Tank Tracks

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T3 TracksT4 TracksT5 TracksT6 TracksT7 TracksT8 TracksT9 TracksT10 Tracks

Type	Movement
Purpose	Slow but armoured land movement type
Tier Available	1

Caterpillar Tracks are a type of movement cube in Robocraft, released 9/12/2014 in the TARO Update.

Overview

Caterpillar Tracks are large and heavily armored movement cubes that have better traction than Wheels, but do not stick like Legs. Since they are extremely heavy, they do not work well with flying or hovering movement blocks. They turn quickly while stationary and more gradually while at speed, but not at all if you are down to a single track. They can have multiple attachment points on the sides and top. They are unlocked at Tier 3 and have a variant for each tier through Tier 10. Higher tier tracks have more mounting points. Tracks work very well with the creation of tanks.

Turning

Depending on the arrangement and number of tank tracks on a robot, turning a tank can be either uncontrollably fast or irritatingly slow. At T3 to T6, tracks are rather short, and a simple 2 track design may turn too much or too fast for easy control. As such, low tier players may want to go for a 3 or 4 track design, with one pair of tracks in front and one pair of tracks behind. The longer the tracks (That is, the total length of the contact area between all tracks and ground), the slower the tank will turn. In contrast, the wider the space in between the tracks, the faster the tank will turn. Longer total track length also results in a wider turning circle, while shorter tracks have a much smaller turning circle or even turn on the spot.

Design Solutions

• If your tank is turning too fast, lengthen it and add tracks behind your existing pair(s) to slow down turning speed. This also works vice versa.
• If your tank is turning too slow, widen the space between the tracks to speed up turning speed. This also works vice versa.
• If your tank is going forward when you're turning make sure that you have an even amount of treads on both sides.

Statistics

Image	Mk	Armor	Weight(KG)	Speed (Normal / Overclocked)	Robot Ranking	CPU Load	Placement Points	Price	Price	Level to unlock	Height in cubes	Beam in cubes	Length in cubes	Total volume of cubes consumed	Hitpoints per CPU	Hitpoints per Robot Ranking
	3	1,781	7,500	76 / 129	247.86	34	3 (1 each side)	935	50	?	3	4	7	84	52.38	14.97
	4	3,087	11,786	76 / 130	708.59	36	3 (1 each side)	2,120	70	?	3	4	7	84	85.75	14.29
	5	5,126	16,071	77 / 131	2,019.48	38	4 (2 Top, 1 Side)	4,605	115	?	3	4	9	108	134.89	14.01
	6	8,138	20,357	78 / 133	5,739.56	40	4 (2 Top, 1 Side)	9,080	170	?	3	4	9	108	203.45	14.10
	7	12,329	24,643	79 / 134	16,271.66	42	6 (2 each Side)	16,885	270	?	4	5	13	260	293.55	14.56
	8	17,782	28,929	80 / 135	46,025.55	44	6 (2 each Side)	32,830	450	?	4	5	13	260	404.14	15.44
	9	24,354	33,214	80 / 137	129,917.59	46	9 (3 each Side)	58,420	475	?	5	5	19	475	525.43	16.84
	10	31,583	37,500	81 / 138	366,028.68	48	9 (3 each Side)	106,525	1,235	?	5	5	19	475	657.98	18.91

All caterpillar tracks have 3.00 Heal Rate, 100% Resistivity and 100% Barrier Protection.

Placement & Usage

Tank tracks, while tough, are by no means invincible. The destruction of a track will often take off a large portion of a bot at higher tiers, so they must be protected well. Being slow and tough, they are most suited to builds meant to weather enemy fire. In most cases, tank tracks should not be paired with any other movement type other than walker legs; their immense weight means that all other movement types will be severely overburdened, which decreases their top speed and renders the usage of them pointless. Walker legs, however, still possess their climbing ability even if overburdened, which means that placing walker legs in conjunction with tank tracks can let a tank reach places normally only accessible by fliers and walkers.

A strange strategy with some positives and negatives involves placing tank tracks all over a bot. Doing so will provide shielding from rail cannons, tesla blades, and plasma launchers. This is due to their high resistivity and barrier protection values. In other words, when hit with a plasma blast, the tank tread will absorb all the damage but pass none on to the chassis. Doing this takes up a lot of CPU, but can replace the CPU that electroplates or armor cubes would have taken up. This design is especially well suited to a medic/smg combo as the tank tracks will heal back at approximately the same rate as a single SMG will damage them. However, they are also incredibly heavy so they will slow your bot down unless it is a tank.

Size increase

Tracks increase in size exponentially across tiers.

• T4 to T5: +2 blocks in length,
• T6 to T7: +4 blocks in length, +1 block in height, +1 block in width
• T8 to T9:+6 blocks in length, +1 block in height

Connection points

• T3/T4: 3 Connection Points
• T5/T6: 4 Connection Points
• T7/T8: 6 Connection Points
• T9/T10: 9 Connection Points

Advantages and Disadvantages

Pros

• OC grants huge increase in speed.(At OC Level 13, tanks with tracks are extremely powerful)
• Unlike other movement types which require at least 3 to have full movement, Tracks only require 2.
• Multiple connection points; Placing Weapons, Electroplates, or other cubes.
• Stable in unusual positions where wheels would teeter, useful for all weapons.
• Can turn while stationary where wheels cannot, better positioning.
• Highest Armor count for Movement cubes (Tier 7 Comparison: Walker legs 9,863 armor to Tracks 12,329)
• Movement is not hindered by the Mass of other cubes.
• Can climb hills. Even well built bot can climb nearly 90° terrains.
• Are very difficult to flip into stuck positions, but not impossible.

Cons

• Very Slow speed on low Overclock level.
• Other movement cubes have a very negligible effect on caterpillar tracks, with the exception of walker legs.
• Despite having higher traction than Wheels, Tracks will still slide on Ice.
• Thrusters do not increase speed if used with Tracks, as the Tracks will "grasp" the ground
• Climbing especially steep hills will cause the tracks to lose grip and spin around fruitlessly or fall.
• They are large and difficult to build with.

Trivia

• Despite being released later, Tracks still follow the S-type styling having even-tiered variants with yellowish markings.
• Tracks can only be placed on Left or Right face of armor cubes, but once placed can be rebuilt to attach armor cubes on the top mount points; with Tier 5 / 7 Tracks are slightly harder to place correctly for symmetry due to placement faces on tracks.
• To date, Caterpillar Tracks have the highest Armor and Mass count for movement cubes.
• Vehicles using Tracks used to be nearly impossible to re-align, but this was changed with the removal of Alignment Rectifiers.
• It is possible to lift a track with aerial movement types; however, this requires multiple T10 helicopter blades/thrusters/helium just to lift a T3 track, which makes such builds highly impractical.
• Due to high regeneration multiplier (x 3.00) and multiple connection points, it is possible to build a regeneration-orientated build by using tank tracks as armour.