Robot 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 an upcoming game mode announced on July 8th, 2014. Currently this game mode is in beta and only includes one map, rd_asteroid. However the map is available to play by going to the quickplay menu, checking "Play Beta Maps" and selecting "Robot Destruction". The release date for the game mode and map is currently unknown. Because the game mode and its map are in beta, certain textures and animations may be missing; and any Gameplay elements described in this article may change in the future.

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 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.

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 will eventually start flashing for a few seconds before finally vanishing.

Reactor Cores

Reactor Cores are a way to steal potentially large amounts of points from the enemy. A Reactor Core may contain as many points as can be charged into it at the time it is stolen.

A Reactor Core may be taken by any enemy player that walks up onto it, but it can't be moved until at least 25 points have been charged into it. A Reactor Core cannot be moved by a friendly player, but a dropped core can be defended, preventing recapture.

Soldiers with the Rocket Jumper equipped, Demomen with the Sticky Jumper equipped, 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 Rector 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.

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 will run when you attack them. The robots are separated into three areas, named A, B, and C. They will 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. 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, Scout, and Medic weapons deal twice their base damage, and all Sniper weapons deal triple their base damage. Most weapons deal their minimum base damage; exceptions include all weapons for the aforementioned classes, as well as Sentry Guns and Shotguns, which both deal maximum damage.

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 will attempt to escape from attackers by running in circles. After 7 seconds without taking damage, the robots heal themselves at a rate of 8 health per second. All of the robot groups share a respawn timer, and will reset 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.

Strategy

Main article: Community Robot Destruction strategy

Maps

Main article: List of maps

Robot Destruction

Robot Destruction maps carry the rd_ prefix; community maps are identified with an italic font.

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

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

• 

  RED Robot A

• 

  BLU Robot A

• 

  RED Robot A (Protected)

• 

  BLU Robot A (Protected)

• 

  RED Robot B

• 

  BLU Robot B

• 

  RED Robot B (Protected)

• 

  BLU Robot B (Protected)

• 

  RED Robot C

• 

  BLU Robot C

• 

  RED Robot C (Protected)

• 

  BLU Robot C (Protected)

• 

  Damaged RED Robot C

• 

  Damaged BLU Robot C

• 

  Damaged RED Robot C (Protected)

• 

  Damaged BLU Robot C (Protected)

• 

  Unused RED Robot

• 

  Unused BLU Robot

• 

  Robot Gibs

• 

  RED Power Core

• 

  BLU Power Core

• 

  RED Reactor Core

• 

  BLU Reactor Core