Surviving the Derby

[Hakosuka77]

Which vehicles hold up the best and whats a good way to beat the clock when there only 2 vehicles left?

[justintabs]

Pick something with a high strength stat. Keep trying to hit your opponent when you are down to the last four cars.
Light taps will keep you in the game until you can line up a hard hit.

[Arya]

I have a really busy schedule, but if I get a chance I'll post a Derby guide later this week. There's a zen and an art to winning derbies, and you don't need armour to do it.

The most important think to understand, is that damage is apportioned based on motion. If you strike a car that is not moving towards you, you don't take any damage. So try to hit targets from behind or in the side when possible. Avoid cars coming towards you if possible.

The other key stat is Advantage. Whoever is going fastest comes off best, so if you're going to hit somebody you may as well floor it. But try to avoid head-on crashes and impacts with cars moving towards you, it'll damage you as well as them and that will start to stack up over a derby.

As a general rule, bigger is better.

A large car weighs more. It has more inertia, and delivers more kinetic energy on impact. And that means more damage, and more chance of flipping your opponent. Flipping is important, at most you can do 30 damage in a single direct hit. But if you then flip your opponent or throw them into a barricade, you can award a second hit and do double damage. Virtually wrecking them in a single blow.

Adding armour is also vitally important. Strong cars are one thing, but a strong car with a steel beam across the front and sides is quite another. Selecting your armour isn't as simple as picking the biggest bits though; each section has a different weight and strength. Pick carefully; a stronger bit may actually be lighter, and that's not always desirable.

I recommend starting with the MudDigger for a couple of reasons. It's really cheap, doubles as a good race truck and stays viable late into the game. It's also really tough, and it's high ground clearance and collosal mass along it to easily flip opponents for massive damage. It's short wheelbase makes it agile, and it's high ground clearance deals with bumps well.

After that, I recommend the War Wagon. WarWagons are really good race cars, stripped out they'll dominate Class B racing on any surface. But they're also the strongest car in the game, which makes them perfect for derbies. The wagon's only major weakness is length, they're vulnerable to getting T-Boned.

And finally you have the Gatecrasher. I must admit I'm not a fan, I prefer the WarWagon even though on paper the Gatecrasher is better. Something about it... I dunno I've never had the same level of success with it. It just doesn't feel as strong to me.

[justintabs]

The smaller cars can be good for dashing through packs for kill shots.

[Arya]

Originally posted by OLDr! Tabloids:

The smaller cars can be good for dashing through packs for kill shots.

That's true. And they're great for Deathmatch where their lack of survivability isn't an issue.

A Firefly would be great for Deathmatch, they're really hard to catch and yet can carry decent protection.