Guide to Combat
Combat
So, you're ready to hone your skills and learn the fine and ancient art of killing a man? Well, you've landed on the right page!
Punching
The first thing you should know about combat is how to throw hands. Left-click a person on harm intent with an empty hand to attempt a punch; the results will be highly variable. The punch can either miss or connect and deal a range of damage. The range of brute damage can be from 1 to 9 with a knockout. Use targeting to target a limb, shots may connect at different body parts due to chance. If a body part's damage is maxed, the damage applied to that body part will be transferred to another.
Punching can be a versatile tool if used right; even if unarmed, you can still rely on your hands to deter and slow down attackers.
Shoving
Shoving is arguably one of the most important skills to learn. A well timed shove can turn the tide in a fight. To shove, use disarm intent and left-click on a person with your empty hand. A shove looks very simple from the outside, which it is. It is however a very useful environmental tool that can double as an equalizer against a better armed opponent. Shoving someone once will slow them for a few seconds. If you shove them again while they are slowed, they will drop the items they are holding in their active hand. Very useful if you want to disarm an opponent.
A list of shoving interactions:
- Onto a table. This will knock the victim prone, and stun them for ~2 seconds. Doing so against normal glass/plasma glass tables will shatter said table, dealing small amounts of brute damage and stunning them for 10 seconds (Enough time to cuff them!). This will not work if they are already lying on a table. To do so, click the person adjacent to the table in the direction that will push them onto the table.
- Against a vendor. This will stun the victim and knock them prone, and will also inflict a notable amount of brute damage onto them as they experience an entire vending machine falling on them. WARNING: this can cause injury ranging from minor to severe brute damage and bleeding!
- Against a wall. Arguably the most well known interaction. This will knock down your target for a few seconds.
- Into a disposals bin. The target will be put into the bin. The bin will not flush itself.
- Into an open locker. This will put the person in the locker, after which the locker will close itself. This will not lock it.
- Into other people. This will knock both victims down.
- If your target is currently buckled to something, shoving them will immediately unbuckle them and do the appropriate interaction with any object they are shoved into.
Note: if you shove someone onto a table, and then try to attack them with a sharp weapon on help intent, it will initiate surgery on them.
Grabbing
While not as versatile as punching or disarming, the particularly robust can use it to great effect. To grab, left-click a person on grab intent with an empty hand. There are 4 levels of grabbing: passively grabbing / aggressively grabbing / grabbing by the neck / actively strangling; grabs can be reinforced by using the grab icon in hand. However, what truly makes grabbing shine is the ability to throw other people. By reinforcing a passive grab into an aggressive grab or higher, you can immediately toggle throw and slam the person into things, leading to special interactions similar to shoving but with damage.
Note: the loading icon when reinforcing determines when you can reinforce further. You can immediately throw someone when you reinforce a passive grab to an aggressive grab.
Armed Combat
While using hands is very robust, most players would rely on a weapon when in combat. The weapons most players could get their hands on would be melee-oriented and deal two types of damage. Weapons that deal blunt damage include things like bats, toolboxes, and knives. When enough blunt damage is applied to a certain body part, it will cause external bleeding and higher chances of bone fractures and internal bleeding. Additionally, sharp weapons like knives, hatchets, and shivs can delimb based on chance and damage done to a limb. This includes cutting off appendages, beheading, and disembowelment. Other weapons, mainly welding tools, deal burn damage. Some weapons also do stamina damage that temporarily stuns opponents; examples include the stun baton and stun prod.
In order to hit someone with something, you would just left-click a person regardless of intent.
There is also the ability to throw objects at people, which could deal damage or special effects depending on the item; a primary example being the bola. Some items can embed themselves onto the victim when thrown.
Shooting
Shooting a gun is quite simple, just click on your screen, and the gun will shoot at your cursor. Hitting your shots is another issue entirely however.
Tips for hitting your shots:
- There is no 100% shortcut to hitting your shots. Enemies can use the environment against you, by using walls, objects and sometimes even other people as cover.
- This obviously also goes the same for you! Luring your enemy into 1 tile wide hallways where your shots will be almost guaranteed to hit is your best bet.
- The next best way to hit your shots, is to lead them, meaning that instead of clicking where your enemy is right now, you click the place where you think they will be when your bullet arrives.
One lesser known thing is how bullets interact with prone players. If they are crawling by choice, the bullet will hit them as if they were standing up, without much difference.
If they are prone from, for example, a stunbaton, however...the bullet will instead pass over them, unless you directly click on their specific sprite when shooting.
Parrying
Some weapons on examine say that they can parry, but what does that mean exactly?
If you hold such a weapon in your active hand, you can press the parry keybind, (spacebar by default) to parry incoming attacks for a short amount of time, depending on the weapon used.
For any attack that would connect during this parrying window, all the damage is negated, and you'll take a small amount of stamina damage instead; a good tradeoff if you were going to be hit by a high damage attack.
Most items can only parry melee attacks, but some can even parry projectiles. Some examples are the riot shield, and the Vortex arm Implant.
Special cases, and things to keep in mind:
- CQC users get a special slapper that can parry.
- All weapons and shields that can parry can also be used to parry while they are held in your off-hand!
- Energy swords can reflect energy projectiles, and block ballistic projectiles on parry.
- The riot shields and Vortex arm Implant can block all projectiles on parry.
Improvisation
There are many unmentioned ways to kill or hurt a man. For instance, there are poisons you can shoot into people, soap, and even killer pets. Now that you know the basics, it's up to you to explore and experiment with the ancient art of pain.
Martial Arts
See: Martial Arts to learn more.
-Insert Judo noises here-