Tank Tracks

**Tank Tracks** are a type of movements in Robocraft.

## Overview

Caterpillar Tracks are large and heavily armored movement cubes that have better traction than Wheels, but do not stick like Legs. Since they are extremely heavy, they do not work well with flying or hovering movement blocks. They turn quickly while stationary and more gradually while at speed, but not at all if you are down to a single track. They can have multiple attachment points on the sides and top. Higher tier tracks have more mounting points.

## Turning

Depending on the arrangement and number of tank tracks on a robot, turning a tank can be either uncontrollably fast or irritatingly slow. The first three tiers of tracks are rather short, and a simple 2 track design may turn too much or too fast for easy control. As such, low tier players may want to go for a 3 or 4 track design, with one pair of tracks in front and one pair of tracks behind. The longer the tracks (That is, the total length of the contact area between all tracks and ground), the slower the tank will turn. In contrast, the wider the space in between the tracks, the faster the tank will turn. Longer total track length also results in a wider turning circle, while shorter tracks have a much smaller turning circle or even turn on the spot.

### Design Solutions

* If your tank is turning too fast, lengthen it and add tracks behind your existing pair(s) to slow down turning speed. This also works vice versa.
* If your tank is turning too slow, widen the space between the tracks to speed up turning speed. This also works vice versa.
* If your tank is going forward when you're turning make sure that you have an even amount of treads on both sides.

## Placement & Usage

Tank tracks, while tough, are by no means invincible. The destruction of a track will often take off a large portion of a bot at higher tiers, so they must be protected well. Being slow and tough, they are most suited to builds meant to weather enemy fire. In most cases, tank tracks should not be paired with any other movement type other than walker legs; their immense weight means that all other movement types will be severely overburdened, which decreases their top speed and renders the usage of them pointless. Walker legs, however, still possess their climbing ability even if overburdened, which means that placing walker legs in conjunction with tank tracks can let a tank reach places normally only accessible by fliers and walkers.

"Tank tracks can be paired with propellers (tomohawk and thunderbolt alike) placed on the rear of the bot for an added speed boost - this works better than thrusters at higher tiers."

-PHazeR 2022

A strange strategy with some positives and negatives involves placing tank tracks all over a bot. Doing so will provide shielding from rail cannons, tesla blades, and plasma launchers. This is due to their high resistivity and barrier protection values. In other words, when hit with a plasma blast, the tank tread will absorb all the damage but pass none on to the chassis. Doing this takes up a lot of CPU, but can replace the CPU that electroplates or armor cubes would have taken up. This design is especially well suited to a medic/smg combo as the tank tracks will heal back at approximately the same rate as a single SMG will damage them. However, they are also incredibly heavy so they will slow your bot down unless it is a tank.

## Advantages and Disadvantages

### Pros

* A bot requires a mere 2 tracks in order to have full maneuverability, where as most other movement parts require at least 3 to be present.
* Multiple connection points; Placing Weapons, Electroplates, or other cubes.
* Stable in unusual positions where wheels would teeter, useful for all weapons.
* Can turn while stationary where wheels cannot, better positioning.
* Second highest health count for Movement cubes.
* Highest carry mass, which allows to carry almost an infinite amount of weight without speed reduction.
* Can climb hills. A well-built bot is able to climb terrain that is angles at nearly 90°.
* Are very difficult to flip into stuck positions, but not impossible.

### Cons

* Highest CPU usage Since the Fast and formidable Update
* Other movement cubes have a very negligible effect on caterpillar tracks, with the exception of Insect Legs.
* Despite having higher traction than Wheels, Tracks will still slide on Ice.
* Thrusters do not provide vertical speed if used with Tracks, as the Tracks will "grasp" the ground.
* Climbing especially steep hills will cause the tracks to lose grip and spin around fruitlessly or fall.
* They are large and difficult to build with.

## Statistics

### Additional Statistics

* All tank tracks have a 1350 Base Health/CPU relationship

## Trivia

* Released 9/12/2014 in the The Tanks Are Rollin' Out Update.
* Despite being released later, Tracks still followed the S-type styling having even-tiered variants with yellowish markings.
* Tracks can only be placed on Left or Right face of armor cubes, but once placed can be rebuilt to attach armor cubes on the top mount points; with Tier 5 / 7 Tracks are slightly harder to place correctly for symmetry due to placement faces on tracks.
* Vehicles using Tracks used to be nearly impossible to re-align, but this was changed with the removal of Alignment Rectifiers.
* It is possible to lift a track with aerial movement types; however, this requires multiple helicopter blades/thrusters/helium just to lift a low-level track, which makes such builds highly impractical.
* Due to high regeneration multiplier (x 3.00) and multiple connection points, it is possible to build a regeneration-orientated build by using tank tracks as armour.
* The CF-Aliance is also claimed to be the developer of Caterpillar Tracks.
* There was an strange bug wich caused the bot to get locked into a "full-reverse mode" upon losing a Track in combat and it healing back or just when respawning. In this "mode" the game will ignore most directional inputs from the user and exceed the usual speed limit at the price of being unable to drive in the correct direction.