Mechanics Watch

In *Mechanics Watch* we take a closer look into how the universe that we live in functions - one mechanic at a time.

Animations - the way we move our legs and say hello in this world, we all know that we can move, point, dance, and sit on chairs. But have you ever thought about *HOW* we are able to animate ourselves? After recent research and testing, the wizards at ArC can finally tell you how how we use animations to interact with each other.
Each animation is defined in a being's entity - a being's soul, if you will - with a unique ID. When someone reacts to you with a thumbs up, the related ID within the their entity is called by the algorithm, which causes them to play out the animation, sometimes rather uncontrollably and unable to stop.
Of course, playing out an animation will require the algorithm to know which part of the body (and otherwise parts) to move. That is why every animatable being in this world has a skeleton made up of joints. When an animation is played out, the joints are translocated frame by frame, making the attached visible parts to move with them.


The Uncovered Treasures

In *The Uncovered Treasures* we look at innovations in the ArC's world modification efforts, sometimes new and related to our discussed mechanics, other times old and random.

After further research and development, we at ArC have discovered that within our entities are more than just walking and our random gestures - they have also all the reaction animations that ordinary NPCs do. This means that if we are somehow able to play those animations, everyone would be able to see us move in these new ways.

And of course we did! The pioneer Monkeyman192 discovered that the gestures menu animation list points to the animation IDs within the player character entity when playing the animations. And if the gesture animations can be played as emotes, all the other animations within the entity can be too. He first implemented the death and falling panic animation into the gestures menu. Following his footsteps, WinderTP has implemented the aforeomentioned NPC reactions as gestures, and now you can enjoy it too with Unlock All Emotes.


Extra - Exocraft Damage Mechanics Research Results

Upon the request of 7101334, space wizard WinderTP, with the help of CosmoDerp7, Chaos and IanM32, has initiated the research of Exocraft damage mechanics.

The methodology is simple: Testers are required to remove any modifications which would render the player invulnerable or otherwise directly interfere with the exocraft model, but otherwise custom as they see fit, as they would not interfere with *how* the exocraft damage is taken. Damage between players is turned on to ensure the exocrafts would deal and receive damage. Tests are carried out by having the exocraft attacked or attacking the tester.

There are two main types of damage which we will distinguish here: Direct Hits and Splash Damage. Direct Hit is damage done by having the projectile hit the exocraft collisions, and Splash Damage is done when the collision is within the extended radius when the projectile does not hit the collision directly, but still in close proximity of it.

The following is the results of the tests:

Exocraft to Personnel - Both
Personnel to Exocraft - None except Geology Cannon and Plasma Launcher, only Splash Damage
Exocraft to Exocraft - None
Ship to Exocraft:
	Phase Beam - None
	Positron Ejector - on Direct Hit
	Infra-Knife Accelerator - on Direct Hit
	Photon Cannon - on Both
	Cyclotron Ballista - On Both
	Rocket Launcher - None (Or at least difficult to do any damage because of the lack of lock on and spread)
Exocraft to Ship - None (Observation Fuzzy)
Collision - No Damage with any velocity

Theory - As all weapons tested that would cause damage to exocrafts has splash damage (Ship_Weapons_Guns_Damage_Radius for Ships and Weapon_Grenade_Radius for Grenades), only splash damage would harm the exocraft.

Side Note: When exocraft is killed (with you in it), random tech becomes damaged like starship