Game Terms

**English**

## Common Terms

**Seal Clubbing**

This term likely originates from the relatively brutal way fur is, or has been obtained from infant seals: The defenseless baby seal (in this case the less experienced player) is knocked in the head with a club by a human with a club (the experienced player/clubber), effectively killing it.

### Glass Cannon

A **glass cannon** is any robot or archetype that has good damage output, but handles incoming damage poorly. Satellites, and formerly the helium chair, are classic examples of a glass cannon.

### Nerf

To decrease the potential of a certain object in the game.

### Buff

To increase the potential of a certain object in the game.

### OP

Overpowered. This usually refers to a weapon in the game being too strong compared to something else

### UP

Underpowered. This usually refers to a weapon in the game being too weak over any other weapon.

### LoS

Stands for Line of Sight. Used to describe what players can see in their current environment. For example, Player1 is on a hill, while Player2 is at the bottom of the hill. In a way, it is possible for Player1 to see Player2, while Player2 cannot see Player1.

### Render Distance / Fog

Render distance is the distance the fog is at, and the distance at which the game stops loading graphical elements, namely other bots. Bots beyond this distance cannot be seen and must be targeted indirectly.

It is worth noting that the clipping plane is flat and perpendicular to your LoS, which means that you can actually see further in your "peripheral vision", away from the aiming reticle.

After the release of the new game mode (0.9.1002), the fog also appears to be "one-way" as in a one-way mirror. High altitude flyers now find it more difficult to see ground craft. However, ground craft can see flyers more easily.

* Taking SMG fire from enemy bots obscured by the fog
* Hit by a rail bot hidden by the fog

## Statistical

### DpS

Dps stands for "damage per second". This is useful to calculate the damage a weapon can to in a certain amount of time.

### HpS

HpS stands for "health per second" used for regenerating health weapons. Only the Nano-disruptors use this term.

### CoM

Center of Mass. It is the average position of all the mass in a system. In a rigid body, the center of mass is always in the same place.

### CoL

Center of Lift. Similar to Center of Mass, this is the average position of lift capabilities in a system.

### CoT

Center of Thrust. Similar to Center of Mass, this is the average position of thrust, and where it is applied to.

## Splash Damage

Splash damage is used for weapons that do damage to an area.

* *Alpha* damage: the area that the weapon does damage to first.
* *Beta* damage: the secondary area that the damage is dealt to.

### AoE

*Splash* damage: The combined area of the *Alpha* and *Beta* damage. AoE stands for "Area Of Effect"

## Away From Keyboard

A player is AFK or *Away from Keyboard* when they are not paying attention to the game or unable to control or provide input to a connected game session. This may be intentional or unintentional by the player.

### Intentional AFK

High durability bots mean that going AFK can be a valid waiting strategy while defending or capping a base (Classic), or waiting for your team to form up and move out. Intentional AFKing is against the Robocraft Fair play expectations and is a reportable offense which can result in being banned. Until then, shoot them.

### Unintentional AFK

A player may be fairly interrupted in their gaming session and have to abandon a game without being able to log out. Shoot them while you can.
Other possibilities is that the player may be typing a message, this also causes AFK like symptoms.

### AFK Counter Strategies

Because most AFKers are intentionally AFKing, most intentional AFKers either use thrusters/helium tanks to reach high, hard to reach altitudes. However, some AFK crafts may be designed to climb walls. The most effective way to deal with AFK bots is either a plasma bomber (kills quickly) or an interceptor (can attack any type of target).

### Important Note

Before proceeding to kill an AFK craft that looks like a helium chair or a design specifically meant to be able to reach convenient places for the player to go away from the keyboard without being of much use to the team (typically a pilot seat attached to helium tanks/thrusters shielded by electroplates), take an up-close screenshot of the bot so that you can see the name then you will be able to report them as Robit farming techniques which are against the fair play expectations.

### Speeders and Flyers

Speeders and, fast aircraft are very effective against AFK players, as their high mobility and speed mean they can find them and shoot them. Especially in the case of intentional AFK defenders who take the first minutes of a match to check Facebook or yell at the cat.

### Anti-AFK Game Mechanics

After a certain amount of time, the game will automatically boot a player from a session if no movement key has been pressed in that time. Note well that firing a gun doesn't negate the autoboot, so even if all your movable parts have been shot off, be sure to hit a movement key every once in a while to make sure you stay in the session. You will also have to do this to wait out a match in the rare occasion of falling through the terrain, but the escape key and self-destructing is generally preferred in that case, since you can respawn and keep on playing.

## One-Shot

A **One-Shot**(also known as **insta-kill**) is a term used by players referring to kills made with only one shot. The most common type of one shot is death by Plasma Launchers and Rail Cannons.

### Causes

One-shotting has become a rare occurance since pilot seats were removed, allthough it still can happen if the one being oneshotted is either using a very small bot and being attacked with a high-damage weapon, or if your enemy somehow hacks in a way that allows their weaponry to deal abnormal amounts of damage.

If you are at full health with a normal bot that has no severe weaknesses and get oneshotted, try documenting the event as best you can and report it, as oneshotting should and can not occur with larger bots while both you and your enemy are playing according to the fair play rules.

Note: An exception to this may he high-level tesla bots, as they can eliminate you in what may appear to be a single shot/attack if used right without cheating.

## Tap Firing

### Overview

Tap Firing is a strategy for SMG users which is essentially semi-automatic mode for these automatic weapons. Done right, it will give the player 100% accuracy with every shot, converting an otherwise spray-and-pray weapon into a low powered, unscoped sniper rifle by sacrificing its high rate of fire for better accuracy, netting more damage at long distances. Due to the updates Nerfing the SMG this is less effective and rails are now preferred by most people for long distances.

### Instructions

It's simple: tap the fire button, wait for the reticle to reset, and repeat. 2-3 shots per second is possible using this strategy and in some cases it can out-DPS a sniper rifle on a like-tiered bot.

## Obsolete

### S-type

Originally the game only had five versions of each weapon, denoted as levels. "Shield Type" variants were later added to fill the gaps between them. Shield types were identified by their yellow fins, a simple and easy marker that cut down on programming time and saved valuable data footprint by having a shared render. These were later retconned into ten distinct tiers but retained the yellow fins on the even-numbered tiers.

### SteamUser66

Due to unified system issues, many players got their name either confused or replaced by SteamUser66#[numbers]. This has become a meme rather fast.

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