Guide [Issue 36] Everything to do with... Damage!

[mcmonkey25 717]

Damage, the baseplate of Tanki. It is the most basic part of the game; the ability to deal damage and to have damage dealt. In this article, I will try to show you the different ways damage is used and can be used in the game.

 

Damage is absolutely essential to the game; it makes Tanki what it is today. Without damage, we would essentially just have a game of parkour and racing, completely different to the action-packed fighting game we know and love today. Damage is certainly not taken for granted among tankers. It is the first statistic most tankers will micro-upgrade on a turret and normally the second thing tankers will use in the game (behind speed and sometimes protection).

 

Destroying a Tank: This is the most obvious thing damage does in the game, it damages tankers. There is no need for me to give a lecture on how to kill other tanks because that is the most basic thing you must do in the game in order to succeed. Damage is the deducting of health from the health bar of a tanker, leading to them having 0 HP and so being destroyed. This is the basic framework of the coding of the destroying of a tank.

 

The Opposite of Damage: So it isn’t really damage, but what I am basically talking about here is healing. This happens in two forms in Tanki; the first of these is by an Isida. Isidas have the ability to reverse the damage done by an enemy tanker. This generally comes at a cost of the actual damage statistic of the Isida, yet it is still used due to its self-healing abilities and extra method of earning XP. The other way of ‘reversing damage’ is a health supply. This is an automatic method of renewing health and allows more damage to be taken. The interesting thing to do with health supplies is that if you are taking damage while being healed, the game will take this into account and continue to heal you, which can make for frustrated Railguns as they have such a long reload time.

 

Damage without Shooting: Only one turret has an additional stat concerning damage: Firebird. Firebird’s after-burn enables it to continue to damage an opponent without having to actually be shooting it. This advantage can be used in several ways. One way is that you can move onto shooting another enemy in order to get multiple kills, therefore increasing your XP intake. Also, after-burn can allow you to reload. The enemy will still be taking damage whilst you give yourself time to reload and then fire at them again.

 

Wounding Enemies: Note that this is different to destroying an enemy. In XP, it can be especially useful to take one hit off of an enemy and then allow yourself to be destroyed. This means that the enemy can be killed in one swift shot, giving you time while they respawn to get and capture the enemy flag. This technique is less effective in DM however; as the likelihood is that someone else will just come along and steal your kill! Another little trick in larger XP battles is to only take one shot off of an enemy. If you have M3 Rail and fire a well-aimed shot, you will take a large proportion of an enemy’s health away. If you went on to finish them off, you would gain 10xp. However, if you were to let a teammate destroy them, then you could get between around 12-14xp! So sometimes it isn’t best to finish the job yourself!

 

Self-Destructing: You may not see it this way, but self-destructing is like a lot (or sometimes a little bit) of damage all in one go. Self-destructing leads to you being destroyed (hence the name). Therefore, you have essentially lost all the health points you had in a very short space of time; making self-destructing have the largest damage statistic! Self-destructing can be seen as useful as well though. If you’re tipped then there is very little chance of you becoming upright again and so it is probably better for you to self-destruct. Also, if you have low health when a gold box is dropping, you have more chance of getting it if you self-destruct and then respawn into the battle.

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Disadvantages of Damage: Obviously, the first disadvantage we all think of when it comes to the damage statistic is that our own tanks get damaged. However, this is kind of inevitable for a tank game so we will just have to grit our teeth and bear through it. What is irritating about damage is the self-destructing damage produced from our own turrets. Thunder and Ricochet are the two culprits of this and it can make the just that little trickier to manage. The basics are that if you are hit with your own splash damage from a Thunder shot or your own plasma ball from Ricochet, you will take damage. But obviously, I don’t need to tell you this because most of us found that out for ourselves early on in our careers. Furthermore, the higher the damage of a turret, the longer its reload. A compromise will have to be made if you want good damage on a turret, but if you can master it, then it shouldn’t matter to you much.

 

So now tankers, you know how damage crops up in the game, how to use it (which you probably should already know!) and a couple of little tricks to ensure you use features of damage as effectively as possible.

Edited January 7, 2018 by Hexed

[Maf 32,306]

Fun fact: A player by the name of  set himself and experiment in March 2012 for completing the game (going from recruit to marshal) without destroying a single tank. He did it by playing CTF matches and capturing flags until he managed to unlock Isida, which he then used to only heal other players and capture flags. He got to the rank of Captain in one month and killed only 1 or 2 tanks by accident. You can read all about him in this topic (it's in Russian).

 

It's crazy that you can complete a game about killing others without actually killing anyone  :)

[BlazingCoder 108]

Wow

 

Fun fact: A player by the name of  set himself and experiment in March 2012 for completing the game (going from recruit to marshal) without destroying a single tank. He did it by playing CTF matches and capturing flags until he managed to unlock Isida, which he then used to only heal other players and capture flags. He got to the rank of Captain in one month and killed only 1 or 2 tanks by accident. You can read all about him in this topic (it's in Russian).

 

It's crazy that you can complete a game about killing others without actually killing anyone  :)

Thats crazy.

[Truthteller 4,204]

Great topic!  ^_^

There was this marshal who got 1 kill and he got banned for hacking but they later found out he was only healing so they give his account back is that him or something..I saw that in an old V-log about hackers.

[x.VIP.x 4]

I like it :)

[r_Dark_Nightmare5 24]

Nice topic

[ryanisduhbest 10]

Nice

[Guest]

nice

[kostas604 106]

Fun fact: A player by the name of set himself and experiment in March 2012 for completing the game (going from recruit to marshal) without destroying a single tank. He did it by playing CTF matches and capturing flags until he managed to unlock Isida, which he then used to only heal other players and capture flags. He got to the rank of Captain in one month and killed only 1 or 2 tanks by accident. You can read all about him in this topic (it's in Russian).

 

It's crazy that you can complete a game about killing others without actually killing anyone :)

COOL!!! I'll try it

[DuoGT 29]

Fun fact: A player by the name of  set himself and experiment in March 2012 for completing the game (going from recruit to marshal) without destroying a single tank. He did it by playing CTF matches and capturing flags until he managed to unlock Isida, which he then used to only heal other players and capture flags. He got to the rank of Captain in one month and killed only 1 or 2 tanks by accident. You can read all about him in this topic (it's in Russian).

 

It's crazy that you can complete a game about killing others without actually killing anyone  :)

Failed though... Killed tanks by accident, possible but he didn't do it.

[T.O.R.N.A.D.O.XXX 184]

COOL!!! I'll try it

me too

[anuclearbomb 220]

Fun fact: A player by the name of  set himself and experiment in March 2012 for completing the game (going from recruit to marshal) without destroying a single tank. He did it by playing CTF matches and capturing flags until he managed to unlock Isida, which he then used to only heal other players and capture flags. He got to the rank of Captain in one month and killed only 1 or 2 tanks by accident. You can read all about him in this topic (it's in Russian).

 

It's crazy that you can complete a game about killing others without actually killing anyone  :)

i'm assuming he was allowed to push other tankers, but was he?

and did mines count?

Edited July 29, 2015 by anuclearbomb