Core Climbing System - What it’s All About

Cairn employs a physics based climbing system centered around interactions between Aava’s four limbs and her torso. The torso serves as the main center of gravity and each of the four limbs imparts its own force and positioning onto the torso. Each limb also operates off its own stamina bar which gains, maintains, or drains stamina based on a variety of factors, such as: quality of the hold, type of hold, angle of contact with the hold, weather conditions, survival statuses, buff and chalk use, strength and direction of the contribution from other limbs, and her overall center of gravity. Additionally, when not on a hold, a limb gains stamina. The free limb’s position and movement then directly affect the condition of the three static limbs and Aava’s overall position. 

More succinctly, each limb’s placement or movement affects Aava’s overall security in her current position and in turn her overall position dictates the condition of each limb’s stamina. The true crux of the system, and what we will largely explore for the rest of this document, is understanding and managing limb stamina.

The community already knows a lot of this from experiential and anecdotal evidence- climbers have long sussed out techniques that take advantage of the stamina system without having much actual data to support it other than unlocking harder sequences and successful sends. However the debug mode has revealed much of the complicated system beneath and allowed us to gain a more quantitative understanding of why those techniques work. Additionally, hopefully it will impart useful knowledge as to why certain moves or climbs didn’t end well.