Robot Destruction

Not to be confused with Player Destruction.

Asteroid

“

You must destroy the enemy's robots and collect their reactor cores to win. Retrieve stolen power cores by invading the enemy vault. Click to listen — The Administrator explaining the rules

”

Robot Destruction is a game mode, first announced on July 8th, 2014. Currently, Robot Destruction only includes one beta map, rd_asteroid.

Because the game mode and its map are in development, certain textures and animations may be missing, and any gameplay elements described in this article are subject to change.

Gameplay

The only current Robot Destruction map is symmetrical, similar to Capture the Flag maps. This game mode requires players to go into the enemy base and destroy their robots to earn points. When the robots are destroyed, they drop Power Cores that may be collected to add points to a team's score.

A team's points are stored in a Reactor deep in its base. When a team begins to score points, a rotating Reactor Core appears over a capture point in that team’s base. Reactor Cores may be stolen and captured (similar to taking and capturing an Intelligence briefcase). When first stealing a Reactor Core at a Reactor capture point, stored points are charged into that core over a time of several seconds – the longer the stealing player waits at the capture point, the more stolen points are charged into the Reactor Core, until all stored points are depleted.

A stolen Reactor Core is captured by carrying it to the stealing team’s base, awarding the charged points to the stealing team. Reactor Cores may be dropped, either when the carrier is killed or when the carrier presses the drop-item button. Unless picked back up by the stealing team, dropped Reactor Cores are eventually returned to the owning team’s Reactor and the stolen points they contain are returned to their score. The game continues indefinitely until one team reaches a certain score, in which case that team wins.

When one team has acquired the necessary amount of points, a timer starts counting down and a shortened version of The Art of War begins playing as "rd_finale.wav". If the currently-winning team stays the leader by the time this timer is elapsed, they win the round/game.

Power Cores

Power Cores are dropped when a robot is destroyed. They may be collected by any member of the team that destroyed the robot. If left uncollected, Power Cores eventually start flashing for a few seconds before finally vanishing.

Reactor Cores

Reactor Cores represent the stored points of the enemy team. A player who successfully steals a Core from the enemy base and deposits it on their team's Core spawn point directly transfers any points stored in the core to their team. Unlike the Intelligence briefcase in Capture the Flag, the Core can contain a variable number of points depending on how long it is "charged" by an enemy player standing on the core spawn point. The Core cannot be moved from its spawn point until at least 25 points have been charged into it.

Like the Intelligence briefcase, a Reactor Core may be picked up by any enemy player that touches it and, although it can be dropped deliberately or on the carrier's death, it cannot be picked up or otherwise affected by a friendly player. Friendly players can defend the Core from being picked up by physically preventing enemy team members from touching it. If a Core is not touched by an enemy player in a set amount of time, it disappears and any points stored in it are returned to its team.

Importantly, the return timer on dropped Cores is not fully reset upon touching it (another difference from the Intelligence briefcase). Instead, the return timer for the Core starts at approximately one minute and is reduced for each second that the Core is dropped and is increased by one second, up to the maximum starting time, for each second that the Core is held.

Soldiers with the Rocket Jumper equipped, Demomen with the Sticky Jumper equipped, Scouts under the effects of Bonk! Atomic Punch, and Cloaked Spies are unable to pick up the Reactor Core.

Scoring

Teams score points by collecting Power Cores and by capturing or recovering stolen Reactor Cores. One point is scored for each Power Core collected. One point is deducted from a team’s score for each point charged into a stolen Reactor Core. Points charged in a stolen reactor core are thus removed from scoring until either captured by the enemy or returned to the team’s Reactor. The stolen points in a Reactor Core are awarded to the stealing team’s score if they carry it to their Reactor’s capture point; however, those same points are returned to the owning team’s score if the Reactor Core has been dropped for a long time. The teams play to 300 points.

Team scores are displayed at the bottom center of the HUD. Each team's score tracks higher as Power Cores are collected and as Reactor Cores are captured by or returned to that team, and tracks a decreasing score while a player is charging a Reactor Core with points stolen from that team. A player’s display of scores shows green numbers as friendly points are added and enemy points are stolen and shows red numbers as friendly points are stolen and endpoints are added. Distinct sounds give notice or warnings of friendly or enemy points scored or stolen.

Robots

See also: Asteroid#Robots

Unlike Mann vs. Machine robots, these Robots are harmless and run when attacked. The robots are separated into three areas, named A, B, and C. They always follow their path that is marked on the floor unless they are being attacked. Currently these Robots are similar to Buildings in their attributes: they are unaffected by knockback (including compression blasts and shield bashes), afterburn, backstabs, Mini-Crits, Critical hits, and bleeding. Also, they are immune to the effects of Jarate and Mad Milk and cannot be marked for death. Robots also do not grant any on hit/kill bonuses (for example, health on hit with the Black Box), nor can they be sapped. Some classes have increased damage against these robots: Spy and Medic weapons deal 200% of their base damage, Scout weapons deal 150% of their base damage, and Sniper weapons deal 225% their base damage. Heavy and Pyro only do 75% damage to bots. Robots are immune to damage fall-off and ramp-up, so excluding splash damage, any attack on a Robot deals a constant amount of damage from any distance.

Robot behavior

The robots in areas B and C are protected by what appears to be an Übercharge when the robots in front of them are alive, for example; B robots are protected if any A robot is alive and C robots are protected if any B robot is alive.

The robots are defenseless, but attempt to escape from attackers by running in circles. After 3 seconds without taking damage, the robots heal themselves at a rate of 6 health per second. All of the robot groups share a respawn timer that resets when the timer runs out.

When destroyed, A and B robots drop their associated amount of Power Cores in a single drop. When C robots are destroyed, they perform a death animation wherein they run around dropping a stream of Power Cores. The robots also drop gibs when destroyed. These gibs may be collected for ammo or metal.

Robots give 5 health per second to nearby friendly players as well as to disguised enemy Spies.

Robot Voice Lines

Note: These voice lines are in beta and may be altered in the future. In addition, robots occasionally emit the death-notice sound from Half-Life

Idle

"Beep boop." "Beep boop beep."

When a player crosses circuit path

"Path not found." "Er-ror." "Error."

Under attack

"Oww." "Ow."

Death

"Oh no." [gurgling noise]

Strategy

Main article: Community Robot Destruction strategy

Maps

Main article: List of maps

Robot Destruction maps carry the rd_ prefix.

Name	Picture	File name
Asteroid		rd_asteroid

Update history

July 8, 2014 Patch (Mann Co. Beta Maps - Early Access)

• Added Mann Co. Beta Maps - Early Access program.
  • Added 2 new beta maps: RD_Asteroid and PL_CactusCanyon.
  • Beta maps can be accessed via the quickplay menu by clicking the Play Beta Maps option.

July 17, 2014 Patch

• Power Cores and Reactor Cores now add their point value to a team's score over time
• Reduced the rate at which points can be stolen from 15 per second to 10 per second
• Robots now heal 5 health per second to nearby friendly players
• The HUD has been reworked
  • Inverted the layout to better represent the layout of the level
  • Added progress bars to represent each team's score
  • Potential point gains from stolen reactor cores are now visually represented on the score progress bars
  • Thief icon now moves across the score board relative to the thief's position in the level
  • Updated thief icon to represent both the color of the power core stolen and the color of the thief's team
• Added new strings to the win panel that explain why the team won
• Replaced the current "points being stolen" sound with a new sound
• Added better collision hulls to robot models
• Reworked robot skins to reduce similarity to the Übercharge skin
• Sentry Guns no longer target Übercharge robots

July 24, 2014 Patch

• Players must steal at least 25 points before they can leave the vault with the reactor core
• Updated power core pick up sound
• Updated robot death effects and sounds
• Updated HUD layout

July 30, 2014 Patch

• Updated HUD layout
• Fixed a bug that would prevent players from picking up the reactor core
• Teams will now spawn 70% faster if their C robots are dead

October 12, 2016 Patch

• Fixed energy weapons not hitting RD robots.

August 13, 2024 Patch

• Fixed Robot Destruction death notice events not properly highlighting when the local player kills a robot.

Unused content

• There are a number of unused files related to the gamemode, such as a robot model and older versions of HUD elements.

Gallery

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  RED Robot A

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  BLU Robot A

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  RED Robot A (Protected)

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  BLU Robot A (Protected)

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  RED Robot B

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  BLU Robot B

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  RED Robot B (Protected)

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  BLU Robot B (Protected)

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  RED Robot C

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  BLU Robot C

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  RED Robot C (Protected)

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  BLU Robot C (Protected)

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  Damaged RED Robot C

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  Damaged BLU Robot C

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  Damaged RED Robot C (Protected)

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  Damaged BLU Robot C (Protected)

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  Unused RED Robot

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  Unused BLU Robot

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  Robot Gibs

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  A Robot Gibs used as part of the spawn animation

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  RED Power Core

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  BLU Power Core

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  RED Reactor Core

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  BLU Reactor Core

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  The HUD on Robot Destruction.