Vehicle Damage | GTA Wiki | Fandom

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A heavily damaged Sentinel (GTA V).

Vehicle Damage is a fundamental aspect in the Grand Theft Auto series. The ability to damage and destroy vehicles has been featured in every GTA game, providing a degree of realism and challenge to the player Throughout the series, most vehicles are susceptible to damage from the environment, typically in the form of crashes, gunfire, or other external forces, providing a certain degree of realism and illustrating the vulnerability of vehicles in the series. If a vehicle is damaged enough, it can burst into flames and explode afterwards, rendering it useless. As the series progresses, the variety of damage increases, offering additional ways in which vehicles can be destroyed. In addition, the manner in which damage is depicted in-game has changed as newer game engines are used.

Damage resistance should be considered when selecting a vehicle for a task. The high performance of certain vehicles may be offset by a weaker body, while a slow, heavy vehicle may be far more resilient to damage. If a player is not proficient in driving or has not properly planned their path to their destination, choosing a vehicle may become a hindrance if the player is trying to complete a mission within a time limit or escaping from pursuers.Certain missions and tricks throughout the series can create a damage-resistant vehicle, which include resistance to bullets, explosions, physical collisions, and fire. Tanks and certain armored vehicles are also naturally highly resistant to damage and are invulnerable to certain forms of destructive forces, such as collisions.

Vehicles in Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto 2 can be destroyed via high speed crashes, gunfire from firearms and drops into water, features which are still present in all later games. The games are also capable of accurately visualizing portions of vehicles which are damaged using collision detection; each vehicle is divided into sections that are visually represented as either undamaged or damaged: GTA features six such sections (on four corners and two sides) and GTA 2 has four (on four corners).

Unlike the 3D Universe games (excluding popped tyres), a vehicle's performance degrades as its damage is increasingly severe. For GTA, the only hint to this is a increasingly louder clunking engine noise; in GTA 2 the clutch of the vehicle breaks, making the vehicle produce a loud chattering sound as it drives. A fire may start in the middle of the vehicle, which grows with increased damage or on its own over time.

By Grand Theft Auto III, vehicles are far more sensitive with damage, as parts can show signs of damage with the slightest collision, as well as high speed collisions with pedestrians. However, the performance of vehicles remains unaffected from damage, and imminent destruction of vehicles is represented by a burning engine. If a vehicle is flipped over, its engine will also burst into flames and result in the vehicle exploding (presumably because of fuel leak).

GTA III's visual representation of vehicle damage improved in complexity. The engine may now emit smoke, providing a gauge on how much endurance a vehicle has left before it catches fire. Most road vehicles in the game are also constructed from separate models representing minor parts of the vehicle (doors, frontal quarter panels/headlights and bumpers) around a central "core" (the wheels, engine, chassis and body of vehicles). The damage system of vehicles represents the minor vehicle parts as undamaged, damaged or missing, based on collisions detected on the vehicle; the core of each vehicle remains visually unchanged despite heavy damage. Boats and aircraft, however, will not show signs of damage until they are on the verge of exploding.