Fall Damage

(Up to Game logic)

"Fall Damage" setting turned on in Worms Armageddon

Fall Damage may seem fairly self-explanatory, but its other known way to call it defines it better: Speed Damage. A worm takes fall damage if it reaches a certain speed, and not simply if it fall down further than a specific height. Under normal situations (without features such as Loss of Control Doesn't End Turn and RubberWorm Bounciness) Fall Damage will make the worm lose control, and consequently end its turn.

There really is no maximum fall damage — there's a maximum vertical speed, and it's normally at this impact speed that the highest fall damage is reached. With TestStuff5, there's no maximum speed. The maximum fall damage with TestStuff5 should be 32767/18 = 1820 (at extremely high speeds the damage will be pseudo-randomized due to integer truncation, but it'll always be <= 1820). [1]

Fall Damage Formulas

Here is the exact formula, in BASIC parlance:

FDCOEF = (FDBYTE * 50) mod 256

DAMAGE = INT(((VSPEED - 8 + 1/65536) * FDCOEF + 18) / 18)

VSPEED is the vertical speed at impact in pixels per frame. The normal maximum for this 32. So using the standard values for everything: DAMAGE = INT(((32 - 8 + 1/65536) * 50 + 18) / 18) = 67

Note: With a value of FDCOEF=0, this formula gives a DAMAGE=1. However, W:A treats this as an exception — FDCOEF=0 disables fall damage completely.

Here is the reverse formula, covering values of FDPERCENT ranging from 0 to 508 in increments of 4: FDBYTE = ((FDPERCENT / 4) * 41) mod 128

Before Deadcode's fixes, W:A used to use this formula instead: DAMAGE = INT((VSPEED - 7) * FDCOEF) / 18 This yields a standard max fall damage of 69 instead of 67.

Activation "failure"

Fall Damage "failure" with explosions (508% for didactic purposes)

	W:A replay: Video-info about Fall Damage activation with 508% fall damage setting.
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	W:A replay: A demonstration of the fall damage "failure" even if the worm touches the terrain and falls after an explosion (508% fall damage)
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Activation "failure" detail (508%): if the explosion launches a worm way too vertically and it hits a ceiling, Fall Damage will continue not being activated

An intentional feature added by Team17 prevents fall damage from being applied the first time the worm hits the ground after being hit with an explosion (note that if the worm falls way too vertically after the first terrain hit, fall damage will not be applied too). Without this feature, a lot more inconsistency from damage taken from explosions would happen (because fall damage works based on the velocity, not the distance travelled). Note that this "failure" only happens with explosions (and not with punches or arrows).

If you're looking to maximise the damage done with an explosive weapon by having it throw the enemy worm high into the air, you should aim to try and have the worm bounce off of a wall (without making it fall way too vertically from there) before its first downward collision with a floor occurs, so that fall damage will be enabled upon it and every subsequent downward collision that occurs as it slides and/or bounces around until coming to a halt.

Note that fall damage is correctly activated with TestStuff or with v3.8 feature "Fall damage is triggered by explosions" in such circumstances.

Discussion thread

Tricks

Increase the Axe damage applying fall damage when a worm is on top of other worm!

	W:A replay: Fall Damage Axe demonstration
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It is possible to apply Fall Damage using the Battle Axe, when a worm is standing on top of another worm. This will make the worm on top pass through the other worm and fall with enough speed to increase the damage due to the fall damage even on a very short distance from the ground.

Alien glitch relation

A worm surviving from the fall damage due to the Alien glitch

Note that Fall Damage will be reset if the Alien glitch occurs. This means that the glitch can save a worm from the death if it does not fall too much after the glitch, or it can receive less damage than expected, since the Fall Damage will start to be applied only after the worm reach a certain speed right after the glitch.