Boosting & Jumping mechanics - Rocket Science #1

07/09/2016 Last revision: 10/14/2023

Hello Guys, welcome to Rocket Science where we try to solve the mystery of Rocket League's physics and show the best ways to use them to your advantage ingame. First up, Boost.

Boost (outdated)

In order to fully understand Rocket League we need to lay the groundwork first. ~~Boost is saved internally as an 8-bit unsigned integer.~~ What does this mean? Well Computers. The important thing to take away from this is: ~~Boost is a value between 0-255.~~ The number that you see in the game is just a percentage ~~calculated from this value~~.

Knowing this, we can explain some seemingly weird behaviour with small boost pads. In these videos you can see me going both from 88% boost to 99% aswell as 88% to 100%. How is this possible? This is where the actual values come into play. ~~One small boost pad gives you 30/255 boost = 11.76%~~ On the left we're going from 223 Boost to 253. And on the right we're going from 224 to 254. 254 however is still not the maximum value, allowing us to pick up another boost pad even though it looks like we're already at 100% Second topic, Accelerating in the air

Accelerating in the air

A lot of players already know that it is possible to accelerate in the air without boost. This allows you to get just that little bit further in the air when running out of boost, which is great. However I wanted to research this a little more. Here's what I found. Acceleration works in much the same way boost does. This means you can not only accelerate forwards but also upwards by pointing your nose up. Ofcourse the force is much lower than that of boost and it's not strong enough to cancel out gravity but in some cases it does make a difference. In both videos I use the same macro to make sure that the same actions are performed. The only difference being the acceleration key. The car only hits the top if the key is pressed. There are more noticeable examples of this but we will get to those later. Going backwards propels you towards the back of the car. It should be noted however that the force is lower than the one going forward.

Jumping

Jumping is similar to acceleration. If you went through the Rocket League tutorial, you know that holding down your jump button will extend the height of the jump. While holding down the jump button there is a force active that pulls the car in the direction of it's roof, as can be seen from these examples. This force is only active for the first ~~250 ms~~ 200 ms after your jump. If you keep your jump button pressed longer than that it won't make a difference. After lots of testing I've come to the conclusion that the second jump in the air does not have this force at all. So you don't have to worry about keeping the jump button pressed there.

Putting it into action

Alright enough theory for now. How do we apply this knowledge ingame? We can use it to figure out how to jump as high as possible.

Disclaimer: The information in this portion of the video is not necessarily wrong but not as precise as in the video Perfect fast aerials through science! - Rocket Science Applied #2

Jumping creates an impulse in the direction of the car's roof. That means tilting the car backwards by 90° instantly is going to render the second jump useless. When at 0 boost, the best way to use the second jump is almost straight up. Because the force of acceleration in the air is so low, the impulse of the jump is more important. Jump and hold the button for about a quarter of a second while pulling your car backwards by about 10°, then jump again and tilt all the way backwards. Make sure to accelerate the whole way to gain the most height. If you have even the smallest amount of boost, this changes. Boost is much more powerful than (engine) acceleration. Because of that, it is worth it to tilt your car backwards by about 30° before the second jump. To gain the maximum height out of low amounts of boost: Jump and hold the button for about a quarter of a second, pulling your car backwards by about 30°. Boost and then jump immediately to make sure the momentum of the second jump carries over. Once again, make sure to accelerate whenever you're not boosting to get to the maximum height. Perfecting this motion will allow you to touch the crossbar with 5 boost, land above the goal with 12 boost, or reach the ceiling of standard maps with 40 boost. This is a great example of how much of a difference accelerating can make. If you're not accelerating, you will fall short of the ceiling. If you have plenty of boost and you need to get up quick then you want to be holding boost down from the start. Because you're tilting your car backwards after the first jump, the boost will start to push you up against gravity immediately. This allows you to reach the ceiling in little more than 2 seconds.

If you want to practice some of the newly learned things, I've provided a link to a Rocket League Trainer shot in the description. The goal is to clear the ball off the backboard with only 12 boost. In order to use this you'll want to start an exhibition match with no bots. Empty your boost and hit F3 to reset the shot.

Alright that's it for now guys. If you have any questions or found any mistakes please post them in the comments and leave me suggestions for what I should test in the future.