle hinge appears to be equivalent, except for acceleration and deacceleration.

Rotators: At 50 speed, one will want 18 units of delay or 36 units of interval for every 90 degrees spun by a rotator. 50% Speed on an agle rotator appears to be equivalent, except for acceleration and deacceleration.

Pistons: At 50 speed, one will want 2 units of delay or 4 units of interval for every 1 block traveled by a piston. 50% Speed on a length piston appears to be equivalent, except for acceleration and deacceleration.

We want to construct a scientific, dynamic set of principles, do's, and dont's for a great community resource on the field of robotics. If you have any examples you can link to, concepts you can share, or anything else of value, it would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Doug and Sterling as officially obsolete, although fun. Adam is being preserved as a stepping stone to the "Centaur" system. See below.


ADAM:
Adam was inspired by the design of the "Atlas" robot by Boston Dynamics, which fairly recently gained popularity on social media communities. After carefully observing how their legs work, and in turn, partially how human legs work, the leg system seen above is very logical. This made is made more controllable by the fact that Adam MK1 currently turns using dual, manual gyroscopes.

Here are some key facts about Adam's movement system.
[1.] The use of "hip rotators" allows for a high degree of leverage from its waist to the ground, controlling the whole leg.
[2.] The hips angle forward, in stationary position, 30 degrees. The knees angle backward 60 degrees, and the base of the foot forward 30 degrees, making the feet level to the ground at all times.
[3.] When walking, the waist pivots forward and the knees curl back slightly, by a total degree of about 60 in both fields, once again keeping feet level to the ground. Further, the feet perform 10 degrees of motion in an odd pattern to add a slight level of boost. Finally, the speeds of these angled units are set to 200%, the interval to 30 frames, and the left and right legs oppose each other using "blank" (matching neutral position) events at opposing orders, mixed in with the events listed above.
[4.] The bottom of the feet are "wedged" at the front and back to make sure the center of balance resumes nicely. Most importantly, in each of the 4 directions, there are 10 block chains of invisible blocks, including 1 AG unit set to -100. This high use of weight and angular force allows for the bot to use minimal weight for a high degree of stability. This may be improved upon later, but initial attempts to reduce AG force resulted in imbalance.

Adam has a top speed estimated between 10 to 25 KM/H. Vertical speeds make measuring this precisely very difficult.

Side piece; Grav-Lev technology:

If you've ever built a large tank with a collosal gun, and watching it fall off balance due to relatively small weight, you know the effects of leverage and force. In this case, the long, relatively light tank gun flips the rest of the tank over due to leverage. After briefly viewing a russian youtube video, a startling discovery was made, even if not explained. The video featured a robot using large chains of invisible chassis, topped off with gravity units that seem to have added weight. Low weight levels can be used to induce very high stability in system, by using leverage.

Pictured below is the "Centaur" robotics system, stabilizing by 6 chains of similar setup blocks. The grav units are placed at the end of 14 chassis blocks, set to a "neutral" even of -75 each. Each 15 block chain, placed symettrically, adds large volumes of stability cheaply and easily. Forget making mechs bottom heavy, just make their center of balance extremely large!


THE CENTAUR:
The centaur is a direct evolution of Adam. Working well with 4 and 6 legs (possibly 2, but this remains untested), a 6 legged model can run up to 170-190 KPH supposedly, but vertical motion makes this hard to measure.

The Centaur, as mentioned above, uses Grav-Lev technology for extreme stabilty, while not adding enough weight to break physics. Further, it seems heavy chassis is not a practical option for walkers, for many reasons, most of which related to speeds, lift, and sinking through the floor.

Here is the Centaur in game. Mind the mock robo cigarette. It's about the most American thing I could think of to pair up with the "sunglasses" visor look.


Before we get into robotics. Here is the current best shape of a left leg. Mirrored perfectly of course for a right leg. The arrangments of the joints is incredibly important for maximum leverage running forward. Equally, it cannot run backward at high stability, like it could moving forward. As such, it walks modestly backwards. All legs are synced perfectly to left and right only, unlike many other designs.


The red portions are special shaping to maintain balance against angular forces. These are believed to help stay on the "flat" of the foot during intense running. Add the right red portion to only the front leg of the set, and the left red portion to only the back leg of the set.

Pictured below are, in order: Left Waist, Left Knee, Left Ankle, Right Waist, Right Knee, and Right Ankle.


Suffice to say, the Centaur is a direct evolution of the "Adam" leg system. Now with higher yield, stability, and more scientifically tuned design. While the Adam system immitates human legs, the Centaur system imitates horse legs, hence why it runs better in sets.

Outside Submission by HogHug: Sprinter Bipedal

While the writer has their own bipedal formula (essentially) listed, they acknowledge awesome hard work and great results when they're achived. Below is a submission by, as listed above, HogHug, who is from Asia.

Anyways, this mech is more experimental, but in its current state, pictured below (order of Left Hip, Left Knee, Left Ankle, Right Hip, Right Knee, Right Ankle, and of course structural view), it is quite fast indeed and shows great promise. Hog asked the writer to give a shoutout and the bipedal design for these reasons, and the author agrees fully.


NOTE: No shadowlegs are used, and no sled programming is needed.

Note: These may contain some degree of profanity, so NSFW warning ahead, sadly. That's just how I roll, you have been warned.

Otherwise, I'm looking to show a lot of things that can't be conveyed super well or are hard to maintain in a guide.

Bootcamp: In episodes 1-4 we cover some basic combat info. In 5-7 we do some upgrades to a 2 minute tank, and make it formidable, and in 8-11 we do some example builds and try to stay vigilant for improvement. [SERIES IN PRODUCTION]

Preamble (1-4): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6NPjVRogZUhoaJJD1sK1w39FpoVcG8SY
Enhancements (5-7): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6NPjVRogZUgYmTWu172dX0D-RXcMFjjS

NOTE: It has come to my attention that G2 Crew has since made sleds unshootable. Any references made to using sleds as fashionable ways to increase armor reliability should herein be replaced with making a plate no less than 2 blocks thick to stop heavy weapons. Same concept, more weight and visible area involved. As a guy who was probably the biggest proponent of shootable sleds, I still openly acknowledge that this patch was for the greater good, hands down.

BONUS PSA! I discuss (in fluff) the idea of posterity vs performance and whether I believe stacking weapons to be "exploitative" or "part of the game". Open to input on the topic, but I will state my experience has deeply rooted my current perspective. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lco6akqT7mY )

Building Log: We take time to explore what defines a good craft and how to build it, step by step in real time. New player friendly, I would imagine.

Building Log #1 (Hovercraft): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59d_llai85k
Building Log #2 (Hipocrite/Tank): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POI5N-HHBuM
Building Log #3 (Easy Walker): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIcXWgGCabM

And finally, here's the big one! Finally did this vid more or less right. If this isn't an acceptable tut for making a combat ready bot for midspec to high spec, I don't know what is.
Building Log #4 (FULL Combat Mech!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX9SvCJAa2I&

If your comprehension isn't advanced enough to grasp Building Log #4, we've got a new one for you!
Build Log #5 (Bare Basics Combat Mech): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_StHZ2pnyA

Build Log #6 (Airplane w/ universal graft!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF2BqWiYijA

Tech Talk: A brief rundown of experimental concepts and various technology. Ideally this will be updated every week or so. We'll see what actually happens in the torrent of my schedule.

Tech Talk #0 (Foundation Episode) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GlYKSi54Zc
Tech Talk #1 (Flash Robotics) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPXcGRhyjQM

Random battle: Titan Mech vs Massive AI guns spaceship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPSvisRTNFs

Yo, just redid this section, just like ya' ordered boss. Anyways, screw weight classification and all that specific categorization, this is now a 5 piece section dedicated purely to combat roles.

Harasser:
Harassers are the tiny little stragglers that love to take advantage of poor manuevering and sight abilities to launch sneak attacks and nail objectives. While they're the first ones to show up AT the objectives, they lack the firepower to bombard it long term, and would lose out to a skirmisher or above attacking their target back. Harassers have almost no margin for error in terms of HP content and weaponry selection. Their small size often adds to this problem by limiting their ability to mount armor and damage resistant skeletons. It is also not uncommon for short weapon length to render most harassers very short ranged. Do or die baby, do or die!

Scout:
Scouts are passable in a fight, but not glamorous. They move quickly like harassers, but lack the small profile for anywhere near as much stealth or outmanuevering tactics. Their firepower is most the way there, making them excellent targets for laying down the hurt on objectives, if they get there. They can still often use their high mobility for last minute ambushes, but safe to say disruption and base assault are problably where they shine best.

Skirmisher:
Skirmishers are the absolute inbetween. More durable and carrying more firepower heavy than scouts, if only in energy budget. Their mobility is still good in the best of cases, and they can do tons of damage to objectives if they get a crack at them. They could arguably be said to be best suited to pick off harassers and scouts using their statistical superiority, whereas some bigger classes could get outmanuevered to dangerous degrees. The slower move speed of skirmishers often predisposes that harassers and scouts can still get the drop on them or the objective, while also taking longer to get to locations, leaving them in a painful situation as a jack of all trades. Most skirmishers can also be expected to lose to equal quality assault or other heavier classes.

Assault:
Assaults are all about raining down the firepower. While not explicitly super durable, their firepower is finally at about the legal limit, quite possibly including energy costs as well. They feature the firepower to shatter scouts and harassers with ease, as well as doing major damage to skirmishers at alarming rates. Often the assault's only question isn't who's explicitly deadlier, but either who's tougher and who can land hits more often. The Assault's larger profile tends to limit mobility a fair amount and generally makes them a bigger target. This adds up to assaults being near impossible to miss under practical conditions, but due to their tendency towards longer weapons, they may very well hold the range advantage. Assaults are capable at offense, defense, and just plain old slaughter, making them excellent at whatever they set their sights to, so long as they aren't limited by their size to a fatal degree.

Siege:
Sieges are much like assaults, but boasting slightly more firepower in some cases and toting more hp and lower ground speeds for a fact. Sieges are perhaps the hardest to find done well, but the most devestating when done as such. Their mobility makes them awful at base assault, and to an extent, base defense, but their firepower and HP almost surely guarantess they'll win a fight so long as they can hit. The siege class arguably loses out in long range combat to assaults, given that they are so massive that assaults simply cannot miss while doling out their massive firepower. Sieges also suffer from high costs in some cases, meaning that a single dead siege can count for a few dead teammates in weight.

Bonus Piece; Titan:
Titans are the other guys. Anything bigger than a siege is probably a titan. You can spot a Titan because titans are so excessively huge, they are sluggish, clunky, and impossible to miss while firing at. Their size limits their ability to fight most sizes of mechs with any true level of efficiency, and quite frankly their only speciality in combat is taking down other titans. Some titans rarely use large volumes of small arms to kill smaller classes of machines, but even these titans can be outmanuevered and stamped out against practical piloting. Titans are highly recommended against usage in the modern battlefield. Even with speed limit HP scaling, they are large to the point of being almost purely a downgrade against other bots, at least compared to a siege class.

Featured left to right: Harasser, scout, skirmisher, assault, siege.

This was a viewer suggested piece. To cover this adequately I will be breaking it up into sections based on part, so I can talk at length AND better organize things.

I hope to discuss popular weapon configurations, differences in suspensions, aiming systems, and so on in a manner that can teach those new and old about what tradeoffs they make when designing a combat machine and choosing how to outfit it.

I will likely also be adding or discussing some material on the topic of combat practices and a a checklist of things you'll want and common mistakes people make, so you can learn from the mistakes of the many, and rise above all but a select few. Or so I hope. Stay tuned.

Now this may seem like an unusual, overly basic, or even downright condescending depending on your perspective, but something as simple as the method by which one yaws and pitches their weapon's aim can have supreme bearing on a machine's effectiveness.

Before we talk business, let's talk philosophy. If machinecraft is a game about engineering, we should learn from the methodolgy of most military forces. One, singular phrase appears time and time again.

"As few moving parts as possible."

While this is primarily a matter of reliability in military terms, we'll be applying this philosophy mostly to durability. If you have more, excessive moving components swinging your guns around, a well placed shot can level a smaller, divided segment and take your whole weapon with it. Additionally, more bodies is more cost and more parts to check tolerances on, so there are MANY reasons why when it comes to some systems, simplicity is the single best asset you can possess.

Example 1:"The Turret"

As seen above, the "Turret configuration" is a solid balance of how to aim on a static body. In the opinion of the writer, it is indeed the second best known configuration of aiming. It is an excellent way to aim for beginners, but remember to limit your ranges of motion and to pad your shoulders with sufficient material.

It functions by aiming the entire arm up and down at the "shoulder" using a rotator, providing pitch aim. After a small connecting shoulder "block", it transitions into a yawing rotator for left to right aim at the "elbow". There are no "hands" but there are indeed guns you can slap on.

Pros: Easy to make. Moderately durable. Relatively few number of parts. Moderate aim range.
Cons: Requires proper angle limiting to avoid conflicts. Uses too much vertical space when aiming. Non-360 yaw aim.

Example 2: "The Brendan Fraser" AKA "The Eastern Arm"
The E type arm [left], not to be confused with Brendan Frasier post alimony [right].

While by no means unanymous, this particular make of arms is unusually popular with the boys in the east. The writer suspects it's related to mecha works of fiction, but lacks the knowledge to prove it.

The E type arm seeks to use a simpler series of motion, with pitch at the shoulder and along the "wrist", while still providing yaw at the elbow. The writer doesn't trust these on the grounds that they add too many moving parts, particularly with small segments, and overall just run up the machine cost bill without adding much more than slight reliability over turret arms. Their longer, noodley stature can also help bend around points of conflict, but the length alone adds problems with close quarters combat. As the meme says, "Just F me up".

Example 3: "Minamalist" AKA "The Full Turret"

What. That's right. The answer is SO simple! Unparalled in minimum moving parts, close quarters manuverability, and minimum part conflicts/cost, the Minimalist is indeed arguably the fastest, easiest way to provide up and down aim. But wait, you say! It doesn't aim left and right! How the hell-

OH. That's how!

By aiming left and right with the waist, you not only also get left-right aim, you can straight up have 360 degrees wraparound aim. The enemy literally can't even hide from your rain of fire. For mounting 2 arms with guns to aim l/r and u/d, you add 3 moving parts instead of 4 or more. That's a dang good deal there boy-o. Of course, this usually requires a pelvis core and if your torso is blown out, it means you're a pair of legs, unless you brought enough dakka for the whole class.

See my combat mech video for how the heckleberry and fin to mount a skeleton to negate this property, if you can sleep at night knowing as much. The same skeleton can ALSO make a torso core of this configuration, but that's a bit more complex.

This is a topic that's harder to really paint in full, but I'll try to do my best and describe what defines each of these categories properly.

Note: In theory, any amount of attacks per cycle should define damage based on accuracy, damage output, shot quantity, and shots that hit, but oddly one finds that certain configurations do indeed change use and effect greatly. Preferences are part of it, but I'd like to think that efficiency still plays a role.

Not sure about tank guns or other weapons? Check the weaponry section and how to.
REMEMBER: 16 attacks max in battle modes. Boss tags don't work.

We'll be calling "normal" cannons "MG" rounds in this section.

Cannon Family:
Machinegun, Minigun, Jackhammer:
For when you just need to lay down lead for years without stopping.

MGs, Miniguns: Standard Cannon rounds fired in 8 piece rythyms. Conservative. You can increase the rate of fire higher, up to 16, where it grows closer to a minigun at that point. You draw the line here. Good for shooting down missiles or overloading swords by excessive impacts.
Jackhammers: Firing 8 tank guns in a greedy, but high octane configuration, a jackhammer features less quantity in turn for broader impact and slightly higher fire costs. Regardless, jackhammers are a solid alternative to MG's if your opponent wants heavy shielding.
Doubled MG: Two shots fired 8 times per cycle. This MG is more rigged towards quick and merciless shield destruction, while still featuring a rapid stream of projectiles to boot.

Spread Cannon, Full Shotgun, Shock Cannons:
Why spray the lead down over time when you can send all the hurt at once? A real gamble, sure, but maybe it'll pay off.

Spread cannon: Spread cannons use 6-8 attacks at a time, twice per cycle. They work best with tank guns, as to exploit their broader impact area, combined with spread, to hunt out weak points on other bots, while otherwise just slamming them with large volumes of fire.
Full Shotgun: Fires 12-16 attacks at a time, once per cycle. Because what could go wrong with a crapload of pellets at once? Well, your ability to land before the next refire point, really. Still, though, an excellent brute force weapon at close ranges.
Shock cannons: Because nothing is more frightening than raining down small shotgun spread 3 times per cycle. Okay maybe not. But still, utilizing 2-3 tank gun shots 3 times per cycle, the shock cannon is unsymetrical, but balances spread, wide aoe, and sheer rate of fire for a great catch all weapon with a solid sting per shot fired.

Banshees, Demolishers, and Annihilators:
So your enemy thinks they have a tactic? Be it dodging, shields, or other defensive methods, sometimes the best solution is just to throw everything at them in an avalanache that leaves no countertactic.

Banshees: 3 tank guns and 6 machine guns, with a highly irregular rate of fire. Paint whatever rate you want for this one, because you simply can't go wrong. Most effective in 16 attack configurations, the banshee is a costly but unstoppable stream of varied antiair fire. The two separate velocities make it harder to dodge for agile aircraft as well.

Demolishers/Annihilators: A true haymaker of a weapon, Demolishers fire 2 MG rounds and 1 tank gun rounds from a two-headed cannon configuration 4 times per cycle. They also alternate which head shoots which form of projectile, making a devestating flurry of projectiles. Slow it down to 2 time per cycle and you have yourself an annihilator.

Hellfire Missiles: For the small, annoying flies that get too close to your face, use hellfire missiles. Simply take 8 launchers (each launcher is 2 attacks, but 1 projectile) and fire them at alternating 100 and 90 speed, with delay property (listed before events) as 0, 10, 20, etc up to 70.

The delay makes hellfire missiles significantly harder to shoot down all at once, and the periodic unwinding in "vollies" increases their odds of landing at least a single hit. Missiles of any type are NOT a mainstay of weapons, but rather a smaller, nicer tool. Any competant combat bot won't fear pure missiles for even an instant. Toggles are amazing for missile controls.

Bayonets, Pikes, Chainswords:
Bayonets are an excellent way to integrate counter-melee into a gun using bot. Simply compress the sword block of choice into part of the gun, setting its length probably between 8 and 10, maybe 12 tops. Compress 4-8 swords per arm (assuming you have two) for a concentrated stabbing tool for when it's time to get messy. Toggles are great for sword controls.

Set sword lengths to 30+ and cut quantity in half for "pikes", which are used to either fend off meleers at longer range than their swords reach, or to "skewer" fast things that insist on getting in your face for massive bursts of damage, assuming they leave the ground.

Chainswords: Use 4 attacks at 10-12 length and 4 attacks spinning along the up/down axis with 8 or so length. Compress the spinning blade into 1 block's size for minimal collision conflicts. Chainswords can stab and slash in equal quantities, and for better or worse sponge up large quantities of enemy fire as well. Chainswords have a broad and far reaching attack area, making them EXCELLENT utensils for ripping tall robots (also see: Mechs) asunder under a singular, pinning blow. Chainswords are quite dedicated weapons in attacks consumed, so be warned. Once you rev that puppy there's very little chance to turn back.

Custom Swords:
NEW: By encasing the blade area of a sword in non-transparent, dummy group boxes or chassis, the blade itself will choose not to render, meaning you can make the blade look how you want.

FURTHER, The resulting "custom blade" cannot parry bullets and quite possibly other swords (untested), but also gains a 50% damage bonus for damage inflicted. If you want bayonets the enemy can't shoot into submission by mauling your energy, custom swords may be for you!

One last section here on slinging your ferocious lead fountains around, I promise. Anyways, this section is mostly about the ways you can mount an arguably effective method of attack with little to no regard for moving parts. Talk about specialized!

Chest Guns/Static Launchers:
It's no secret launchers do better when they aim up and down, but holy hell, could you even really consider using static cannons?

Actually, yes.

Assuming you use an upper body that aims left to right at the waist, mounting guns in the chest will make them fire at chest level on even terrain.

Let me put this another way: If you're a walker with chest guns, your guns don't need to bother aiming up and down yet are perfectly situated to start plowing their way into other walkers. This is a great real estate opportunity you shouldn't miss, if you are indeed a waist rotator. Personally, I get a kick out of demolisher chest cannons in particular as a great CQC haymaker against ground mechs.

Further, you can do something similar with static missile launchers as well. You can embed launchers into other bodies (such as your torso or your gun arms, but make sure it's the same body as what it's compressed into, or else jitters.) at a +15 to +30 degrees aiming offset. 15 degrees can hit ground targets on a good day, although not well, and either can let missile tracking chase air targets across the sky with their plasmatic fury. A little unusual, but if you don't want to bother will missile launchers, just cramming some into your arms isn't a bad move.

Missile Ears:
"But my arms tend to get blown off a lot, so..."

I mean, just look at these adorable little ears packed full of lock-on fury. While seemingly "cutesy" in design, missile ears are an excellent compromise on a competitive fighting machine. Put simply, they only need to aim up and down, probably anchored onto something that already aims left to right to some degree, such as an upper torso. With this groundwork set, your arms can get totalled and you still have a method of delivering AA in a fast and accurate method. Additionally, most people prioritize missiles so little in threat that they are unlikely if not nearly unheard of to be targeted by foes, airborn or otherwise.

Everything Else:
"Anything's a weapon in the right hands."

At this point, I merely signal to you, the audience, that this game is one of imagination and invention. If you can think of a way to cram a gun into something, and it looks like it can probably hit the enemy fairly often, sounds like grounds to me to try shoving a gun into it at sometimes.

I mean, it's just real estate going to waste, right? Right.

Shoulder guns are worth mentioning, but they are often varied in terms of design and implementation, so I merely urge you to figure something out. A hinge and a tracker can do it if nothing else, really.

BOI.

One might easily overlook suspensions and write them off as truly interchangable, and really a matter of fashion. I'm here to challenge that assumption outright.

In the simplest terms, suspensions determine the center of gravity, cost, flexibility, and statistical density of a bot. It may also, to some degree, determine the profile of the bot, or how easy it is to shoot due to its own scale. However, due to the non-importance of a machine's lower half, most often the size of the legs doesn't matter as much as that of the upper body.

But how much of a difference could it make, really? I mean, come on!

Depending, quite a lot. The two bots above are roughly the same height and their upper bodies are incredibly similar, but the Dullahan (right) has WAY more energy capacity due to its longer lower half.

So let's talk business.

Example 1: Slider Tank

If you want statistical density, a strong center of gravity, relatively low cost, and simplicity to build, then maybe the tank body is the one for you. Slim in terms of height, while still long and moderately broad. The density for this one is off the charts. Toss in heavy material, you can get triple energy out of the package at very little tradeoff, too.

Example 2: The Biped

The biped is the daunting meta amongst bots, but if you want to know how to make some, see the combat walker or walker tutorial in the videos section.

But if you want to know the real secret? Movement type doesn't really matter unless you're a pure walker, which I rarely, if ever, recommend. How the legs move is mostly for decor, but the biggest favor you can do yourself is to go all in on heavy, and don't forget to make wider feet on the bottom, too.

Wide/long feet = more stat benefit (roughly half from your lower body) and a stronger center of gravity. You gotta love that!

Moreover, the biped's thin legs allow for high ranges of motion for the upper body's guns, and generally an overall thin and easier to control platform to base off of. Downwards aim is a precious thing.

Example 3: Quadroped

The quadroped basically combines the benefits of a slider tank bottom (at less quantity, admittedly) with the fashionability and lifelikeness of two leg designs. Where you anchor your upper body is your choice, but put simply the quadroped can vastly increase stat density while only adding in length, which is the least combat-sensitive axis in terms of size.

I don't have a tutorial on quadroped, but you can use the same formula I use for bipeds. Remember that for back left and back right legs, you want the SAME event as in the forward one, but in the inverse order. The opposing side, however, uses both (in rotators' case) inverse value and inverse order, so don't get mixed up if you can help it!

The quadroped is... odd, at best. If you hate slider bottoms, it's an acceptable alternative. It also happens to be a bit lighter weight than tank bottoms, for better or worse.

Everything Else:

I can't describe the reasons and tradeoffs for every bottom of a bot. But above is a picture of REX legs, and for the life of me I have all the same gripes as poor Brendan up above in 13a. Too many moving parts, very little, if even any, benefit, and dare I say pretty minimally effective walking.

I can't limit your imaginations, but just remember, if these wonky legs can grow to become a meta bot in its hayday, you can probably do a lot worse without screwing yourself over big time. Exploration is part of the game, after all.

It's a pretty simple thing, right? Don't fall over, look at things straight so you can shoot straight. Yet, many machines suffer from scopes with high fall rates or balance systems that are just barely passable. Why have passable when you can have sturdy? And why put up with scope fall if you need to do precise shooting?

Well, time to call in the ace-in-the-hole methods of winning these fronts.

Dropless Cameras:
I've seen some really zany things from the boys out East on this topic, lots of weird gyros with pitch rotators and all that jazz, but here's what I do for a stable scope:

"Any price, for perfection."

In essence, all you need to know is that this is is a left/right and up/down camera that looks easily, doesn't collide/can't be directly broken, and has zoom you can scale with mouse scrolling or page up/page down.

How it works: For every piston highlighted in red, find the block that branches out from it and point to it. Now move your fingers back 2 blocks, towards the piston's origin, and that's where that part goes. You should realize, as you do this, that the entire assembly compresses into the space of 1x1x1 area, AKA as small as possible.

If you need to relocate this camera, simply paint the scope a real color for a few seconds, check where it shows up in preview, and change the coupler's offset it's rooted to to change where your look point is. I often limit left/right turning to +60 to -60 in limits, as to not look inside my own arms and such.

Antigrav Splint:
"Uaaaah. Preeeee-cise."

Don't worry, the point on this one is incredibly brief. Mount a coupler base point somewhere, and find the very center of your bot. Now, place one matching coupler at the building restraints, minus 1 block for absolute limit of building., offset only by height from the center. Set the coupler to "Remote", so that it places exactly where it is no matter where the base coupler is. This creates great mechanical advantage for the force of the AGD's we'll add. Add 1 or 2 AGD's and repeat the process on the top and bottom both.

Set the upper couplers to Neutral: 100 and the bottom couplers to Neutral: -100. Now you have 2-4 incredibly advantaged AGD devices pulling down on your bot and up on your bot at the same time. Since this uses no movers and very few AGD's, you can bet this process costs almost no energy to maintain and keeps your bot upright against all kinds of mayhem.

Congratulations, you have an E type splint.

Artifical Sled Base:
Under lots of size and weight, it's incredibly common to have your bot fall through the floor out of nowhere. You should absolutely fit as much heavy material as you can, but this unreliable point of physics is more than enough reason to have your own doubts.

Have no fear, the sled is here.

Simply attach a base of invisible sleds to the underside of your robots. For maximum balance, a crosshair shape like this is incredibly advantageous. These can also help with braking, too.

I recommend setting 3 events in this order: Move and Turn: 0, Delay: 60, Neutral: 100.

This will make sure when moving, the sleds let you shimmy around and do your job, but after stopping movement for 1 second, they grab on and try to stop you ASAP. You may sometimes get flipped over from sudden stops, AKA "whiplash", so be wary of that.

Make sure you coupler it to be level with your feet, or even about 70 units below your feet, for less wobble when walking, as your feet touch the ground less. This can aid aiming on the move greatly!

Sled Climbing Upgrade:
This is a weird tweak one can make to the upgraded sled base mentioned above.
*L Pistons in red are merge group, and have 240 neutral length in 2 events.
*A Hinge in blue is merge group, and has a single neutral event set to 30.
*A Hinge in yellow is merge group, and has a single neutral event set to 15.

This configuration may be slightly less resistant to whiplash, but it allows for one to walk up small "steps" caused by walking up boxes. These are relatively common, intentionally or otherwise, and as such these help to walk over them much more naturally.

Note this should be repeated only for the front and back sets of sleds, unless you have strafing, and it replaces the very end of the crosshair, expanding it 1 set further, but tilting the outer limits. For more on that, note the sled shape difference between this and the sled base listed above. Pay attention to the amount of sleds use thickness-wise.

Described below are points I would HIGHLY recommend making sure you try to meet when possible. For combat bots, there's a lot of common follies you can fall victim to, so this is a good list for being ready to brawl.

Competant Weapons: If you want to slay your enemies, make sure you have as powerful of guns as you can manage without wasting your energy quickly, and make sure they're in a configuration you can aim as much as is needed while laying down the smack.
Don't Overuse Weapons For Your Size: It's as the label implies. I just mentioned this but I'll say it again. Test your weapons in test mode, and make sure you don't nuke your energy by aiming too high in terms of firepower. This may mean using 8, 12, maybe even 3-6 attacks maximum, but as long as you aren't falling over from energy depletion, it's a solid upgrade. Make sure you have a weapon you can keep running, even if your haymaker is supposed to be costly!
Vertical Movement and Dashing: This may not apply to all types of bots, but I would highly recommend these if you can. Make sure you have SOME means to fly up and down, if only for short distances, and afterburners you can use for high ground speed, be it for running or homing in on running foes.
Multiple Weapons: You'll probably want backup guns once your main guns start breaking off. HAVE A PLAN B!
Missiles For Pesky Air Units: I recommend aiming, hellfire missiles, but if you don't have that, just make sure you have something. We all know that tiny any that flies around in your face because he can outrun your aim in some circumstances. Don't let him win, make sure your guns can point quickly and flexibly, and give him a pack of heat seeking missiles if all else fails.
Swords To Engage In Melee Combat: "Fight the enemy where they are not" comes to mind. If someone has swords and can reach in to you at close range, you better have swords to rapidly deflect them or slow them down. Don't become victim to a lack of close combat impliments, because MANY enemies will seek to exploit this given the chance.
Use As Much Heavy Hull As Possible:Heavy hull has great bonuses. Triple energy, and I believe some degree of health. Many people shy away from heavy material, likely from fear that they can't support it or it will make them slow. Overall though, heavy hull is an invaluable material, and you should dig in as much as practically possible. If that's not 100%, so be it, but some is better than none.
Have a Signature Move: If you can't think of one or can't afford one, don't fret. This is FAIRLY optional, but having a signature move, be it a sword or a chest mounted cannon rig, adds a lot of fun, personality, and oomph to your playstyle. If nothing else, a good "haymaker" weapon whose damage stands above the rest is always nice. Sometimes this can even take the form of a unique mode or gimmick, such as transforming parts.
Check Your Balance: Do some extra weird moves and combine movements in ways that is unusual, but conceivably possible. Did you fall over? If so, it's time to check your balance as best you can, because in the heat of combat that could REALLY be you and you could get thrashed because of it.
Drop Test It: Your parts aim straight and move uninterupted, I would hope. If they don't look into fixing it as best you can. If you're confident in your machine's ability to operate under pressure: Prove it. Take some MAX setting thrustres and crash yourself into a wall or floor at top speed. If anything dislocates for more than a second or two or major conflicts arise, you have some problems to look into. In the heat of combat, that WILL happen, I guarantee you.

I might add more to this list later, but if you passed all these bulletins for now, your bot is a lean, mean killing machine, and it may serve you very well in the battles to come!

Hey, I know this guide's gotten a lot of press and lots of folks love to ask me questions over steam messages and in the guide comments.

Want a speed dial for talking to me on machinecraft matters? Want to hear other opinions as well? Otherwise want to see what me and my friends are up to, or even have the chance to become one? Finally, maybe you want knowledge of when our Galows PVP server is up?

All these things and more are available at our official discord, MC War Machines. We'd love to have folks new and old come join, so we can aid with building and combat advice, as well as just generally pal around a bit while we're at it.

Check us out at: https://discord.gg/Ktxcb3s

Thanks for your time.

So you've read through all the sections and have employed them. After having built a decent bot, you've headed off into a Meeting type server to play around with other people's bots in a relatively comfortable enviroment.

One day you come across a battle server with the game type of either Freefight or TeamFight. Confident in your bot's battle capabilities from your previous experiences, you rush into the fray. Five minutes later you're either stuck in the ground or drowning in the water, with other bots seeing you as either a nuisance or a free kill. Everything seems to either outgun you or outmanuever you.

If you've been through such an experience upon entering a Battle server for the first time, that is completely ok, it just means you have much more to learn. This part of the guide will explain the do's and don'ts of building a bot for competitive combat as well as giving tips on certain weaponry.

One thing of note is that you do not need to build a bot completely from scratch just for competitive combat. Attached to a bot that you've worked hard on? Just copy it and make the adjustments needed.


Energy is your most valuable asset in combat, without it, everything falls apart. All parts will cease to function temporarily if your energy bar ever hits 0, including trackers, rotators, hinges, thrusters, and most important of all, weaponry.

For testing your bot's energy consumption, be sure to set energy regeneration to 100% in test mode. Also, do not use Meeting servers as a reference for energy effeciency. Meeting servers usually have 999% energy regeneration for maximum sandbox and enjoyment. Such a high regeneration rate is absent in most competitive battle servers. The main goal of your bot should be to have energy usage that is sustainable in a 100% regeneration enviroment.



It is essential to have your main method of movement use little to no energy.

Jets (Thrusters)

Jets are usually the to-go method of movement for most vehicles, but should be used in moderation. Relying on Jets too much will result in High energy consumption. With the exception of the space enviroment, these should never be the only way for your vehicle to move.

Wheels (Wheels + Speed Rotator)

Probably one of the first sources of movement learned next to movers. Wheels do not consume energy at all regardless of impact, rotation speed, or friction. Wheels are extremely reliable and can be used to make fast bots when paired with Jets. However, be aware that they will shut down when the user is out of energy.

Propellers (Speed Rotator + Block + 2/4 Shafts)

Propellers are a reliable source of movement for aircraft and boats, but can be tricky to set up and are often unheard of to beginners. Like Wheels, they consume no energy . For best forward movement, two propellers should be present. Shafts should be slightly tilted opposite of the other propeller, and be rotating in opposite directions. The result of such a configuration will either be fast foward movement or backward movement. An explanation for helicoptor propellers will be present after more testing.

Wings (Shafts + Angle Rotator)
Unlike Propellers, Wings are meant to be more stationary and cannot be used on their own. For Wings to bring out their features, they must be used in conjuction with either Jets or Propellers. Using the Angle Rotator, slightly tilting the Wings up or down will steer the vehicle upwards or downwards. If two wings were to be placed side by side, it is possible to roll the vehicle by tilting one side upwards and the other downwards.

Plane Tail(Shaft + Angle Hinge)
Like Wings, they're meant to be used in conjuction with another booster. attaching them to the back of a vehicle and tilting them to the left or the right will move the vehicle in that direction. Useful for reliable turning without rolling the vehicle.

WIP Sleds
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
So now that you have taken notice of your vehicle's energy consumption on movement and have adjusted it to minimal levels, it is time to add weaponry that will put your bot on the top of the food chain.

Minigun + Variants(Rotator + 2-4 blocks + guns of your choosing)
The minigun set up takes advantage of Rotators to add spread while still keeping the accuracy of your barrels. The easiest way to set up a minigun is to have two opposing rotators, each holding chasis set up in a + shape. Except for the center, place a cannon + barrel set in each chasis. Set the rotator and cannons to fire with the same button.

Introduction: Piston Suspension, By Jenkins/Alex
Vehicle suspension comes in several ways, more than i can probably come up with. My section of this for now will cover wheel and sled based Vertical torsion bar, and soon if i can get it to work Double wishbone.
Single Torsion
An easy example of this would be just about any of my tanks in general, sometimes i use it with car too. a simple explanation is a piston with a rotor and wheel / piston-sled.
Examples:


However nothing is that simple, with out changes to the settings you simple have a stiff and or loose leg thing. (i.e useless) which is where the settings comes in, i will give a brief explanation of how to make it work, and a more in-depth of why it works following.


How to make it work [simple]
To make it work well is the easy part, you need to adjust three settings in order to make a basic functioning suspension which includes: Spring, Dampen and Neutral. Set neutral to what ever length you want, then start the spring at 12 and dampen at 10 and increase it in the same ratio until your vehicle is lifted to it's set height with out sagging: easy and simple.

How to it works [less simple]
Back to the three golden settings we need to be more in clear of what each one does for better adjustments because suspensions need different ratios based on their purpose.

Spring as described by the game is it's torque/stretch ability, but that isn't the whole story rather in the case of the piston it is the maximum force applied in the outwards direction to achieve it's set height. meaning that if you have a height of 100, and a force of 10 it should take 10 units of time to arrive to it's rest position excluding the mass of both the main vehicle and the end of the piston. of course it will be faster or slower based on the total force of the whole grid because of the changes of pressure on the individual pistons caused by having multiple spread across a larger area. [Note the time it takes to achieve the maximum spring will always be faster than expected because of acceleration].

Dampening: is simply the resistance to movement [external forces only]. This is important because a few numbers off can be the difference between climbing up 10 unit tall rectangles, or getting stuck on a slope with a bump at the bottom. a great place to start is to be slightly lower than your spring because assuming your spring is only just enough to hold your vehicle up it will drop and raise based on inertial and torque based movements, the dampening is going to be how fast the piston will counteract the external forces applied. example being going 50 units forward with a ten unit drop with a 1 unit/s downwards acceleration would result in an increasing potential energy which when release by impact of the piston end to the terrain, gives you compression by that much potential. you can expect about 10 units of downward compression and around 50 units of angular compression, both of which cause the suspension to bend to match the area of initial impact and the ground underneath. the dampen number will decelerate the potential of both in one vector to prevent violent bouncing of the main body. the smoothest suspension relies on a light dampening and close to minimum spring with plenty of distance, because more distance means more time for acceleration in both outward and inward vectors which means more time for lower values to work. [Spring will always have a minimum value based on the total mass of the vehicle to maintain height].

I hope this break down on piston suspension helps any aspiring wheeled/sled drivers achieve smoother rides and better shoot and scoot stabilization.

This section will have download links to pdfs and document files for people to get copies of guides and informational books created for this game ex. is my current book on MC aerodynamics
Oof dead links