From Fantastic Wiki

The game contains several physics glitches. There is also physics nonconformism that a player should educate himself on.

Contents 1 Black hole 1.1 Examples 2 Pinned rods 3 Examples 4 Object pass-through 4.1 Examples 5 Order of connection 5.1 Examples 6 Exploding contraption 6.1 Reproduction 6.2 Examples 7 Kinetic wheel explosions 8 Goal square glitch

[edit] Black hole

An excessive number of rods (and objects) causes all the moving parts in the design to gravitate towards the workshop. Objects may impale themselves on landscape objects or even cross them. When a contraption triggers this glitch, it also becomes possible to move goal objects to anywhere on the map (after the simulation has been stopped once). Even if the game's physics engine implemented Newton's law of universal gravitation (which it does not), such a few number of rods should not be of significant mass to cause it to so strongly attract other objects.

Should this occur, removing rods liberally will undo the glitch. However, it is still possible to run the simulation glitch free without removing rods. Using the spacebar or the game's back button, the simulation can be started and stopped. Every odd run of the simulation will run as normal.

[edit] Examples

• [1] Many wood rods are overlapping in the top right of the start area (this also triggers the pinned rods glitch)

[edit] Pinned rods

Rods with exactly zero length (both connection points are overlapping exactly) become suspended in the air. The physics in the game have no effect on them, except insofar as the pins force attached pieces to remain attached. With this glitch, an entire contraption may never need to be rested on a surface below. Both water rods and wood rods can become pinned.

As of September 26, 2008, it is no longer possible to create pinned rods in the game easily, but several techniques have been invented, most of which are reasonably effective, the methods are shown in this forum thread.

The fact that the "pins" become immovable led to the experiment of attaching a rigged wheel to a pin, to simulate the situation of an "unstoppable force meeting an immovable object". Here is the result:[2]

[edit] Examples

• A happy face created with pins
• A pin made on Rolling Away

[edit] Object pass-through

With enough force, any object can pass through another object, regardless if it is landscape or a part. Water rods are the most susceptible to this, easily passing through the landscape with little force, especially if the rods are short chain links in a chain. Generally, objects will more easily pass through other objects that are thinner than itself.

Although this is technically a glitch, all parts, including the landscape, were purposely made to not be entirely solid and have a dampened, "squishy" feel to them. Otherwise, if a contraption impacted strongly against another contraption or the landscape, it would fall apart due to the force of the collision (this was demonstrated in early test versions of the game).

[edit] Examples

• [3] A chain passing through the landscape
• [4] An unpowered wheel going through a rather thick floor

[edit] Order of connection

The order in which joints are created between objects has a large effect on the functioning of a system (sometimes in drastic ways). The first item in a joint has greater strength [5].

[edit] Examples

• [6] vs. [7]
• [8] vs. [9] with a rod removed and re-connected

[edit] Exploding contraption

Under special situations, a contraption may spin wildly and "explode." Usually this results from a special case where motion is restricted or from an excess of rod connections. An unintended effect of this glitch is that a "flying" (or jumping, more precisely) contraption can be created.

[edit] Reproduction

The most reproducible method for this glitch is to specially craft three rods on a wheel. By connecting three outer joints to a common joint, the wheel will explode (see picture).

[edit] Examples

• [10] An explosion caused by an excess of rods (violent) (p2p)
• [11] Several rigged wheels on a vehicle (f2p)
• [12] A cannon that harnesses this power (p2p)
• [13] Another cannon that harnesses this power (f2p)

[edit] Kinetic wheel explosions

Many unpowered wheels that have rods attached to them to increase their diameter, and are being pushed or pulled, will eventually explode or distort themselves.

Examples: [14] (f2p), [15] (p2p).

[edit] Goal square glitch

If you take a smaller goal square (such as the one on "the wall") and put two yellow wheels on two opposite corners, make a black hole, and put two purple wheels on the remaining corners, then connect the opposite corners of the like wheels, it will make an enormously powerful bug.[16]