It was 6 AM on Saturday, when I realised I need to stop attacking Droids and go to bed. I stayed up all night playing Coindroids – a game on Litecoin blockchain that allows you to build a bot and attack other bots.
During the all-nighter I destroyed three droids and earned bounty for it. Throughout Saturday I managed to destroy 6 more bots. It is super fun and addictive, but if you don’t play it right, you might lose a few LTC bits (1 LTC = 1000000 bits) instead of earning. I don’t mind losing a few LTC bits (in INR its about Rs. 10-20) here and there, the game is really insane and I think everyone should be playing it.
Contents
What is Coindroids?
A game where you shoot coins at robots to kill them and loot the bounty. You can either play using LTC or DFC – Defcoin.
Build your droid and start attacking other droids with high bounties and low health, save yourself if your health is low by taking cover or shielding, all on the blockchain. You can even purchase health packs to get back to full health if attacked.
Each block is considered an action, you can attack, shield, take cover or buy stuff by sending the amount to respective LTC/DFC addresses, they will be approved when the blockchain confirms the transaction. From here on I will talk about the LTC based game instead of DFC. The reason to play with LTC is that I have some of it.
Getting Started (with LTC)
Before you open CoinDroids and start playing, make sure you are prepared. Create a private LTC wallet on supported services like LoafWallet, Exodus, Coinomi, Litevault. I am using Coinomi and Loafwallet on my android phone. Do not use the wallet for any other transactions, keep it exclusive for Coindroids.
Keep some LTC in the wallet for transactions. 0.1 LTC will go a long way as most attacks cost about 0.0015-0.0025 LTC. You will keep earning the bounties as well if you attack at the right time. Now, you’re ready to battle.
How does it work?
The process to get started is neither long nor complicated, so let me bullet it out:
- Register – setup username and password
- Create a droid – Choose one from three designs – Scout, tank or assault.
- Activate the droid – Send 2000 LTC bits (0.002 LTC) to the bot from a private wallet which you will use for the game
- Start Fighting – Attack droids with High bounty and low energy for maximum profit.
Killing a Droid
All droids have a default health of 50 units. Based on the power of your droid, you can inflict damage on others. Once a droid is killed, i.e the health is Zero, the bounty of the droid is distributed proportionately among all who killed the droid.
Remember, only the last attack is counted as the Killing attack. Hence if you were responsible for bringing a droid’s health from 50 to 4, but the last attack to reduce it to zero wasn’t from you, you get no bounty. So always make sure you give the killing blow.
How are the Attacks Counted?
Each attack is a transaction on Blockchain. A droid has maximum ‘clip’ size, the maximum amount that can be sent to attack another droid. Usually it starts at 1190 LTC Bits (0.00119 LTC), roughly 4-5 INR.
You have to send this amount to the attacking address of the droid. When the transaction is confirmed, the damage is inflicted on the droid.
Defence is as Important as Attack
If you’re thinking, its all about attacking bots and earning bounty, you’re wrong. If you want to save yourself, you can shield up and block an attack or even take cover to hide. Then all attacks on your droid will be useless or less damaging. You can do this when your health is low and you want to keep your bot active for some time.
Spicing up your droid and Post Death Resurrection
You can shop for weapons, features and add ons for the droid based on the level of the droid. The level increases with experience, and experience is achieved from actions. So, the more you play, the better your droid gets. The shop offers some tactical improvements so that you can increase the damage of your attack. The shop also offers health packs.
If your droid dies, it will be resurrected after 3 blocks. The health will be full and your experience or bot level will remain not be impacted. You can once again go on attacking other droids to make some bounty off of it.
What Happens to the LTC used for Attacks?
The LTC bits you send to attack the other droids is distributed in a certain way
- 24% is added to the bounty of the attacked droid
- 75% is distributed and added to the bounty of remaining alive droids
- 1% is taken as a service fee on Coindroids
So consider if there is a droid with 50 health and 7000 LTC bits as bounty, you will need to attack the droid atleast 7 times if you’re alone and can deliver a damage of 7-8 units. Everytime you send 1190 LTC bits, 25% or 297 bits will be added to the bounty. So when the droid dies, you will receive a total of 9079 bits as bounty, while you would have spent 8330 bits. All the network fees are not added in this calculation.
In reality though, you will never be the only one attacking a droid. You should just aim to be in the last attack that kills the droid to receive the bounty. Or, you can just ignore everything and have fun playing the game. I’ve already played it for over 24 hours and my total attacks would be anywhere between 60-80.
Complex Algorithms
Coindroids is not built to be as simple as I make it sound. Several factors play a key role in every move you make. For instance, your focus is calculated based on the hash of the last block, so it is always changing. In the game, if your focus is low you will inflict less damage.
Similarly, multiple factors like EMI, cover, shields play a role in calculating the damage done on a bot. You can read the entire documentation on the website.
Just Get in there and Try
I was intrigued when I heard about the game from Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin. I knew nothing about the game, I still don’t know a lot. I’ve had a couple of issues too with the syncing of wallet, but within an hour or so you will get the hang of it. So its best to try it yourself and let us know what you think about it in the comments below.
Try it before people with the knowledge to use APIs take over!
Go ahead and attack CoinCrunch’s first droid ‘Cruncher One’, we are waiting for you. At the time of this writing CruncherOne has the highest bounty of close to 6000 LTC bits and is taking cover to stay safe.
