How to Deal with Railgun Snipers in Robocraft

Snipers in most games can be pretty lethal. It makes sense. In real life, if someone can shoot you before you even see them, you don't stand a chance.

The equivalent of a sniper class in the online video game Robocraft is the railgunner. The railgun is an incredibly powerful weapon and lethal in the hands of a skilled player. And it goes without saying that it's incredibly frustrating to be killed in 1 or 2 shots before you even get a look at the bot that killed you.

This article will therefore look at a few simple tactics you can use to counter railgun users in Robocraft.

I tend to find that a majority of complaints - especially about one-shot kills - seem to be from pilots of hovercraft or planes.

And in game as a sniper, I find it easier to one-shot these players. Your health in the game represents just that - your robot's overall viability. But what kills you is having the two blocks your pilot seat rests on destroyed. To repeat: those two blocks are what determines whether you live or die.

With a hovercraft or flyer, the danger is exacerbated. For one thing, flyers need lift, so they are limited to fewer total blocks, meaning their pilot seat might only sit on an area that's one block thick. This means less armour to shoot through to destroy the bot.

Additionally, pilot seats have to sit on the ground; you can't mount them sideways or upside down. On a land vehicle, this is fine, since your underbelly is the area least likely to be exposed to fire. But on a flying vehicle, the underside is pretty much the only exposed area. So that's where all enemy fire is concentrated, and why it's much more likely to be killed in one or two hits from a railgun sniper.

There are solutions to the problem. You can use more heavily armoured blocks to protect your seat. You can add more layers of armour (and from tier 3, electroplates). You can use more powerful thrusters to move more quickly and be more difficult to hit. Or you can use the landscape as cover.

A lot of players don’t know about this, and a lot more don’t believe it, but if you, as a railgunner, scope in and point at an enemy’s headlight that is pointing to you, you will just see a giant flash! This will prevent you, the sniper, from seeing the enemy or his friends. This can be used on both snipers and chargers to lower the chances of being sniped from long range. This applies both to land vehicles and flyers.

A tactic used in a number of games including the Counter-Strike series and in World Of Tanks, is to peak and go back around a corner, forcing the enemy to shoot. This means they'll give their position away, and make them reload. If you can get an enemy to use all of their railguns, they will take 20 or so seconds to reload, giving you time to rush them and take them out.

Moving together as groups is sensible for a number of reasons, including the ability to use your buddies as cannon fodder. Just let them soak up all the shots, then rush forward to attack. Those snipers can't kill all of you!

These are just a few tactics I have used in my time playing Robocraft. I understand the frustrations of new players. I remember how irritating it is when everyone seems to have a better robot than you. I still find that I'm sometimes killed very quickly, sometimes before I can even do any damage. It's simply the way every game is. There's always someone who's better.

So, be wary of complaining about something straight away. Often you'll find you just have to take the time to figure it out for yourself. Also, it's worth noting that, at the time of writing, Robocraft is still in its infancy, and fewer tactics have really been developed than have been for more well established games.

That said, in the top tiers like 8, 9, and 10, players go in slowly and pick off the weaker ones and brawl with the tougher ones later on in close-quarters. But in the lower tiers, say 1 to 3, people are pretty new to the Robocraft and don't bother much with tactics. However, even in low tiers, you can still experiment with different robots, different weapons, and different tactics. Find out what works for you.

It’s all about how you play!