Asteroid

An **asteroid** (also called a **rock**) is a destructible entity found in all game modes of Starblast in some form or another. There are currently two different types of asteroids in the game. Invasion mode and Training mode both have the type of asteroid that is bound to the physics engine and can be moved around freely, while the remaining game modes' asteroids are static. The main function of asteroids in most modes is to either create an obstruction or provide gems when broken. In certain modes in the past, asteroids have been known to occasionally drop secondary weapons, mainly pods. During Halloween and Christmas in 2017 there were asteroids that were physics based that goes with the holiday (pumpkins for Halloween and snowballs for Christmas) that are mixed in with the normal asteroids (only in team and survival). The asteroids dropped a fair amount of gems, occasionally secondaries, and sometimes spawned aliens. During late November 2019 to celebrate Starblast's 3rd birthday presents occasionally spawn in and they can drop gems, secondaries and spawn in piranha pets that are bound to your ship and have your ship color. The presents are also bound to the physics engine.

## Notes

* Asteroids do damage to any ship that crashes into them. The amount of damage done to the ship depends on the ship's velocity at the time of the collision and the asteroid's size.

* Tightly packed asteroids can be a threat for small, fast ships.

* Asteroids are commonly grouped together to form long lines of them or just fields. You can use this to your advantage when flying around and fighting.

* An amazing strategy for high mass ships is to ram smaller ships into asteroids, as this will do massive damage. This is especially effective in Deathmatch mode because asteroids in Deathmatch are much stronger than those in survival or team mode.

* The amount of gems received upon destroying an asteroid depends on the yield of the asteroids and the size of the asteroid destroyed. Yield is set to a default for most modes, but can be edited in custom games

* In custom games, the amount of asteroids can be changed by changing the map, but you can not create a mode with no asteroids without modding.

* After being destroyed, asteroids typically respawn after 1 minute.

* In Invasion, asteroids are particularly deadly in waves where piranhas spawn.

## Asteroids in Invasion

Invasion mode has a different type of asteroid which is tied to the game's physics engine and can spawn with a given velocity and direction. For example, Wave 4 of Invasion features a rain of large, moving asteroids that travel downwards. These asteroids still deal damage upon impact, but upon destruction, they split into smaller asteroids. The player can change the velocity and direction of these asteroids by ramming them. The damage dealt to the ship on impact depends on the size of the asteroids and the speed of the asteroid relative to the ship. Asteroids also damage damage by crashing into other asteroids or aliens. Aliens, however, do not take any damage from crashing into asteroids. These asteroids in Invasion only drop a maximum of 6 gems per destruction/split. In terms of appearance, they look the same as typical, static asteroids. In most waves, destroying most or sometimes all of the asteroids is required to proceed to the next wave. Killing all aliens in a wave seems to reduce the shield of the remaining asteroids; this is most noticeable in wave 8.