Which weapon should I start with?

Why the laser first

• Instant. The beam goes straight along the bearing you set, so there's no travel time to lead your target.
• Its own turret. It turns to the bearing at once, whichever way the chassis faces, so your bot can drive one way and shoot another.
• Never runs out. It fires once every half second, all match long.
• Matches the scanner. Both reach 30 m, so anything SCN-1 pings is within range.

It hits for 10 hull points, so destroying a light chassis takes 10 hits. Bigger chassis take more.

Things to watch

• Friendly fire is on. The scanner can't tell a teammate from an enemy or a wall, so a bot that fires at every ping will hit them all. Add a rangefinder (RNG-1) to check what a ping is, or a radio (RAD-1) to learn where your teammates are.
• A fire command sent while the laser is cooling down is dropped, not saved for later.
• It never tells you whether a shot hit.
• Walls and blocks stop the beam.

What to try next

Every weapon's hover panel in the Factory lists its range, damage, ammunition and which chassis it fits. On the Tools shelf, the Shoot tab holds the weapons.

• Rockets (RKT-9, RKT-18, RKT-36). Lobbed in an arc, so they can come down on a bot hiding beside a block. They reach about twice as far as the laser and hurt everything near the burst, including your own bot if the target is close. The number in the name is how many rockets you get per match.
• Mortars (MTR-10, MTR-20, MTR-40). Shells with a longer range than rockets, for a heavy ground chassis only.
• Heat-seeking missiles. SAM launchers on ground machines and AAM launchers on a gunship fire missiles that home in on drones and gunships in flight.
• Two lasers. A spare mount takes a second WPN-1 for twice the firepower. Each laser weighs 15 kg, though, so it slows the bot.

The Drop and Special tabs have tools that aren't weapons as such, like landmines, the grapple and the cloaking device.