With Fortnite’s new Chapter comes major updates to vehicles, an important aspect of rotations and combat. This article will discuss all the information and strategies with the new dirt bike, and how to use Chapter 4’s new mechanics with the existing vehicles.
Fortnite’s new Chapter introduced an immense number of changes to all aspects of the game, with a revamp on how vehicles can be used in rotations and combat. The introduction of the new Trail Thrasher serves as a new style of vehicle catered towards more independent play, and the augment system creates a new way to enhance vehicles.
This article will explain the various functionalities and strategies of the new dirt bike and augments, and how they work with vehicles and existing strategies from previous seasons.
In terms of vehicles, the main attraction of all the new content in Chapter 4 is the addition of the Trail Thrashers, Fortnite’s spin on the dirt bike. Being a new addition to the game, they can be found all over the map, at the majority of POIs and area between them.
The Trail Thrasher has two seats, one for the driver, who controls the vehicle, and the passenger, who can freely look around. As with other vehicles, the passenger is able to build and shoot while riding the bike. However, a new gimmick introduced with the vehicle is that the driver can also shoot and use items (no building) while fully controlling the bike. This opens up the opportunity to unleash a barrage of bullets on your enemies as a duo.
Aside from standard movement, the dirt bike can also jump and powerslide. Jumping is pretty self-explanatory, but a mechanic you might know is that holding down the jump key will compress the bike’s spring, resulting in higher jumps. This means that dirt bikes are more versatile in rotations than vehicles, having the capability to traverse over short ledges or indestructible objects. The powerslide doesn’t have that much functional use but can be used to perform tricks.
Breaking through builds with the dirt bike is a great way to take advantage of being able to shoot and pickaxe while having full control of the bike. For a bike going around 50 on the speedometer, it can consistently run straight through wooden walls and ramps from any angle. However, the damage to brick and metal walls is less consistent, doing very little damage in head-on collisions, and doing around 60-70 damage when making contact on an angle.
Another great way to take advantage of the shooting mechanic of the dirt bike is to chase opponents who disengage using mobility. You’ve definitely gotten into situations where you get an enemy to 1 HP, but you just can’t connect that final shot before they get away using a Shockwave Hammer or other utility. With the dirt bike, you can apply pressure with your weapon while closing the distance on your enemy. Since the enemy will be weak, they won’t have the confidence to peek and fight back.
Using the dirt bike to eliminate a fleeing player with a shotgun
The other cars in the game (Whiplash, Prevalent, Bear, Mudflap) remain fundamentally unchanged from the previous chapter, and still work the same way. They are mostly spread over the map but are missing in areas with an abundance of dirt bikes.
However, the addition of the Shockwave Hammer puts a twist on how vehicles can be used. In the current state of the game, the shockwave hammer is able to propel various entities in the game, including players, objects, animals, but more importantly, vehicles. You can use the Hammer to give your teammate a head start or use this mechanic aggressively to propel the vehicle into enemy builds.
In the current state of the game, there is also a strange interaction that occurs when players utilize the hammer while standing on top of a vehicle with a teammate inside. The hammer smash actually results in the vehicle propelling upward, which can be used to fly across areas.
The more teammates atop the vehicle, the more frequent smashes, and further mobility. Once the vehicle gets pretty high, you can control the direction of travel by facing and smashing towards the desired location.
Additionally, the new augment system introduces augments that will give a massive buff to any players that like to rotate with vehicles.
The Supercharged augment is an extremely powerful augment that makes all vehicles you use not consume fuel. This includes dirt bikes, cars, trucks, and boats. Intuitively, this enables you to make rotations without having to worry about refueling at stations or carrying a gas can. You can take a look at our article on rotations to see how traversing large distances quickly will be useful during games.
The Tricked Out augment is also a very useful augment, automatically applying Off-Road Tires and a Cow Catcher to any applicable vehicle. This convenient augment is good to get vehicles ready for battle immediately, but also serves as a bonus when getting into vehicles on the fly during fights.
In Zero Build, it’s useful to start fights in a vehicle. The early damage and protection from gunfire serves as an advantage in the beginning of a fight. Since vehicles are easy to destroy, a good strategy is driving towards opponents, and exiting the car when it has around 200 HP. This way, the momentum of the car will carry the explosion into the enemies if they continue shooting it, and if opponents decide to attempt to drive the car away, the HP will be low enough to destroy it quickly.
Engaging a fight using a Tricked-Out taxi
Many drop locations have a guaranteed car that spawns in the same position every game, so choosing a drop spot with a car. Combining this with the Tricked Out augment enables you to have a quick, strong start for the mid-game right after looting.
In the newest chapter of Fortnite, vehicles are still an integral aspect of the game, being extremely powerful in rotations. The new Trail Thrasher brings an extra level of viability to players who travel solo, and the new augments only level up existing strategies and trick with the cars and trucks.
Next time you play Battle Royale or Zero Build, pay attention to any vehicles at your landing spot, and take advantage of them to have a better shot of winning your games!
