Botball Stats

Bots have a set of statistics (or stats) that define their in-game skills and traits. A bot’s stats are determined by its five modules, which you pick and choose at the garage. The following is a list of the stats themselves, and their effect in the game.

Cost

Botball bots are graded by a point-buy system; an average Botball bot costs 25 points, and no botball team may cost more than 125 points counting the costs of its five members. Thus, giving your team a bot that’s worth more than 25 points will require you to reduce the cost of one or more of the other bots in the team.

Defense

Defense defines a Bot’s general ability to withstand damage and remain functional. A bot with a higher defense lasts more and may use its special abilities (if any) more often before running out of batteries. Defense is subdivided in four traits:

• Life. Defines the bot’s raw ability to take hits. A bot with more life lives longer, one with less life dies easier.
• Power. Defines the bot’s ability to use special powers without running out of battery; a bot with a higher power trait can activate its special abilities more often. A bot without special abilities does NOT need the power trait.
• Shield. A bot’s shield trait indicates its resistance to damage. While life indicates how many hits a bot can take, shield determines how long does it take before the bot starts taking hits; the higher the shield stat, the more hits a bot can endure without taking real damage.

Offense

A bot’s offense stat indicates its ability to fight and incapacitate other bots. A bot with a higher offense stat tends to be better at hitting other bots than trying to score goals. There are four traits that make up the Offense stat:

• Attack. The attack trait indicates the bot’s combat strength; a bot with a higher attack strikes harder, depleting other bots’ shields faster and dealing more damage with each hit.
• Attack Range. This trait indicates whether a bot can hit other bots from a distance (and thus with relative safety from retaliation). Bots with close-combat weapons always have an attack range of 1, and can be hit from far away by their longer-range opponents.
• Weapon Type. Not a trait by itself, a bot’s weapon type simply defines whether its attacks are made with a close-combat (“melee”) weapon, a blaster weapon or a missile weapon. Melee weapons have no range, and thus can only be used when the bot is adjacent to the target. Blaster weapons are ranged, but tend to be slower and less damaging than melee weapons; lastly, missile weapons have the longest range and hit probability, but they cannot attack adjacent enemies, making the bot very vulnerable to melee attacks.        

Movement

A bot’s movement ability includes not only its speed and maneuverability, but also its ability to hinder the opponents’ movement. A bot with a higher movement stat has better field control, while one with lower movement is more easily attacked or cut off by its opponents. Movement includes four secondary traits:

• Speed. The most important of movement traits; though limited by the bot’s ability to accelerate (see agility, below), a bot with a high speed trait can navigate the field and score goals without little or no fear of attacks or blocks from slower opponents.
• Impulse. The impulse trait determines the bot’s acceleration ability. Thus, a fast bot with a low Impulse takes longer to reach its maximum speed.
• Strength. When two bots touch or collide with each other, the stronger bot may hold, hinder or outright negate the weaker one’s movement; the strength trait indicates a bot’s ability to hold or hinder other bots in this manner, and by the same token its resistance to other bots’ strength.
• Movement Mode. Not a trait by itself, this only defines the means the bot uses to move across the field; that is, whether its lower module is a rocket module, a wheeled module, a tracked module or a legs module. Legged bots have the highest impulse; wheeled bots have less impulse but higher speed; tracked bots (with tank-like tracks) have much higher strength, but are slow and cumbersome; bots with rocket modules can fly and thus move much faster than other bots, but tend to have poor acceleration.

Skill

The skill stat indicates a bot’s smarts, special powers and goal-scoring ability. A bot with a higher skill scores more often and more easily than other bots, and also tends to have a wider variety of tactics and special abilities to deal with faster or stronger opponents. This stat includes four secondary traits:

• Accuracy. The most important of skill traits, and one of the most important traits in the game, accuracy is the ability to score goals. A bot with a higher accuracy has a better success rate when trying to put the ball through the opponents’ goal, and thus is better equipped to lead its team to victory.
• Aim. This trait measures how fast the bot calculates and aims when throwing the ball; a bot with a lower aim can take several seconds to throw the ball (during which time it’s vulnerable to enemy attacks), while a faster bot can score as soon as it comes within throwing distance of the enemy goal.
• Reach. This trait indicates the distance from the goal at which the bot can throw the ball; a bot with a higher reach can score long before approaching the enemy goal, while a lower throw range forces the bot to move much closer to the goal before trying to score.
• Special Abilities: Rather than a proper trait, this is a list of the bot’s special abilities, if any. Special abilities allow a bot to do things such as stun opponents, increase their teammates’ defense, deal special types or damage or resist some types of attacks (to name a few). Most bots have no special abilities, but many have at least one or two; a single bot can have up to five special abilities (one for each of its five modules), but it must have a high power trait to use them effectively. The various special abilities, and their effects in the game, are listed in the description of each of the bot modules.

For the full list of Botball modules, with their respective stats and special abilities, check the module list.