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This vehicle is under the influence of TESLA. Notice the spring used to stop the vehicle from breaking. Field of Dreams

TESLA is a glitch that allows for a contraption to be powered by engines that have been separated from the contraption. This glitch was believed to have been patched with the Cake Race update, but it is still possible to perform the glitch, although the process is noticeably more difficult.


Pre-Cake Race[]

There are a few significant ways to split a contraption. These include having a part break off from the contraption, or activating a detacher. When a contraption is split in either of these ways, the game checks to see if any parts have been separated in a way that should render them unusable (e.g. separating a propeller from a contraption that includes an engine, or separating a bellows from anything it can attach to); if it finds an instance of this, the separated parts are disabled. In any circumstances, TESLA must require failure of the game interface to detect a broken or seperated vehicle from its power station.

However, it is possible to split a contraption in a way that doesn't trigger this check: By having the part connecting two halves of a contraption disappear. This can be done through the use of TNT (or the explosive Fireworks variant). Due to the destructive nature of TNT, it is common for springs to be used to dampen the force exerted by the TNT on the contraption without breaking any parts - the springs left on the contraptions after the glitch has been performed are sometimes called "TESLA coils" by the community.

If a contraption is separated in this manner, the two halves of the contraption will separate as normal, but the game will not update how much power every part has. However, the physics engine will still treat both halves of the contraption as being separate from each other, and so the force exerted on one half will not be affected by the weight of the other.

The most common use of the TESLA glitch is to allow small vehicles to travel at extremely fast speeds, by separating a "motor box" from the vehicle. This gives a single part a massive amount of power, while also preventing the weight of the engines from hindering the vehicle's movement. In addition, TESLA can be used to achieve a time of 0 seconds in Road Hogs levels, if the pig is placed inside the "motor box" and prevented from moving far enough to activate the timer - because the game thinks the pig is connected to the vehicle, the end goal will still be activated.[1]


Post-Cake Race[]

With the Cake Race update, the problem that made TESLA possible was fixed. When TNT is detonated, any parts placed next to it will trigger the "breaking" process, thus initiating the broken-part check. This occurred even with the Superglue power-up enabled, as this process did not involve parts actually being broken off of the contraption. In addition, the Custom Contraptions update had previously introduced a new variant of the Electric Motor with far more power and a lower weight than any other engine in the game, making the TESLA glitch less useful.

However, one item in particular is broken in just the right way to provide a workaround for this fix. This item just so happens to be the one that was so important to TESLA contraptions in the past which are springs.

When connected to an object, the bottom of a spring does not trigger the "breaking" process. - this is likely responsible for how it is possible for objects to move through a stretched spring. This is also responsible for how springs sometimes clip partially into the ground when broken off of a contraption. However, the most important part about this fact is that the bottom of a spring does not trigger the "breaking" process when TNT is detonated next to it, like other parts do.

Because of this, if the TESLA glitch is performed with springs connecting the TNT to the two halves of the contraption, with the bottoms of the springs being connected to the TNT, then the game will not check for broken parts.

However, recent updates have made springs more stiff, and thus more easily broken by the effects of TNT. Because of this, the spring itself will often be snapped off when detonating the TNT to perform the TESLA glitch. However, this only seems to occur when the spring is compressed, so stretching the spring out before detonating the TNT will often solve this problem.

However, if the "motor box" or vehicle receives damage while performing TESLA, the game will check for broken parts, and detect that the motor box and vehicle has been separated, stopping TESLA.

While TESLA is still made somewhat obsolete through the new Electric Motor variant, it has a few advantages. The most notable of these is that TESLA contraptions can still be used for 0-second records in Road Hogs. TESLA vehicles are also slightly lighter, due to a lack of any engines at all inside the vehicle.

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