Barrel Rolling is a gameplay technique introduced in Wipeout Pure. This is a fundamental piloting technique that allows pilots to divert a portion of their ships' shield energy to the main thrusters. This causes the ship to literally do a barrel roll in the air and, upon successful landing, trigger a potent speed boost.
Activation[]
The barrel roll function can simply be executed by inputting left-right-left or right-left-right in a quick succession on either the D-pad or the Analog stick. Note that a sufficient amount of airtime is necessary to successfully land a barrel roll, and that only one barrel roll can be performed during a single jump. There are no penalties for unsuccessful barrel rolls, other than wasted shield energy and no speed boost.
In Pure, the amount of shield energy expended to do a barrel roll depends on the ship's Shield stat. In Wipeout Pulse, this was changed to a flat amount of 8% shield energy expended to perform a barrel roll, irrespective of the ship's Shield stat. From Wipeout HD and onwards, this was further changed to 15% shield energy, making barrel rolls less common outside of Time Trials and Speed Laps. Please note that barrel rolls cannot be performed at the shield energy level of below 15% (16% in 2048).
Trivia[]
- The concept of this technique is similar to the Hyperthrust in Wipeout 3, in that one can expend an amount of shield energy for a potent temporary speed boost.
- The speed boost from a successful barrel roll is slightly weaker than a Turbo.
- Framerate issues attributed to the PlayStation Portable's hardware limitations make it difficult to perform barrel rolls in Pure and Pulse. Because of their game engines, a barrel roll has to be executed "spot-on" when landing on the ground.
- The physics engine of Wipeout HD and Wipeout 2048 makes barrel rolls easier to perform on the lower heights from the track surface, even on shallow surfaces, but this may require the use of a Turbo beforehand to pull off.
- AI opponents in Pure and Pulse will never use this technique, but it is possible in later games to catch a glimpse of an AI opponent doing a barrel roll, which is a rare occasion in itself.
- The AGRC-era AG Systems Prototype is the only ship known to be capable of doing multiple barrel rolls at once. The barrel roll function can still be executed only once, but when successfully triggered, the ship will do two successive barrel rolls while in the air. Because of the double barrel roll, a greater amount of airtime will be needed to successfully land it.
- Chronologically in the storyline, barrel rolling was introduced in the AGRC, but has since been banned starting from the F3600 and onwards, citing safety issues, until the FX300 League.
- Performing a barrel roll whilst in the first-person view may cause the camera to rotate on itself. This may be potentially harmful to players with motion sickness.
- In VR mode in Wipeout Omega Collection, as players are restricted to the ship's cockpit view, barrel rolling will cause the ship to rotate on itself instead of the entire camera.