Starburst fires a rocket that bursts into a ring of fragments. You choose when it bursts with right-click, which makes it the most controllable area damage in the game.
| Tier | 4 |
| Unlock level | 45 |
| Upgrades from | Sledge |
| Barrels | 1 launcher |
| Reload (0 points) | 2.4 s per rocket (0.42 rockets/s) |
| Rocket | 24 damage, penetration 5, radius 12, constant 294 px/s |
| Rocket flight | 1.5 s, about 430 px |
| Detonation | right-click (from 0.15 s after launch), or when the rocket dies |
| Outer ring | 12 fragments at 300 px/s, 0.9 s (about 270 px) |
| Inner ring | 6 fragments at 135 px/s, 0.72 s (about 97 px) |
| Fragments | 12 damage each (50% of the rocket), penetration 1, radius 6 |
| Recoil | a Recruit's kick per rocket |
| Health / movement | ×1 / ×1 |
Every number here is at 0 stat points, before the per-level health bonus and the per-level speed penalty that every tank gets. The automatic balancer can nudge a class's damage and health over time, so treat these as the roster's base values.
Starburst's rocket flies straight at 294 px/s. When it bursts, it throws out two rings from the point where it died: 12 fast fragments going outward at 300 px/s for about 270 px, and 6 slower ones in the gaps between them, going about 97 px. Every fragment does half the rocket's damage, 12 at 0 points. The inner ring is there so the middle of the burst isn't hollow.
Right-click bursts every Starburst rocket you have in flight, as long as it's been flying at least 0.15 seconds. If you don't, the rocket bursts at the end of its 1.5 second flight, when it hits the edge of the world (or an enemy team's base edge in team modes), or when its penetration runs out inside something. That last case matters. The rocket loses penetration on everything it hits, and a tank with a lot of health drains all 5 at once, so the rocket bursts inside it and the fragments start inside the target. Against a lighter tank the rocket can punch through with a sliver of penetration left and burst further on. Right-click is the reliable way to put the burst where you want it.
Like the other missile classes, Starburst has almost no recoil. You don't get Sledge's escape jump.
Starburst is excellent against groups and against anything hiding behind cover. Burst a rocket in the middle of a cluster of bots, over a pile of shapes someone is farming, or just past a wall of traps, and everything nearby takes fragments. Drone swarms hate it, since fragments are bullets and bullets do double damage to drones. Trappers can't hide behind a trap field from it.
It's weak against fast single targets. The rocket is slow, the reload is 2.4 seconds, and a burst that misses leaves you waiting. Horizon and the accelerating missiles of Bombardier and Sailfin outrange your 430 px rocket by far. A light bullet stream can knock the rocket out of the air, though it bursts where it dies, so that's not always bad for you.
A 33-point build: Bullet Damage 7, Reload 7, Bullet Speed 5, Movement Speed 5, Max Health 5, Bullet Penetration 4.
Sledge leads to Amalgam, Cataclysm, Skipjack, Bombardier, Sailfin and Starburst.
Starburst and Skipjack are the two area classes. Skipjack sprays along the whole flight path and flies about 820 px; Starburst puts everything into one burst at a point you choose, within about 430 px. Skipjack is better at covering lanes, Starburst at hitting a specific cluster or a target behind cover. Bombardier and Sailfin are long-range single-target classes, and Cataclysm and Amalgam keep Sledge's short-range cannon.
Take Starburst if you like controlling exactly where damage lands, and if you fight around groups, traps and cover.