11 replies to this topic

[Heisa]

Hey all,

I'm asking experienced Rocket League players to share knowledge and ideas as to how and when should the Zap Dash mechanic be implemented. 

Are there situations, where you think Zap Dash would add value ? If so, which ?.

In my opinion that would be option 2, after every user initiated flip cancel.

Or put it entirely in the Flip Cancels section that would do it automatically after each flip cancel, either automatically, with it's own hotkey or after the user has pressed the speed flip hotkey.


For the sake of time, it would be best to only do 1 option at the moment, it takes a lot of time to figure out, code and tune and test it.

Thank you.

[Imbadatbridge]

It’s not the most necessary thing to do after a speed flip, I don’t see a bunch of pros doing it so I think the best option would be for a recovery from landing when you don’t have a flip, like you can hold down a hotkey, and like the wave dash bot, it orientates itself to land but for the zap dash instead of just landing and jumping instantly into a wave dash, so it orientates itself to land on the front two wheels and zap dashs for momentum

[yoyovfx]

I don’t think it’s worth spending time on this feature, it’s so situational that it’s almost never useful unless you're a pro player imo. Adding it would only draw more attention to the fact that you’re using GOS (especially since even amongst pros there's such a small part of them who actually use zap dashes right now), and it would slow down development for what’s essentially a niche, purely cosmetic feature

[toshiromain]

 Situationally within the Wave Dash bot is the best option but agree if if it doesn't take more time to develop the 4.0

[Smartie]

I think realistically this is a very situational mechanic, but I really like the concept—it definitely has the potential to be a game-changer for movement. There are two key criteria that I think need to be met for it to be viable

 

1. Constant Movement Mode (Speed-Conserving State)

• A toggleable mode that maintains as much speed as possible without consuming boost.
• While active: Left stick input remains fully functional for manual control. (allowing for full manual orientation and adjustment until *distant to surface slider* which will automatically adjust and hold ebrake to conserve momentum.)
• Wave dashes are triggered with no stick input—ideal for neutral momentum gain off small adjustments or recoveries.
• Zap dash becomes the default speedflip type when using this mode, simplifying fast recoveries and chaining.
• Flip is preserved when needed (e.g., ceiling).

​2. Seamless Chaining and Orientation

• Players should be able to wave dash, orient mid-air, and chain dash, while still preserving their flip when needed (like after a ceiling touch).
• Speed flips should remain optional and fully manual—users should be able to execute normal speed flips while this mode is deactive. (For those that use the wavedash bind for normal speedflips)
• A smart detection system could distinguish between wave dashes and speed flip zap dashes—e.g., no stick input or the default way that triggers a wave dash, while standard diagonal input executes a speed flip with the zapdash.

Current Issue: The biggest issue right now is input inversion while holding the recovery key—e.g., trying to cancel left results in an air roll right speed flip. This obviously disrupts directional consistency and should be corrected for precise control.
 

[Heisa]

yoyovfx, on 03 Jun 2025 - 8:34 PM, said:

I don’t think it’s worth spending time on this feature, it’s so situational that it’s almost never useful unless you're a pro player imo. Adding it would only draw more attention to the fact that you’re using GOS (especially since even amongst pros there's such a small part of them who actually use zap dashes right now), and it would slow down development for what’s essentially a niche, purely cosmetic feature

I have to respectfully disagree with you here that it is just a niche and purely cosmetic. From what I've gathered as information it has many useful cases:

 

- Zap dash is the fastest way to reach supersonic speed without using boost.

- Imagine you're coming down from an aerial, if you angle the car nose down as you fall, you can land directly into a zap dash, then speed flip out from that pretty fast. Probably guaranteed supersonic speed.

- Speed flip into a zap dash alone will probably grant you about 1000-1100~ uu/s depending on how fast you're moving, because the dodge impulse is scaled linearly. That's a near-instant acceleration pretty fast.

- The "cheater" at kickoffs, where it allows you conserve all of your boost, but still gain significant speed. Shown here: https://youtu.be/qeoCzvLuOMc?t=479

 

It's functional, not cosmetic. A tool to recover and I see great potential, and value in something like this. Also I'm pretty sure SSL's will greatly benefit from that. Something for them too, also

 

The mechanic seems to have been discovered two years ago, enough time for even diamonds to learn it. Of course, you don't have to enable it if you wish to remain "stealthy".

Though perfecting it, will require time coding because it's all about timing, different scenarios will have different timings, e.g., falling down towards the ground.
 

Smartie, on 04 Jun 2025 - 01:01 AM, said:

Current Issue: The biggest issue right now is input inversion while holding the recovery key—e.g., trying to cancel left results in an air roll right speed flip. This obviously disrupts directional consistency and should be corrected for precise control.

I'm going to need you to expand more on that. I believe the orientation controls are not meant to cancel flips in the wave dash bot.

[anthooz]

I think it is not a mechanism necessarily necessary to rise in rank. On the other hand if you can develop a musty it could be more interesting in my opinion thanks for the work that you provide. 

[Durp10001]

Heisa, on 03 Jun 2025 - 3:26 PM, said:

Hey all,

I'm asking experienced Rocket League players to share knowledge and ideas as to how and when should the Zap Dash mechanic be implemented. 

Are there situations, where you think Zap Dash would add value ? If so, which ?.

In my opinion that would be option 2, after every user initiated flip cancel.

Or put it entirely in the Flip Cancels section that would do it automatically after each flip cancel, either automatically, with it's own hotkey or after the user has pressed the speed flip hotkey.


For the sake of time, it would be best to only do 1 option at the moment, it takes a lot of time to figure out, code and tune and test it.

Thank you.

The zap-dash has ALOT of use, mostly in 1s when for an example you went for an aerial and missed you can speed flip then right after landing zap dash to gain speed to eventually reach supersonic.

I think Zap Dash can definitely add value, but only in specific situations like recovering after aerials, gaining speed without boost after a flick or 50/50, or quickly rotating mid-field after a flip cancel. Option 2 or 3 makes the most sense triggering Zap Dash only after a user-initiated flip cancel gives the player full control and keeps it from interfering with other mechanics. I’d recommend tying it to either the speed flip key or a dedicated hotkey after the flip cancel, so it’s intentional and doesn’t trigger by accident (though i really like the idea of it being incorperated into the wavedash feature. It also fits naturally into how high-level players already use flip cancels for control and momentum. Just make sure it’s optional in the settings and tuned carefully so it doesn’t become overpowered.

I mean look at Dark for an example, he's the most consistent with it and his momentum in a 1s match is unmatched, there are alot of scenarios when the zap dash could be great to use, I myself have been learning it recently. It is so good for speedy and good rotations, I myself am a gc player, so the zap dash makes alot of oppertunities present itself. So yeah, i would love to have it as a feature.

As you stated in a later message, the zap dash is very time based, like insanely time based, as you also said that window of execution is different in virtually all scenarios. Though it would be good, I would suggest focusing on more "vital" things. Zap dashes should not be outright ignored it is VERY good for rotations, recoveries, 50/50s and in general for boost management. 

[Smartie]

Heisa, on 04 Jun 2025 - 09:37 AM, said:

 

I have to respectfully disagree with you here that it is just a niche and purely cosmetic. From what I've gathered as information it has many useful cases:

 

- Zap dash is the fastest way to reach supersonic speed without using boost.

- Imagine you're coming down from an aerial, if you angle the car nose down as you fall, you can land directly into a zap dash, then speed flip out from that pretty fast. Probably guaranteed supersonic speed.

- Speed flip into a zap dash alone will probably grant you about 1000-1100~ uu/s depending on how fast you're moving, because the dodge impulse is scaled linearly. That's a near-instant acceleration pretty fast.

- The "cheater" at kickoffs, where it allows you conserve all of your boost, but still gain significant speed. Shown here: https://youtu.be/qeoCzvLuOMc?t=479

 

It's functional, not cosmetic. A tool to recover and I see great potential, and value in something like this. Also I'm pretty sure SSL's will greatly benefit from that. Something for them too, also

 

The mechanic seems to have been discovered two years ago, enough time for even diamonds to learn it. Of course, you don't have to enable it if you wish to remain "stealthy".

Though perfecting it, will require time coding because it's all about timing, different scenarios will have different timings, e.g., falling down towards the ground.
 

I'm going to need you to expand more on that. I believe the orientation controls are not meant to cancel flips in the wave dash bot.

 

Not sure if this explains it a bit better.. -  (I mean't constant movement mode not continous as well!)

[Heisa]

Smartie, on 06 Jun 2025 - 03:24 AM, said:

Not sure if this explains it a bit better.. - (I mean't constant movement mode not continous as well!)

Thank you for the video, I'll check it when I can

Update on this mechanic:
 

Okay, so I did some work on it by implementing a hotkey based initially.

 

The timings were really hard to figure out on when coming from an angle and slamming the car down on the field. The speed and the coming angle would greatly change these times, so you can't really use a simple threshold.

The faster the car slams down, the less zap dash window there is. So I ended up predicting the car's suspension to see how compressed the wheels are in order to detect the "Zap Dash pop" window

 

And while I'm not going to reveal the whole magic here, it seems pretty consistent at timing the zap dash jump. Even when falling from high altitude.

So this is going to make aerial recoveries very strong, because as I said in the previous post, it allows you to accelerate very quickly even without boost

 

It can also be used be used with hotkey-based flip cancellation feature and the wavedash. Although it is tricky with the automatic flip cancel where the user initiates it by dodging themselves, because the initial car orientation matters when dodging, but will see what can be done about that.

 

Tested it on 30-240 fps and it seems to work well. 

 

My only concern at the moment with it is how it will behave online when the ping is high. Since we know the zap dash depends on very precise timing, we need to detect the exact instant the wheels are at the right spot.

So then the problem here would be our client prediction vs what the server actually says. Since it's the authority here, the client might say "Jump now" for a zap dash, but the server might respond with "No, your car didn't pop when you thought".

And for that I will be thinking of a way to reduce risky zap dashes by relying on the wave dash, because the wavedash is much safer as long as there's a jump available when coming off a wall.

Edit: Tested on a 300 ping server and it seems to work well too, although you can't really fast chain them together, but that is normal. Psyonix did their best in the netcode.

 

The wave dash's continuous mode might become a zap-dash-chainer, will see!

 

We're about to see more GoS:RL users play like Dark(?), as this is where the inspiration comes from and the value this mechanic adds to your gameplay. 

Edited by Heisa, 06 June 2025 - 07:39 .
Update

[Durp10001]

Heisa, on 06 Jun 2025 - 7:26 PM, said:

 

Thank you for the video, I'll check it when I can

Update on this mechanic:
 

Okay, so I did some work on it by implementing a hotkey based initially.

 

The timings were really hard to figure out on when coming from an angle and slamming the car down on the field. The speed and the coming angle would greatly change these times, so you can't really use a simple threshold.

The faster the car slams down, the less zap dash window there is. So I ended up predicting the car's suspension to see how compressed the wheels are in order to detect the "Zap Dash pop" window

 

And while I'm not going to reveal the whole magic here, it seems pretty consistent at timing the zap dash jump. Even when falling from high altitude.

So this is going to make aerial recoveries very strong, because as I said in the previous post, it allows you to accelerate very quickly even without boost

 

It can also be used be used with hotkey-based flip cancellation feature and the wavedash. Although it is tricky with the automatic flip cancel where the user initiates it by dodging themselves, because the initial car orientation matters when dodging, but will see what can be done about that.

 

Tested it on 30-240 fps and it seems to work well. 

 

My only concern at the moment with it is how it will behave online when the ping is high. Since we know the zap dash depends on very precise timing, we need to detect the exact instant the wheels are at the right spot.

So then the problem here would be our client prediction vs what the server actually says. Since it's the authority here, the client might say "Jump now" for a zap dash, but the server might respond with "No, your car didn't pop when you thought".

And for that I will be thinking of a way to reduce risky zap dashes by relying on the wave dash, because the wavedash is much safer as long as there's a jump available when coming off a wall.

Edit: Tested on a 300 ping server and it seems to work well too, although you can't really fast chain them together, but that is normal. Psyonix did their best in the netcode.

 

The wave dash's continuous mode might become a zap-dash-chainer, will see!

 

We're about to see more GoS:RL users play like Dark(?), as this is where the inspiration comes from and the value this mechanic adds to your gameplay. 

 

I adore your enthusiasm to providing updates and what not. Hope the feedback helped in creating or providing thoughts of value. If there is any other thing you would like to know others perspective of please make more of these threads, they are fun to engage with. And thank you Hesia

[Heisa]

Durp10001, on 07 Jun 2025 - 6:30 PM, said:

I adore your enthusiasm to providing updates and what not. Hope the feedback helped in creating or providing thoughts of value. If there is any other thing you would like to know others perspective of please make more of these threads, they are fun to engage with. And thank you Hesia

The feedback sure did help with giving thoughts and ideas, as this is my first time ever looking into what the zap-dash really is, and how people are utilizing it. So I'm thankful for the information. It quickly got me up to speed with it so something like this can be added to GoS.

And surely, there will be more features in the future that I will be asking the users their thoughts and opinions!