Car damage occurs when a vehicle belonging to the player, an opponent, or The Cops is damaged.
Damage can be caused by collisions, falls, powerups, and explosives. However wear and tear does not occur from heavy use, and so straining the vehicle will not wear out components. When a vehicle is damaged enough, it becomes wasted.
Car damage indicator[]
1. Engine | |
2. Front left wheel | |
3. Front right wheel | |
4. Steering | |
5. Drive shaft | |
6. Rear left wheel | |
7. Rear right wheel |
The car damage indicator is located on the HUD in the Carmageddon games. It shows which parts of the player's vehicle are damaged, and how damaged they are. An exception to this is the PlayStation game, in which there is no distinction between vehicle parts.
Damage can be fixed using the repair function. Damage will repair equally but gradually, meaning damage of a component can be reversed slightly just enough to take its damage state back up one status level. This can be useful to save on the cost of doing a thorough repair while still benefiting from a more functional component; however even a light impact can immediately degrade its condition again.
Car damage levels[]
The following examples show damage to the engine, from left (fine) to right (fatal). A few vehicles have their engine in the rear, changing the location of its most exposed component. Frontal impacts in rear-engine vehicles often results in steering damage, while rear impacts in front-engine vehicles often results in driveshaft damage.
As damage is accumulated, component function and reliably degrades further until it breaks.
Engine: Top-speed and most noticeably acceleration are hindered. Wasted status results in no power to the vehicle, though it should be noted that very high APO Power will overcome this and cause some power to be put down.
Wheels: Their ability to physically interact with the ground becomes further hindered. In earlier games, this manifested as wobble as if the axle is bending out of shape, with wasted status causing that side of the vehicle to rock in place, even flipping onto its side in extreme cases. In later games, medium damage meant the wheel was deflated, with wasted status indicating that the wheel has detached entirely. This also re-prioritized how the newer games determined remaining health, as smoke would no longer billow due to a broken wheel.
Brakes: Affects how well that wheel will brake when the normal brakes or handbrakes are used (wheelspin unaffected). If all brakes are blackened, the vehicle will be unable to brake entirely but can still reverse once stopped. Often times the entire wheel assembly gets damaged from impacts, but individual damage can be seen and applied when using Edit Mode.
Steering: Steering input gets ignored and occasionally turns itself to the opposite direction. Wasted status will disable steering entirely, with the wheels locked in one direction.
Driveshaft: Affects stability of the transmission, with damage causing it to drop to first gear intermittently while at speed. Wasted status results in the transmission being stuck in neutral with it unable to shift even if the engine can put down power.
Carmageddon: Reincarnation introduced a colored outline serving as an indicator of "chassis damage", which doubled as an overall health meter of the vehicle (as well as each vehicle having their own unique outline, though this was purely cosmetic and did not indicate the status of extraneous accessories such as spikes). This feature led to situations where the vehicle could be near 60 percent health, but show no damage to individual components, unlike in previous games that required direct component damage to lower the health of a vehicle.
Visual indications[]
Damage levels can also be determined by looking at the vehicle:
- No smoke, bright bodywork = Fine
- Light grey smoke = Mildly damaged
- Dark grey smoke, dark bodywork/missing parts = Greatly damaged
- Black smoke, flames, possibly one half missing = Severely damaged/Wasted
Cosmetic damage[]
Carmageddon II introduced cosmetic damage, known as crushage. Sections of bodywork can become loosely attached, falling off if more stress is applied. Tail-/head-lights, windows and windscreens can also be smashed.
Car splitting[]
The sequel also added the ability to split a vehicle in half, either side-to-side or front-to-back. This will almost always lead to the car being automatically wasted. If the player car is split side-to-side, and more of the front half remains than the back half, the player can survive! Best repair quickly though...
Bending[]
Carmageddon II allowed cars to have their chassis bent out of shape. It is unclear how much damage this does, as it mostly happens to computer controlled opponents, but it can't be easy to drive when your car is shaped like a crescent moon!
On consoles[]
- Carmageddon 64 and the PlayStation version share a limited damage model, similar to the first Carmageddon's: Cars deform and blacken as they are damaged. There is no cosmetic damage, splitting or bending.
- The Game Boy Color version and cellphone versions have no damage model at all, instead showing damage through life bars[confirmation needed].
Player (in)vulnerability[]
- In Carmageddon's single-player mode, the player can be severely damaged but not officially killed. Though if enough damage is taken, the player vehicle will leak oil when the wasted threshold is crossed, but the game does nothing else to acknowledge their "death". They will be able to repair and continue on.
- In Carmageddon's Network Play mode, and in all modes from Carmageddon II onwards, the player vehicle can be wasted.