How Fall Damage is Calculated

Let's begin with a concise summary of the mechanics for fall damage:

You take fall damage whenever you collide with any surface (including another tank) at a velocity (perpendicular to that surface) of roughly 60 KPH or higher AND you have a downward velocity of at least 36 KPH. The damage you take is calculated as a percentage of your maximum health and scales linearly from 60 KPH up to 99 KPH, where you take 100% of your max health as damage. Your tracks will also break when impacting at 54 KPH or higher and their suspension is bottomed out during the fall OR when you take any amount of fall damage while landing on your tracks.

Hover tanks use different speed thresholds from all the others: their impact threshold starts at about 85 KPH (instead of 60 KPH). This makes it rather unlikely for a hover tank to take fall damage in any practical setting, though it is still possible.

There are also various other mechanics that reduce or negate fall damage and/or its effects:

• Blinking as Alecto (2 second immunity)
• teleporting through Tempest's Recall gates (2 second immunity)
• jumping from Ranger's Ramps (90% reduction)
• landing while and after flying as Ikarus (5 second immunity while landing)
• falling just after using Maul's Ram (5 second immunity on activation)
• damage reduction from components or other sources
• track immunity from consecutive module breaks (see Armor & Modules)

Now, if you really want to know more, the finer details are covered below:

Fall Damage

Assuming you currently have no immunity, whether you take fall damage is dependent on two velocity checks (remember that "velocity" necessarily includes a direction as well as a speed), made at time of impact:

1. Is the strict downward component of your current velocity -10 m/s (-36 kph, negative because down) or lower (further negative)?

2. Is the portion of your current velocity perpendicular to the impact surface greater than 16.5 m/s (59.4 kph)?

If the answer to both checks is "yes", then fall damage will be calculated for this impact. The amount of damage you will take depends directly on how much greater your impact velocity is than the base threshold, 16.5 m/s.

The first check is only in place to ensure that you are, in fact, falling, which is why you don't take damage from just slamming into a wall, no matter how fast you're going.

The damage you take from falling is calculated as a percentage of your maximum health, measured on a linear scale from 16.5 m/s (59.4 kph) to 27.5 m/s (99 kph). So, for example, if you hit the ground moving at exactly 22 m/s (79.2 kph, perpendicular, etc., etc.), the base value for your fall damage will be exactly 50% of your maximum health (because 22 is halfway between the two thresholds). After this, percentage-based reductions are applied, then flat-value reductions, resulting in a final fall damage value.

Falling at any speeds past 99 kph will simply have the damage capped at exactly 100% of your maximum health, and that's before reductions are applied. Do with that knowledge what you will...

Getting Tracked from Falling

If you take health damage from a fall (or would have before damage reduction negated it) and land on either or both of your tracks, your tracks will also break on impact. However, your tracks may break anyway, even if the fall results in no damage, because the track-breaking threshold begins at 15 m/s (54 kph), NOT 16.5 m/s. If your impact velocity is between these two values AND your tracks' suspension report being bottomed out during the fall, your tracks will break on impact (provided you have no tracking immunity).

Special Considerations

"Fall damage" and "tank-to-tank collision damage" are entirely independent events, meaning both can happen at the same time, but neither influences the other. If you fall on top of another tank (moving fast enough) you will take fall damage just as though you had impacted terrain AND you will both take collision damage as per How Collision Damage is Calculated.

Hover tanks use different threshold values from the rest of the tanks - fall damage happens for them from 23.5 to 33.5 m/s (84.6 to 120.6 kph).

After using Blink as Alecto or teleporting with a Tempest Recall gate as any tank, you will have 2 seconds of complete immunity to fall damage or being tracked from falling.

Ikarus becomes completely immune to fall damage and fall-tracking while in flight and for 5 more seconds after landing.

Maul becomes completely immune to fall damage and fall-tracking for 5 seconds after using their Ram ability.

Any tank that jumps using a Ranger Ramp gets 90% fall damage reduction and fall-tracking immunity for 30 seconds or until landing, then for 4 more seconds after landing.