Shift
Certain Operators in Arknights, notably Push Stroker and Hookmaster Specialists, are capable of forcefully moving enemies by either pushing them away from or pulling them into the Operator, or shifting them, with their skills.
Shifting an enemy will also interrupt their actions, which can be useful for crowd-control.
The shift capability is influenced by the source's "force level" (or simply "force") and the enemy's weight.
Force and weight[edit]
Force varies between -1 to 3, while enemies have a weight of at least 0. Shift force is not directly shown, instead displayed as the following:
| Designation | Force |
|---|---|
| Very slightly | −1 |
| Slightly | 0 |
| Moderately | 1 |
| Significantly | 2 |
| Greatly | 3 |
To know how far and how long the enemy would be shifted from a single push or pull, simply subtract the enemy's weight from the force, with the results listed below.
The final force can never be greater than 3 — excessive force is effectively wasted in those cases.
| Final force | Push distance | Push duration | Pull distance | Pull duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| −3 or below | Cannot be shifted | |||
| −2 | 0.12 | 0.2 sec. | 0.03 | 0.5 sec. |
| −1 | 0.44 | 0.4 sec. | 0.35[note 1] | Varies[note 2] |
| 0 | 1.7 | 0.8 sec. | ∞[note 3] | |
| 1 | 2.14 | 0.9 sec. | ||
| 2 | 2.96 | 1.067 sec. | ||
| 3 | 3.53 | 1.167 sec. | ||
Note that the following push distance values are for projectile-based pushes e.g. Weedy's Hydraulics Mode and Liquid Hydrogen Cannon; effect-based pushes that do not involve enemies being hit by a projectile e.g. Enforcer's Deterring Shot and Staggering Shot will have a very slightly shorter push distance due to differences in the order at which pushing and movement is resolved on the frame it hits.
For instance, if FEater were to use Destructive Fist against FrostNova (who has a weight of 5) with the skill at Mastery 3 (thus having a force of 3), FrostNova will be pushed about 0.1 tiles away in about 0.2 seconds, since the final force would be -2 (3 - 5).
Internally pushing an enemy is performed by applying a momentum to said enemy, which causes multiple pushes in a very short time frame to push the enemy further than simply adding the push distance of those pushes together.
Most shift skills will have their force increased as they are upgraded, but deploying an Operator capable of shifting enemies on a Specialist Tactical Point increases their shift force by 1. Push Stroker Specialists with the PUS-Y Operator Module has the force of shift effects they inflict increased by 1 while blocking at least two enemies.
The Weightless debuff decreases enemies' weight by 1, which is effectively the same as increasing shift force by 1.
Detailed pushing mechanics[edit]
Pushes are separated into two types of pushes, directional and radial pushes:
- Directional pushes push enemies in the direction the Operator is facing.
- Radial pushes push enemies away from the Operator.
However, if the target of a directional push is either more than 45° away from the Operator's facing direction, or is less than 0.25 tiles away from the Operator, then the push will be changed to a radial push, and its push force will be reduced by 2 (with a few exceptions such as Enforcer's Staggering Shot).
When an enemy is pushed, a momentum is applied to said enemy, which causes them to start moving, with the momentum depending on the push force:
| Push Force | Momentum (Nm) |
|---|---|
| −2 | 1 |
| −1 | 2 |
| 0 | 4 |
| 1 | 4.5 |
| 2 | 5.3 |
| 3 | 5.8 |
In the game's physics engine, all enemies are treated as having a mass of 1 kg, one tile represents a distance of 1 m, the gravitational field strength is 9.81 ms−2, and the coefficient of friction is 0.5; By using the above information and Newtonian physics equations, the distance of pushes can be calculated.
Note that due to the game running on 30 FPS, this causes updates to only occur 30 times every second, which will cause actual push distances to differ from calculated values.
Block "shifting"[edit]
Block shifting is the movement of enemies when they block against units. As such, it is unrelated to the blocked enemy's weight, and the only qualifiers are that the enemy can be blocked and that the blocking unit have sufficient block count to block that enemy. However, this is not technically considered to be shifting enemies.
While multiple enemies are blocked by a unit, blocked enemies after the first will move over slightly either left or right relative to the direction they blocked against the unit.
- There are only a certain number of blocking positions from any given blocking direction. More blocked enemies will stack into those positions if the blocking unit's block count is sufficient to block them.
- If the blocking direction is at an angle passing next to a hole, one of the blocking positions may be sufficiently close to a hole that enemies that begin to be blocked and move to that position will fall into the hole.
If a blocking unit is deployed or otherwise begins blocking (e.g. the unit recovers from Stun, the blocked enemy is defeated, or an adjacent unit stops blocking) an enemy within that unit's tile, then the blocked enemy will be moved to just outside the nearest edge of the blocking unit's tile while still remaining blocked.
- The "nearest" edge may be slightly affected by the deployed unit's facing direction.
- If the nearest edge is a high ground tile or wall, then the enemy will usually stop against the tile/wall, but still on the low ground tile, even if that means standing within the blocking unit's tile. If, however, the high ground tile is also passable and the enemy can be additionally shifted, they can be moved up onto the high ground tile (or vice-versa from a raised passable tile to a low ground tile), which may in some cases prevent their pathing to their target Protection Objective.
- Deploying onto enemies in the exact center of a tile (e.g. prespawned enemies) will not move them, though they will still be blocked.
- Enemies cannot be moved into a hole by this type of movement, but will stop right at the edge where a subsequent slight push or pull can knock the enemy into the hole.
Trivia[edit]
- Prior to the Rhodes Island Icebreaker Games update, pull effects will linger after the source leaves the map, which can be exploited in certain situations. The update makes it so the pull effect will prematurely end when the source leaves the map, which is likely done to avoid it being abused in the I.G. mode.[1] It was later reverted around May 24, 2024.
- In a Bilibili video, a content creator had matched up with Hai Mao before the reversal and Hai Mao was seen retreating Operators to try and do the trick above, suggesting that the change may not be fully informed to everyone at Hypergryph, prompting the reversal of it.