Difference between revisions of "Jet Pack War"

Revision as of 14:16, 12 July 2010

	W:A replay: An excellent Jet Pack War match with FoxHound and Bob-MarleyCassio
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Jet Pack War (or JPW) is a scheme based on Hysteria. The premise is that the worms have 4 seconds per turn to attack with drop-and-run weapons from the Jet Pack. The objective is to eliminate all opponents' worms and survive.

Detailed information and tips

General

Since artillery mode (anchor mode) is enabled, worms must move and attack from the Jet Pack. It needs to be fast because of the 4 seconds of turn time. A health crate containing 35 health will be placed each turn. Fall damage is set to 508% and worm health is set to 155, so players must be careful not to fall from high enough to take fall damage.

Beside jet packs, each player is equipped with the following weapons and utilites:

• 3 Teleports, to escape from closed areas in the begining of the game.
• Unlimited Dynamites, blowing 15% weaker, significantly hindering its ability to launch worms into water from a long distance.
• 3 mines, which deal more damage than the unlimited Dynamite. Mine explosion (58% stronger) is the same of the normal dynamite, enabling them to launch worms into the water from long distances.
• 1 Ming Vase with a delay of 5 turns, which is provided to cause devastation where necessary later in the game.
• 1 Low Gravity, which can be combined with any of the 3 weapons for increased worm launch distance, and the probability of making a worm drown.

When Sudden Death strikes after 80 seconds of spent turn time, no more health crates will appear and the water will rise. Retreat time is set to 5 seconds to facilitate the collection of crates and hiding after an attack.

Due to the limited time to attack it is very important to choose your weapons fast, so learning all the required F-keys helps a lot.

Jet Pack

Fuel

When a worm is in a lower place, going higher will require a lot of fuel. Bear this in mind, as running out of fuel and taking a fall with the 508% of fall damage may kill your worm. Another choice is to attack a worm in a lower place and use the retreat time to get up.

Dropping explosives back

Sometimes when you drop an explosive forward, it hits your worm and does not fall as you had aimed. A good way to avoid this is by releasing the explosive with the worm facing back.

Retreat Time

It can be used to push mines onto the enemy, collect health crates, receive more time to escape, and cover for the loss of fuel.

Deactivation

• Pressing space resets all horizontal velocity, which is handy for landing on isolated pixels where you are a difficult target.
• Running out of Jet Pack's retreat time keeps the worm's movement. This can be useful if landing with no care about if the worm will hit or slide on the terrain. This tip can be explored on decline terrains.

Fall Damage

508% is more than 5x the normal fall damage, and this is really dangerous, so beware. If the activation "failure" is well known it is possible to kill worms in high places depending on the situation. A good protection against the fall damage is stocking up on HP with the Health crates.

Dynamites

When you need more time to move, dropping a dynamite will activate the retreat time, giving you extra time to hide and collect crates. Dynamite's maximum damage is 59 (without fall damage). It is useful for dealing damage without wasting ammo. They can also help you to know when the retreat time of the Jet Pack will end: when the dynamite explode (after the time reaches 0).

Mines

• Player mines deal a good amount of damage and are very useful for launching worms into the water. Beware the limited ammo (x3) of them.
• If a player mine didn't activate, remember where it is, because it can't be distinguished from terrain mines and will deal a lot more damage.
• Terrain mines can be pushed by the Jet Pack to do an extra attack and if the player aims well or just has luck, they can make a combo in the attack.

Ming Vase

It can be very useful when you are about to lose, or when you need to kill a worm with a lot of HP. Use the Ming Vase when a group of your opponents' worms are close to each other (for the clusters kill everybody). It can also be helpful when placed underneath a worm with a lot of HP to make all the clusters explode at once (the same way as the Cluster Bomb's trick), making the worm fly very high and receiving a lot of damage.

Health crates

Giving 35HP to a worm for each crate, they can make a worm with very low HP become quite healthy again, giving another chance for someone about to lose. They can also compensate for the increased fall damage, giving worms more HP to cope with the falls. If your opponent has little HP, don't leave crates left.

Strategies

Some of the strategies are from Hysteria and can be applied here as well.

Administering the opponent's worms

Since the health crates give 35HP, worms with very low HP can become quite healthy again. Killing those worms will not let the opponent take this advantage. On the other hand, if the opponent has less worms than you, he/she can explore the worm rotation to easily kill your worms.

Killing healthy worms at once

Sometimes an opponent worm is too healthy. When this happens, kill it at once will be very helpful. The easier way is by drowning it into the water, because the fall damage gives no 100% sure about the worm's death. The Low Gravity can be very useful for drownings, the same way that a well positioned weapon can also explore the fall damage.

Hiding far away from the opponent

It can be useful when you want to protect yourself against attacks, and search for health crates to receive more HP. This method can also make the opponent stop in the middle of the map (on a tentative to attack), making this way an easy method to attack him/her without recieving damage.

Waiting for Sudden Death

Waiting for the sudden death may be very useful to easily kill worms. It stops the appearence of health crates, as well as letting the water rise.

History

FoxHound created this scheme thinking about creating a scheme with short turn time like Hysteria, using the Jet Pack more and with no rules. The scheme's original name was Jet for Boom, but it was renamed to gain popularity, after Lex's suggestions. The scheme was created, tested and divulged before the existence of the Worms Scheme Contest, so when the scheme was sent to the 2010 contest it was not accepted due to the rule: "The scheme has to be completely unseen by the public before and during the contest.". The teleport was added to the scheme after Fighter's suggestion and no need anymore a specific map.