Hey there Pear Heads!

Welcome to Smashbox Arena. The physics based competitive multiplayer VRSport. Teams duke it out 3v3 in arenas of all shapes and sizes, but sometimes all the games are full. Have no fear! Grab that quickmatch shuttle and be wisked away into a world of wonder. The world of bots.

Its just you and 5 bots, 3 of which are out to get you. Whether its a quick shot to the head, a perfect arc to your face from spawn, or a curiously placed grenade, rest assured the bots will find you and they will knock you out.

But wait! There's hope for you yet pear heads. Thanks to roomscale and being human you can do some things the bots can't. This guide will explain some things bots can and cannot do, along with tips on how to deal with their shenanigans.

Aim
Cancel teleports
Use two hands
Teamwork
Ignore the tiebreaker missile

Shoot without line of sight
Fake teleport
Teleport through walls
Shoot through walls
Block balls point blank
Catch balls point blank

Always selfish, a bot will be the first to pick up a nearby power up. Players can delay picking up a power up as a way to entice enemies, or hold extra ammo nearby. Bots only care about balls and their power. The more powerful the ball, the faster a bot will pick it up.

Bots are terrible at aiming. Sure they'll nail you in the head from a distance, but that's all they'll ever do, or ever try to do.
Bots cannot help but to aim for a player's head.
At long distances a bot's cone of fire is larger and can lead to body shots, but in most cases the bots will always hit your head.
Always carry a second ball in hand, held up at head height between you and the bot. With this face shield a player can move up to point blank range and use their other hand to shoot a bot's stomach area. Bots are easier to kill up close, which brings me to my next point...

Landing near to a fellow player is difficult since player can cancel other player's teleports.
Bots cant cancel teleports. You can teleport to the side of any bot and they will not cancel your teleport, whether they have a ball in hand or not. Why?

Bots have and use only 1 arm. Their second arm is purely for decoration to make them appear more pear head like.
Bots will only ever have 1 ball in hand. They cannot cancel your teleporters, but they can still teleport around when holding a ball.

If the missile has spawned, bots are all compelled to be the first to pull the trigger. Only players are capable of delaying the missile in order to keep playing against their human counterparts. If the tie breaker missile spawns, you better start bot hunting!

Video showing blocking bots with second ball:

[clips.twitch.tv]

A bot doesnt need to see you to throw a ball at you. It sees the world in arcs. If your head lies on an arc between you and the bot, the bot will take shots at you.

A bot will not give up when you run away from it. It may switch targets, but you should expect long distance shots from bots to continue until the bot runs out of ammo. Once out of ammo a bot will teleport to find more.

If you are looking at a bot face to face when it tries to teleport, it will continue to fake teleport over and over until you look away. If you catch a bot teleporting towards you, keep an eye on it until you can move to safety or attack.

As a human player you can stick your arm through virtual walls, but the system will usually not allow you to shoot the ball pressed through a wall. Bots do not have this restriction. If their straight arm salute ball holding behavior has any purpose, it is to shoot through walls the rest of us can't.
Thin glass windows and cargo containers are popular venues for wall pressing bots.

Just because a bot is in a hallway doesn't mean it will stay there. If you're ever on the roof of a structure be wary of ceiling hopping bots.

When approaching a bot that has no balls, be wary! At any time a bot can and will grab the nearest ball even if it is on the other side of a wall or ceiling. This can be especially tricky when the ball being grabbed is a power up.

Always keep a second ball between your face and the bot's ball. Even at point blank ranges the bot may block your attempt to hit its stomach. Sometimes its better to take a step back and wait for the bot to shoot at you first. Worst case scenario you and the bot play a short game of catch.
When using special balls such as fireballs or grenades, aim at the ground so the bot can't block yoru attempt. Better to kill them with the explosion.

If a bot is empty handed it will catch your ball. There is a window of opportunity everytime a bot animates. Be it a catch, block, throw, or move. Otherwise the bot will catch or block your ball.
Fire at a bot just after it fires a ball in order to take advantage.

Bots provide challenge due to their quick reflexes and sometimes odd behavior. Playing against bots reveals their limited strategies, and once you learn to combat these you will never have to fear bots again.

We all get hit by the occasional long shot, and some of the best pear heads out there get bonked by long shots or blindsided by richochets now and again. If you know an enemy bot might snipe you, you now know how to eliminate the bot before it gets a chance.

As a player who understands how to defeat bots, it is your responsibility to eliminate any high level bots on the oposing team that have spawned because of you.

Hold open a game as you duke it out against predictable bots and be killed by them more than you'd like to admit. In no time you will have a fellow player to go up against, and soon a full game of human players.

When players log in to see all games full it can be disheartening. Waiting for a slot to open can take time as each player vows to play "one more game". As you master in the art of bot killing, you will be doing the Smashbox community a service by holding open new games and sharing the art of bot smashing.

"I played against bots for a couple days and now they don't bother me!"
"Wow, I never realized how simple these bots were."
"Wait, Cici is a bot?"
"I'd rather be on HAPPY COWS!!! team..."

For three low payments of starting a new game and dealing with bots for a few minutes so the rest of us have a chance to put our head gear on, you can have a pearfect smashbox game, every smashbox game!


*In all seriousness I hope this guide helps people out. Bots are a great way to get a grip on some core strategies of this game, and I think practicing against them enough so they're no longer a nuscence in games makes for a much more enjoyable Smashbox experience.

If anyone has suggestions for improvements to this guide please let me know! I think Big Box updates the bots secretly sometimes so I have my eyes out for Rumdum's next move.