Rules

Objective

You drive an autonomous combat robot in a contested zone called Sector 2. Rounds are slow and tactical: positioning and information win fights, not fast aim. The mech is yours to build; the manual covers the garage and the controls.

There are three game modes, picked on the setup screen (the host picks for a room):

• SKIRMISH: one life. The round ends when one team destroys every enemy robot, or when time runs out, and then the team holding the most sectors wins
• CONTROL: hold the comms towers. Every second your team holds a tower it earns a point; when time runs out the team with the most points wins. A destroyed mech is not out: it respawns 8 seconds later with full parts, fresh ammo and a cold reactor, in the same build, next to a tower your team holds uncontested (at your base when there is none). The score is not shown during the round, only at the end, so keep fighting
• SIEGE: take the enemy base, sector by sector. Your team can only capture a sector that touches one it already holds (your base counts), so the two cells next to your base come first, then the centre or a corner, then a cell next to the enemy base. Hold one of those and the enemy pad is open: stand inside its ring and a clock runs; 45 seconds uncontested and the round is yours. One mech is enough. A defender stepping into the ring stops the clock, and it bleeds back down while nobody is attacking, so a broken push can be picked up again. Lose the sector next to the enemy base and their pad closes again. Standing at a tower you cannot take yet does nothing for you, but it still blocks the other team from capturing it or resupplying there. Both bases work the same way, so both teams push at once and meet in the middle. A destroyed mech respawns 12 seconds later at the tower your team holds nearest the enemy base, or at your own base when you hold none, and at your base while your pad is under attack. Once the attackers have held your pad to 50% of its clock, it reads SPAWN DENIED: you come back at the tower your team holds nearest your own base, or at the reserve point behind your pad ring when there is none. The open enemy pad hands attackers ammo like a held tower does, while nobody defends it. The radar darkens the sectors you cannot take yet, and the line under the clock says BASE EXPOSED when the enemy holds a sector next to your base and ENEMY BASE OPEN when you hold one next to theirs. At the clock, most sectors held wins

Rounds run 10 minutes. At 2 minutes remaining you get a warning and the clock turns red. Equal sectors or equal points at 0:00 are a draw. A forfeit button in the pause menu lets you quit early, scored as a loss.

In CONTROL and SIEGE a mech that has just respawned carries a spawn shield: no damage lands on it for 6 seconds, or until it walks out of the circle it spawned in. Camping a spawn does not pay. In SIEGE a shielded defender does not stop the enemy's clock; it has to drop the shield and fight. Every respawn boots the cockpit for two seconds while the round goes on.

In CONTROL and SIEGE a mech whose legs are destroyed can self destruct instead of crawling home: SELF DESTRUCT in the pause menu, or hold X. It costs you: the respawn takes 12 seconds instead of 8 (in SIEGE, 16 instead of 12), and you come back at your base, not at a tower your team holds. Bots do the same when their legs are gone and they have nothing left to shoot with.

Sectors and towers

The arena is a 3x3 grid of sectors. The two opposite corners are home bases and can never be captured. The other 7 sectors each contain a comms tower, placed at a random spot every match.

• Capture: stand near a tower until it flips to your team
• Contested: if an enemy is also in range, the capture stalls until one side leaves or dies
• Recapture: towers can always be taken back, and the enemy AI will try

A captured tower shows ownership on its flag, beacon, and cabin stripe, visible from across the map. Towers are solid to mechs, but the base is open: shots and sightlines pass under the deck between the legs.

Radar and eyesight

Information is the core resource. Sector control gates radar only, never eyesight:

• If an enemy is close enough to see and not blocked by terrain, you see it, no matter who owns the sector
• Enemies appear as radar contacts only in sectors your team controls; lose the tower and those contacts vanish
• When an enemy walks into a sector you hold, you hear a tick and that sector flashes on the radar with a ring around the new contact, at most once every few seconds however many cross
• A short local sensor perimeter is always on (40 metres on a standard core, 64 on a SCOUT), so nearby enemies stay on radar anywhere, and every teammate's perimeter counts for the whole team
• The relay: whatever a mech with a COMMAND core can see, with its sensors intact and a clear line of sight, is on the whole team's radar too. The commander calls what it sees; nobody's direct-fire guns fire on its word, but a howitzer can
• Radar is the only thing that sees through walls: an enemy behind a building shows as a blip with no marker in the world
• The radar shows what your team knows, not the truth: sectors you do not hold read as neutral whether they are empty or enemy held. Enemy captures are only visible by eye, from the tower's flag and beacon
• Losing your sensors component shrinks your local perimeter and blacks out your radar screen, but tower intel is unaffected: it comes from the towers, not your mech
• A howitzer firing leaks its position: the shooter flashes on the enemy radar for a second, wherever it stands

Weapons and damage

Your mech carries two weapons, one per arm, fired independently. Pick them in the garage before each round; the same weapon on both arms is allowed, and everything is available from the start.

• Sniper: long range precision, one heavy shot at a time
• Rifle: long range, lighter and quicker
• Cannon: mid range punch
• Machine gun: mid range hose with a scatter; the belt goes fast and the gun runs hot
• Grenade thrower: close range area damage
• Flamethrower: a 25 metre stream, walk in close
• Howitzer: artillery. An arched shell that lands up to 350 metres away and never closer than 60, with a burst 28 metres across. It flies whether or not you can see the target, so a radar contact is a target. Everyone near the impact gets a growing red ring, a whistle and a warning: a walking mech leaves it, a standing one eats it

Heat. Every shot heats the mech and the generator cools it. At the cap both arms lock for 4 seconds; the HUD reads OVERHEAT. Fire in bursts, or fit a bigger generator.

Damage is by component: legs, arms, sensors, and core take hits separately and stop working when destroyed. Crippled legs slow you to a crawl, a destroyed arm is blown off with its gun, dead sensors shrink your radar and black your screen, and a destroyed core is the end of your mech. Armour and hit points come from the build: an ASSAULT core takes half again as much, a SCOUT less.

Base

• Stand near your own base to repair every part to 100%
• Field repair: inside the circle of a tower your team holds while nobody contests it, every part repairs to 75% at 3 hit points a second; the HUD reads FIELD REPAIR beside RESUPPLYING
• Ammo resupplies at base with no cap, and in rations at any tower your team holds: stand inside its circle while nobody contests it, and come back after 30 seconds for the next ration

Controls

Standard first person controls. Mouse aims, W/S walk, A/D strafe, left and right click fire each arm, Esc pauses. Your legs follow where you aim while you move, unless you turn on manual leg steering. The full reference, the garage, the HUD and the howitzer are in the manual.

Single player and multiplayer

• Single player: AI squadmates fill your team so sides are even, at the team size (1v1 to 3v3) and with the squad strategy you pick before the round; every bot drives a build of its own. In SKIRMISH, if your mech is destroyed while a squadmate is still fighting you can spectate them and let the round play out (their result is yours), or accept defeat on the spot; alone, your death is the loss. In CONTROL and SIEGE you respawn
• Practice: PRACTICE on the title screen is the firing range: your garage build, a fenced lane with distance markers and targets, no clock and no result. Nothing there counts toward your record. A host can make a multiplayer room a practice room too (ROOM: PRACTICE): everyone on the range together, the teams as the host set them, the targets fair game for both, and END PRACTICE takes everyone back to the room
• Multiplayer: up to 6 players in one room, peer to peer. The host's browser runs the match; joining is just typing the room name. Each player brings their own build. In SKIRMISH your death does not end the round: you watch a teammate until a whole team is down. In CONTROL and SIEGE you respawn. The host leaving ends the room for everyone