smallest “tank” possible? IV: doesn’t work anymore since the max speed update

Overview

6 thrusters, 2 turrets; learn how to become small, fast, a gyroscope, and a very mobile aircraft in Tier 1 matches, without helium/hoverblades/aerofoils.

1. Introduction – T1 air support

One day i slapped together a custom ejection seat with 6 thrusters, and managed to stumble upon a good way to make controlled and rapid “flight” possible in T1; by using gyroscopic (and passive) stabilization.

“Now hold on there, there are no gyroscopic modules of whatever sorts in robocraft” you may say, and you’re right!…. but one thing robocraft does have is full 3d physics per bot, so i just figured; why not make a frame wich can become the gyroscope it self, when it starts to destabilize!

In this guide i will try to explain how to build a stabilized flying support sled, wich is an excellent air support unit in t1, but also in higher tiers after you expand the design.
Skip to the “3. Control” section if you want to see video’s, oh and by the way don’t let it’s simplicity fool you into thinking that this is just another sattelite, it’s fast and flexible if you handle it the right way!

this bot is basically an ejection seat combined with a simplified thruster sled, in a frame with quadruple rotary symmetry for passive stability.
During flight, the WA(S)D controls handle in another plane as elevation thrust for a very long time, wich makes flying while targeting less demanding, AD controlled rotations can be used to fix orientation, or to filter out unwanted movement, as it’ll make the frame act like a gyroscope.

neat things:
– small; minimal components and fits in a 5x5x4 box, hard to detect & hit at distance.
– VTOL; fully functional vertical take off and landing, directly control elevation
– low tier, top speed; slingshot yourself across the map with air drifts
– high takeoff stability; fly in 3d space without having to worry much about pitch
– simple re-stabilization; spin and become a gyroscope when you need your frame to calm down
– is a thruster sled on the ground; get close and personal when you really need to

lesser things:
– so far isn’t stable with horizontally mounted weapons; sorry…. no plasma for you 🙁
– staying relatively level is very important; the less level you are, the less elevation thrust you get.
– very hard to flip once you’re stationairy and upside down.
– squishy; getting hit is a bad idea, the virtual fabric of space and time is your armor
– design tweaks have to be symmetrical and balanced, or else handling will become broken

check out my newer guide, if you want to a more high tier version of this design, and more speed
[link]

first the katana, and now this…. again rumors say it’s another prototype with a shady past, but supposedly the only T1 frame wich can closely match aerofoil behavior.

I think they’re just rumors, bob should still be in japan…. or.. or could it be… a clue? has bob finally lost it? is rebellion coming? will the small vehicle purists tremble in their seats, at the thought of bob painting his helmet with the blood of their community leader?

2. Construction

No special vertical building voodoo or upside down hovering wizzardry required, it’s built and piloted horizontally, and you only need very little parts.

block budget:
– 6 T2 thrusters
– 10 cubes; light cubes recommended
– 1 pilot seat
– 2 identical turrets; must fit vertical placement.
and/or
– 2 identical modules

1. elevation thrusters
just like you would build an ejection seat, 1 cube 2 thrusters.

2. the frame
9 cubes form the + shaped thruster sled section, on top of the cube where the elevation thrusters attach, all the arms have to be the same length, longer arms will also work but can make you sluggish.

3. horizontal thrusters
add 4 T2 thrusters, arranging them this way gives you 3 thruster groups (WDA) for movement, the colored blocks are the points where the horizontal thrusters should attach onto the frame.

4. weapons & radar

add the turrets and radar like in the picture, placement has to be symmetrical and sideways, the colored cubes represent the symmetry you must keep when attaching identical turrets or modules to the + section.

6. the seat

place the seat on the center cube, and its finished!

a setup like this is more offensive as you’ll have great fire rate with air mobility, keep the balance in mind if you have less than 4 turrets or 2 pairs; keep things symmetrical or else handling may break down above certain speeds.

3. Control

piloting this thing is a bit like flying a wheel shaped turbocharged blimp, you can directly control elevation, but your frame stays horizontal most of the times, and the times that it doesn’t, you have to stop what you were doing, and re-stabilize by spinning around for a while.

It’s possible to stabilize while previously built up momentum keeps you going in a certain direction, and you can even fire while doing so, but your weapons won’t be as accurate as during normal flight.

SPACE = elevation
AD = aim forward thrust left/right
W = forward thrust
spin/rotate = stabilize

on the ground
W is forward thrust, aim thrust with AD like you would in a regular thruster sled, use drifts* like the one @0:12 in this video, to boost your speed

elevation & direction
holding SPACE will make you go up (do this right after countdown to start as stable as you can), tapping on SPACE will make you hold lower elevations, use forward thrusters and AD to point in a 2d plane where you want to go and hold W to accelerate towards that direction.

taking off can theoretically be done in any state where you’re not upside down or damaged, but it works best from a fixed point (on level ground), like in the video.

extra air speed by drifting*
accelerate a bit in a straight line, then gently tap one of the AD thrusters a few times while holding W, and you’ll slowly “lock” in a long drift (wich ends with you crashing to the ground if the speed becomes to high).
pulse W thrust to correct drifts that become to tight, keep decreasing your drift radius with the AD thrusters if you want to stop.

Air drifts may not look any faster than forward flight, especially when you’ve just started to build up speed, but if you compare the minimap with the one from the previous video, you can see that i just covered a lot more distance in less time.

stabilization
Are things starting to swing out of control?
Hold SPACE, hold A or D and your frame will temporary spin like a gyroscope and filter out excess movement with every rotation you make, and slowly level you out after multiple rotations.

Angles that are too extreme won’t level out as well, because the lack of elevation thrust will likely make you stall, and hit the ground before you can finish stabilization.

4. Scale it up! (to a higher tier)

here are some screenshots of how things may look like, if you would like to scale this design up (to a higher tier), click this link for a more general guide about gyrosleds/jets.

my turbo medic, it’s t4, flat, and pretty fast! if there only was a race mode…

Scaling this design up in size (and tier) seems to add more passive stability because there’s more stabilizing mass during takeoff, this allows you to drift faster and also do very very fast & low flyovers while losing less momentum, staying stable for longer without “gyroscopic” stabilization.

Note how i barely placed any new parts outside the expanded center layer, and how there are added prisms on top of the layer beneath the seat (above the center of mass), i added those to correct the total center of mass, because it was located a bit to low without them.

My scaled up version also has 4 elevation thrusters, for faster climbing and better hovering, the orange block and the prisms on top were carefully picked based on their mass to ensure near perfect takeoff stability.

Also keep in mind that it’s a bad idea to extend the design on top/bottom, because it will impact active stabilization wich you still may need on a few occasions, but if you do extend the design in height, make sure what you add at the bottom is exactly what you have to add on top, to at least keep the center of mass in the right place.

5. Other things to consider

– first try to get a grip of the 2D controls on the ground in practice mode, when you’re new to thruster sleds.
Thruster exclusive bots can utilize a drift mechanic wich boosts speed regardless of thruster tier, though bigger thrusters are still less likely to stall, and can give you more acceleration.

– no reverse thrust, quickly aim main thrust 180 degrees the other way to do braking or “reversing”

– although this frame was designed with as much symmetry as possible in mind, it is still a tiny bit unbalanced; it shows as slowly increasing wobbly behaviour, wich you need to filter away once in a while by utilizing the frame as a gyroscope.

– spinning longer stabilizes you more, seconds are enough for relative corrections, something like half a minute should put you completely level relative to virtual gravity.

– when you try to recover from a terrible angle, it tends to work slightly better if you turn your back towards the direction of travel, right after finishing quick gyroscopic stabilization.

– briefly rotate while you lift off from challenging terrain, this will give you the stability you need to take off.

– don’t fall upside down in close proximity of enemies, you’re wrecked if you do so because this frame is pretty hard to flip on it’s own power.
If you do land on your head, try to find a wall and use forward thrust to climb it until you’re airborne and stable again, or flipped.

– support your team, go from being an all seeing eye to denying captures or defending the base, as you’ll very likely be one of the rare T1 air units in the match, with the mobility to do whatever you want, anywere in the skies/on the map, with an added speed bonus.

– going on the air-offensive usually means you’ll be spotted more likely, i recommend you try this after the mid game or from behind allies (or anytime if you have a yolo personality).

– 4 turrets can be fun, but still keep your distance because it’s generally a bad idea to get hit by anything, also smg recoil is slightly destabilizing in the case of this frame, keep this in mind when adding more smg’s.

– the overall design scales up pretty well in both size and tier, because the balance stays the same as long as you expand the design symmetrically, top speed won’t increase but the bigger thrusters will make you accelerate like a rocket, plus the extra thrust will dramatically decrease thruster stall!

well, another guide done…… return of the t1 air units! GL HF!!!!

In a time far before the internets, only nuclear scientists could play robocraft.
Look at how the poor man had to manipulate his bot by hand, and at the lack of multiplayer, little did they know back then that WASD is far superior.