Botball Game Rules

Game Rules

You play Botball matches live against other players. There’s a field and a playing ball, and the game lasts for a set time. Each player has a team of five customized bots, and must use them to take the ball to the opposing team’s goal area. This is called scoring a goal. When the game time has expired, the team with most goals wins.

The Team

A botball team is always made up of five bots, either designed by you in the garage or premade by the computer. A botball team has a point value, equal to the sum of the individual point values of its five members (each bot costs an average of 25 points, ranging roughly from 10 to 40 points). No botball team may have a point value over 125.

Tuning

To make sure your botball team is worth exactly the optimal 125-point value, you may tune up your individual bots’ costs in the garage, or just before the game. Tuning means you raise or lower one or more of your bots’ point values, by reducing or increasing the stats of one of its modules.

The Game

When the game begins, all the bots in both teams try to pick up the ball. Your team’s actions and the game rules depend on which team has Ball Possession.

When a bot has the ball, it automatically enters attack state (see below) and may be attacked by enemy bots. A bot with ball possession is called the Ball owner. When your team has ball possession, the owner must immediately try to reach the enemy goal and score; the rest of your team must try to protect the owner by stopping anyone that’s attacking it (and attacking them back).

When the enemy team has ball possession, its owner enters attack state; this means your bots can (and must) attack it and try to stop it from scoring a goal.

When no team has ball possession, all bots automatically leave attack state, and both teams must focus on snatching the ball, or preventing other bots from reaching it.

Attacks

Bots may only attack each other if they have entered attack state. A bot may only enter attack state in two ways:

• By owning the ball, or
• By attacking a bot already in attack state.

Thus, a bot that doesn’t have the ball and is not attacking anyone may not be attacked at all.

Damage

Every time a bot is attacked, it loses shield points (or life points, if its shield becomes depleted) equal to the attack value of the attacking bot; when a bot’s life reaches zero, it’s deactivated, and stays that way until a certain time has elapsed, at which points it becomes online again. While a bot is deactivated, it cannot help its teammates in any way; the team is effectively one member short.

Special Abilities

During the game, bots with special abilities may use them to attack other bots, help their teammates or increase their team’s chances of scoring; these special abilities may alter the strategies and outcome of the game in significant ways, so you should always try to use your bots’ special abilities, and keep a lookout for enemy bots with them.

Goals and scoring

When the ball owner comes within throwing distance of the enemy goal, it must try to score; that is, throw the ball at the goal and hope it goes through the opening. The chance of success on a ball throw depends on the ball owner’s Skill stat.

If the owner succeeds and the ball does enter the goal, the ball and all bots return to their starting positions; both teams lose ball possession and leave the attack state until a bot from either team becomes the ball owner again.

If the owner fails and the ball does NOT hit the goal opening, both teams lose ball possession and all bots automatically leave the attack state; the ball falls on the field and rolls randomly until a bot catches it, becoming the new ball owner.

Winning

An official botball match has a set duration; when this time has elapsed, the team with most scored goals wins.

If you win a game, you’ll earn rewards, and the opportunity to take part in official tournaments (more on that subject soon).