Elevators

Elevators

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Elevators are one of the methods of starting a match. They require the player to enter a physical elevator in the lobby, which is set to start a match in a specific mode type and map, unless if they are part of a Party where the leader enters an elevator.

Usage

File:ElevatorIcon.png

Elevators can be found inside the game's lobby. These will display the current the map it leads to, alongside the map name, creator and difficulty. At the bottom of the image, there is a progress bar, which at first displays the "Waiting for Players..." message. This changes to a timer when players have entered the elevator. At the right of the progress bar, the current number of players in the elevator is shown. On all elevators, it shows a floating label that indicates player size, which would display the timer after the server size had been set. Prior to v1.89.0, this floating label would only exist on Challenge Trials elevators.

After entering an elevator, it will ask the player that entered it for what party size they want it to be for. After choosing one, the timer for the elevator will start and a box will appear which displays nearly identical information to the map icon of the elevator. Once the timer finishes, the trapdoor seen beneath players opens and a plane will fly in the sky.

Types of Elevators

Elevators are used for various game modes throughout the game. There are currently four types of elevators.

Survival Elevators

Survival Elevators have a maximum player limit of 4 and wait up to 20 seconds before starting a match. There are two Survival elevators for each available Survival difficulty, equating to a total of 12 in the Main Lobby. This will take players into the Survival Intermission Lobby where the map is decided by player votes, and the difficulty played is based on where the player(s) entered the elevator from.

Hardcore Elevators

Hardcore Elevators have a maximum player limit of 3 and wait up to 20 seconds before starting a match. There are two elevators in the lobby that takes players directly to a Hardcore match. Each Hardcore Elevator has a map the match will be started in, with the map changing every minute.

Voidcore Elevators

Voidcore Elevators have a maximum player limit of 3 and wait up to 20 seconds before starting a match. There is only one elevator that takes players to a Voidcore match—located between the two Hardcore Elevators—and it can only be entered by players who have beaten Hardcore. Each Void Elevator has a map the match will be started in, with the map changing every minute.

Story Mode Elevators

Story Mode Elevators have a maximum player limit of 4 and wait up to 20 seconds before starting a match. The first player to enter the elevator will be able to choose the Story mode mission that the Elevator will start. As soon as the elevator departs, all players in that elevator are taken to that mission as selected by the player. Story Mode missions are also be playable through Matchmaking.

Legacy Elevators

While currently, there are only four types of Elevators in the game, there used to be far more Elevators types in the game in the past.

Original Survival Elevators

Original Survival Elevators had a maximum player limit of 4 and wait up to 20 seconds to start a match. Each elevator had a map that would be changed every minute, and when the elevator departs all players would spawn in the map shown by the elevator, and the difficulty to be played would be decided by a player vote. If a player had the VIP gamepass, they would be able to place two votes on the difficulty.

Since the v2.4.0 update, survival elevators were overhauled and would have a fixed difficulty display that would always take players to a match of that difficulty, and maps are now determined by voting the same way that was done with survival Matchmaking since v1.5.0. Hardcore Elevators since then are the only elevators in the game that still use rotating maps.

Special Elevators

Special Elevators were a variant of Elevators which only hosted special maps. While currently, that only would include maps with special modes attached to them, it used to also lead to some maps with multiple paths due to them having All Paths.

Special Elevators were not random and instead followed a specific order. The time for them to change and depart was also lowered. Special Elevators were first removed from private servers in v1.8.0, then in v1.18.4 they were also removed from public servers, making Matchmaking the only way to play special maps.

Challenge Trials Elevators

Challenge Trials Elevators were a variant of elevators that would take players to a Challenge Trials match that would play with the respective modifier and map that was shown in the Main Lobby. There were four of them, each with a maximum player limit of 4, that waited up to 20 seconds before starting a match.

Challenge Trials Elevators have been removed since v2.4.0, and that game mode is now only playable through Matchmaking.

Event Elevators

Event Elevators were Elevators which generally only housed a single map, though at one point could cycle between two. They were used to access event maps and their respective modes. The Frost Invasion Event was the last event in the game to fully make use of Event Elevators, as they have since been replaced by Matchmaking starting with the Solar Eclipse Event. Although Event Elevators were briefly brought back with the Null & Void Event in favor of the upgraded elevators in v1.75.0, they were replaced by Matchmaking again in v1.78.0 and matchmaking was used for the majority of the time the Null & Void Event was available.

MEGA Elevators

MEGA Elevators were a type of Elevators which would lead players into MEGA Servers. MEGA Servers could go up to six players, or in the past eight.

As the increased player count would make the game far easier, special effects would be applied to make the game harder. This included reduced player count, health scaling, reduced sell values and smaller wave bonuses. At one point, tower upgrade costs were also increased.

MEGA Elevators existed in the game since its first public release in BETA v1.0, and would later be removed in v1.3.0, replaced by Special Elevators. While no modern alternative exists outside of bugs, Sandbox does allow for matches with more than four players.

Solo, Duo & Trio Elevators

Solo Elevators, Duo Elevators and Trio Elevators were a variant of Elevators which only allowed one, two or three players inside of them instead of the usual four or higher player counts.

Duo Elevators were first added in Release v1.6.1, while Solo Elevators and Trio Elevators were added in Release v1.8.1. All three would be removed in Overhaul v1.3.0, though Matchmaking does provide options for all player counts.

Versus Elevators

Versus Elevators were a type of Elevators which would lead players into a Versus match. Unlike other types of Elevators, there would be two separate elevators for each team. Versus Elevators could hold up to eight players each map, with only four players per elevator.

Versus Elevators were added in BETA v1.9 and removed in Release v1.8. As of modern versions, Versus/PVP can only be played through Matchmaking and teams would instead be randomly assigned.

Trivia

• Prior to BETA v1.7, the button used to exit the elevator would not have a proper set text outside of a placeholder "leave elevator lol".
• Since V1.8.0 and prior to V1.37.0, all elevators in the lobby would teleport players to the Survival Intermission Lobby if in a private server.