NO, THIS IS NOT A HOAX. Hax Mode is actually a real glitch that has somehow remained hidden from public use for all of these years (the Bigfoot of RA2, if you will). During the delay between the release of Hax Mode and now, Sage, Scrap Daddy and myself have been working to find out as much about Hax Mode as we can before we shared our findings with you, the community. Now, we've gathered enough information on Hax Mode to compile this guide and help you in your exploration of this powerful, new glitch. We urge you to CAREFULLY READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS POST before you begin experimenting with Hax Mode.
This skill will come in extremely handy, as it is key to entering Hax Mode.
Because of the limits of superstacking (more on these later), you will carefully need to plan out your chassis as you would for any other bot. The only components that you will need to activate Hax Mode are a Burst Piston of any length, a RAD Motor, a Control Board, and another kinetic component, like an Axle Mount.
Your Burst Piston may be mounted in any fashion (internally, on a baseplate anchor, on a Snapper, etc.), however we recommend that you mount it INSIDE the chassis. Attach the RAD Motor onto the end of the Burst Piston, and you're ready to go.
The process is actually pretty simple. All you need to do is Snapper Load the Burst Piston. Once the inner part of the piston has left the viewing screen, it will not return to its base. You are completely free to fire the piston, turn the RAD on and off and attach more motors.
Once you can no longer see the piston with the RAD, attach ANOTHER component with an axle. It can be anything from the "Mechanics" tab, or an Axle Mount. We recommend an Axle Mount because it is much easier to fit in a tight space.
After the component with an axle is attached, fire the burst piston. Congratulations! You have now entered Hax Mode!
Through extensive testing, we've found that Hax Mode isn't as easy as it looks, nor is it completely guaranteed to work. IT IS NOT NEARLY AS POWERFUL AS BOT FILE EDITING (BFE), as it will NOT allow you to stack any component anywhere you want at any time. These are the pitfalls, retrictions and limitations of Hax Mode.
One of the very first obstacles that you will run into is a limit of components that you can superstack. We believe that this limit is about 8 or 9 STATIC baseplate components (for example, anything in the power tab). This limit is not restricted to components that are superstacked in the same place. When this limit is passed, Hax Mode will simply not work until a baseplate component is removed.
EXCEPTION 1: We call this a "soft" limit because it is unclear what the component limit is, or whether there even is a limit. Usually, we've been able to attach 8 or 9 components before Hax Mode stops working, however Sage managed to attach somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 because his beard helped him. We're trying to find a method to consistently superstack double digit numbers of components.
EXCEPTION 2: We're unsure if this limit applies to kinetic components, such as motors. We've noticed that Hax Mode affects static components and kinetic components differently. We're still exploring exactly what the differences are.
EDIT: By pressing the pause/break button, you will be able to pretty much superstack however many static components as you like. Credit Urjak for this discovery.
Quite simply, YOU CANNOT SUPERSTACK AXLES. There are ways around this however, as removing the axles from the motors will allow them to stack. When building Godmode, Sage had to systematically remove each individual axle from each HPZtek in order to make them stack; a long and tedious process. How do you remove the axles? That is entirely up to you, but there are many other well-known glitches that will allow you to do this.
EDIT: Pressing the pause/break button will allow axles to be stacked as well, although it is unclear if this lets you superstack an unlimited amount of motors. Credit Urjak for the discovery.
As cool as this sounds, it's a glitch that you want absolutely no part of. It occurs when the RAD with the inner part of the piston never returns to the body of the piston, even after entering and exiting the Test Garage. Since the piston never returns, it can't be detached, rendering the robot absolutely useless. In other words, a dead, or necro, chassis.
Much like ordinary stacking, superstacking seems to only work in certain (albeit the majority of) places on the baseplate, and is not guaranteed to work exactly where you want. For example, you may be able to superstack two black batteries in one spot, but two other batteries may not superstack directly beside it.
Certain superstacks, like HPZteks or DDTs that are slightly overlapped, work very much the same way as stacking a pair of black batteries, as in they're difficult and they require a high level of precision to achieve. In this case, Hax Mode doesn't "help" you with this stack as much as it merely makes it possible.
While Hax Mode does allow you to exostack components, they may not exostack all around the chassis. For example, Black batteries may only exostack in one certain corner of the chassis. No matter what, Hax Mode DOES NOT allow you to exostack anything out of the top of the chassis.
In the first picture, Hax Mode allows the HPZtek to be superstacked in the Black Battery. However in the second picture, the HPZtek was moved back outside of the battery, so it will no longer superstack. At this point, get a new HPZtek and try again.
We'll readily admit to not fully understanding Hax Mode, but we've compiled this guide to help you along in your exploration of this glitch. Now, we're seeking your input and findings to help us gather enough information so we as a community can make the correct desicion on whether or not we will accept Hax Mode as a completely legal glitch, allow it while imposing regulations on its use, or ban its use entirely.
For now, we don't think that we've done enough testing to make a definitive call on the legality of Hax Mode, and quite frankly, we have absolutely no idea what you guys are going to do with this glitch. We need your help in testing the limits and boundaries that we've outlined for you already. Don't take any limits that we've outlined as absolute truths, and please try to find ways around them. This is your chance to abuse the absolute of Hax Mode. In fact, we welcome people proving our findings wrong. ALL new pieces of information will ultimately contribute towards answering the final question of Hax Mode: is it legal?
We do, however, feel the need to have one rule about the use of Hax Mode. DO NOT USE IT TO EXOSTACK BATTERIES. We should all agree that having invincible battery armour is not in the spirit of the game and is a massively overpowered use of this glitch.
We also believe that Hax Mode should be deemed ILLEGAL for use in tournaments until we have thoroughly tested it. In other words, illegal until proven legal.
We may add more imposed restrictions to this section as our exploration of Hax Mode reveals more details. We'll see.
The ultimate purpose of this excersize is to gather enough information on Hax Mode so that we can decide whether or not to accept it as a legal glitch. We (the community) will experiment and build with it, relatively unrestricted for now and make the desicion when we feel that we've gathered enough information. It might take a week, it might take a month. We don't know. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.
We're going to make this as clear as possible: WE DO NOT WANT YOUR OPINIONS ON HOW LEGAL OR ILLEGAL HAX MODE IS. Right now, we're just exploring the nature and extent of the glitch, not making descisions. What we want from you are not only what new aspects of the glitch you find and discover yourselves, but we also want to see how you use Hax Mode in your day-to-day robot building. Even if we discover nothing new about the glitch, we still desperately need to see how the community is going to use it. We will start up a Hax Mode Showcase where you can show us what you can do.
We don't want to be endlessly answering your questions, which is why we've made this guide as detailed as we can. Hopefully, this section can also address any more problems or quandries you could run into.
4.1 - "Hax Mode isn't working. What's wrong?"
4.2 - "I'm building this sweet bot and I need to superstack some batteries, but it won't let me. Why?"
You've probably run into the Soft Rule of 8-ish components. Try removing some motors or batteries or other baseplate components that DO NOT need to be superstacked and try again.
4.3 - "I wanna build a Godmode clone, but why can't I stack my HPZteks like Sage did?"
No one ever said that Hax Mode was easy to use, in fact Sage has said that Godmode was incredibly annoying to build. In order to stack HPZteks or any other motors, the axles must be removed. Even then, superstacking motors can be difficult as it may work only one time in one particular spot. If you miss your one-time shot, just get a new motor and try again.
4.4 - "I've built this awesome bot, so where should I post it?"
We will start a Hax Mode Showcase in the Stock Showcase section so you can post your creations there. We're doing this for two reasons, the first being that it's easier for all of us if we don't have to wade through pages and pages of multiple showcases to find the bots that we want to look at, and the second is that we technically haven't legalized Hax Mode yet. Consequently, we'd like to keep the possilby illegal bots seperate from all of the other stuff that everybody has built.
4.6 - "So why did it take so long for you to release Hax Mode to the public?"
At first we were worried about the consequences of teaching everybody do-it-yourself BFE within the botlab, however these fears were put to rest soon after we really started testing Hax Mode out. At that point, it was only a matter of time until we released it to the public. During this period, we debated how we should release it, set out a plan of action, and compiled this guide to help you guys help us in analyzing this glitch. We just feel that this glitch deserves a different treatment than something like snapper loading because we don't know just how powerful it can be.
4.7 - "Scrap and Sage, why did you jerks tell R0B0 how to Hax Mode and not me?? ELITIST PIGS!"
Just to be clear, neither Scrap nor Sage told me how to superstack. I figured it out on my own using clues from the original thread. When I did, I approached Sage with what I'd found. He informed me that yes, I had discovered the correct method. I then worked with Scrap and Sage to compile this guide for you guys.
4.8 - "I didn't see any pistons and stuff in Sage's video. How'd he make that?"
A subtle combination of BS and magic-beardery. Actually, he just made the Burst Piston and RAD invisible and hid their collision meshes underneath the control board out the bottom of the bot. Him saying "Hax Mode... ACTIVATE"? Total crap.
And there you are, this is everything that we know about Hax Mode. Everything. We may be wrong with some things, and bang on with others, but truthfully, we have no idea. We need your help to find out the exact nature of Hax Mode, whether it's too overpowered for legal use in Stock, or if it's fair enough to be considered on the same level as snapper loading an the like. Please keep this thread for discussions regarding the nature of Hax Mode only. General discussion regarding this gitch should remain in the original Hax Mode thread, and showcased bots using Hax Mode should be kept within the Hax Mode Showcase in the Stock Showcase section. Please follow these guidelines as it will make everybody's life easier.
An odd thing I found is that in my game, shifting the bot view while attaching a motor exits out of hax mode for that specific motor. I have to cancel out of attachment mode and go back in for it to work. This might be for all components.
EDIT: Not consistent. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't.
I think I cracked the soft stack rule. If you use pause break you can just keep stacking.
How many can you do? unlimited?
Pretty much, I can also break the axle rule using it. I stacked like 7 z-techs in the same configuration God Mode had one right after the other. No need to remove the axle.
Damn, I wish I had a Pause button.
But I only got 4 HPZs to superstack. Can you post some pics?
I think the time limit is pretty odd.
You guys wouldn't by chance be able to point me to the UHW maker. That way I can really max out my stacking.
It still a little finicky, and not always consistent. I am working on finding out all the little odds and ends. The z-tech stack is particularly finicky, though my record was 9 Z-techs, one right after the other.
Try a stack through the bottom.
well i just got 11 zteks to stack, if that's anything special.
I wonder if some weird glitch I ran into a while back has something to do with this.
Anyone tried this in DSL? I assume it's the same principle.