How to cover your bum, the right way

This is more advanced list, so I'll try my best to explain.

Using partial cover. This is when you only partially protect your body even if you can fully be behind cover. This is a bit different from corner shooting, as corner shooting only exposes your weapon so it's sticking out from cover. If you divide your body into vertical slices, one slice of your body is exposed while the centre slice is behind cover protecting you from plasma. This does a few things. It can trick Treb and long range to fire at you, because they think you are exposed. When knife-fighting, it can encourage a red to keep attacking you, so that you have a clear shot at them. They may not notice that their shots are being blocked, or they may notice and keep trying to find a better angle while being out in the open. If you go fully behind cover, they'll do the same and this results in a stalemate.

Standing further back to use cover. On maps like Canyon, you can be up on the mesa and standing behind those grey air conditioning units. A lot of times, they are too low and will not provide adequate protection from plasma if you stand right next to them. But if you back up when someone is approaching your home beacon, then that low cover can now protect you. This works when you have the high ground, and due to the angle of him firing. Because he is on the low ground, he has to fire at a certain angle to clear the obstacle. So moving closer to the ledge will expose more of you, and moving back will expose less of you. This is different from using a hill as cover since you can move up and down easily to control how much of your body is exposed. On flat ground, you can't move up or down, so you have to use angles instead.

Walking behind cover. This is a tactic used when the cover is too small to protect you from splash damage. So if you stood still behind a skinny rock, you would be protected from plasma, but rockets can hurt you on either side. One way to stay safe is to walk from one side of cover to the other. So you might pop out on the left side and start shooting. Then when you see rockets coming, you move all the way to the right side and keep going. So you'll go back behind cover, and then expose yourself on the right side. Most times, the rockets will miss because it's hard to reaim to the other side for them, so if they're aiming to the left of the rock then they're need to adjust their aim to the right of the rock to hit you. By the time they do this, their rockets will have run out. You can use this trick on the horseshoe rock formation in Canyon, or the panels on Yamantau centre beacon.

Nooks and crannies. There are small objects that can used for cover. Like that notch sticking up from the ground near the ramp on Moon map. Also their is something stuck in the ground that looks like 3 jet engines on the mesa in Canyon. You'll have to combine my earlier trick of standing further back, then you can safely use these objects to block plasma while still firing around them. These objects are small enough that you can actually fire both your weapons while remaining behind cover. There are more, so be on the look out for them. Just don't think of things as useless or just rectangular in shape. On maps that don't seem to have any cover, there are usually objects like this that only better players will be aware of.

Where to stand. This is a complex topic and should have been addressed. Sometimes you may need to stand close to cover, and sometimes a little further back. Splash damage WILL go through walls, and Tridents have a splash radius of 30m. So if you're standing behind a thin wall, then you need to stand further back to avoid the splash going through the wall. This happens a lot on centre beacon of Yamantau. If the building is big, like the ones in Powerplant around the hill beacon, then you can stand right next to it and not worry about splash going through the building. Also, in this case, if a DB Griffin jumps, then you want to be right next to a thick wall like on Powerplant. The rockets will hit the front of the building, and keep you safe. If you're standing a little further back from the wall, then his jump attack might give him a good angle so that his rockets clear the building and can hit you directly. Same goes for homing missiles, so hug those walls.

Rockets vs Plasma. Know the mechanics of how these 2 types of weapons work so you know the best way to defend them. Plasma weapons will target the centre of your bot, so you only need cover between your centre and them. Rockets will have a splash radius of up to 30m, and will go through walls, floors, and objects. This kinda goes with the last point on where to stand. And also from earlier on using partial cover will work only with plasma and not rockets. But in general, if you know this rule of how weapons work, then you can discover and invent new ways of using cover.

Ramps, Bridges, Tall Buildings. I just lumped them all together. So ramps can be used for cover. I don't see enough DIamond players use the ramp to centre beacon of Yamantau, and hide behind it from plasma and rockets. Stay on the far side away from reds to be safe. Or use it to corner shoot if they are down below. Hiding under a bridge can protect from artillery and Aphids. Hiding under the bridge of centre beacon of Canyon will usually protect from Aphids. Hide behind tall buildings to block some Aphids. On Powerplant, there's a few tall satellite towers? and a couple tall telephone poles.

Falling down. If your bot is not blessed with an Ancile or jump, there's still a way to avoid rockets without using cover. Stand near a ledge, and wait for them to fire. When they fire, fall down off the ledge. This could be a bridge, top of a building, ramp, etc. As long as they're not homing missiles, they were fly towards your previous position and safely explode above you.

Walking. This isn't about cover, but how it affects being hit and hitting someone. Walking will cause your bot to bob up and down, and sometimes this is enough to expose your centre above cover to be hit. The reverse is also true, and a walking red could have a higher chance of clearing the cover you're hiding behind and hitting you. This happens when the cover only goes up to your waist.

Slanted surfaces. Some things look rectangular, but the top has a slight angle to it. So one end can be 5 feet high, and the other end could be 6 feet high and you might not notice or make a big deal of it. Stand over the taller end if you want to block plasma/rockets. Stand over the shorter end when you want to fire over it. In the middle of Poweplant at the star intersection, there is a low building like this. You might have to use the previous tip of walking to reach over this building.

Holes and Fences. Some buildings in Powerplant have a fence or supporting mesh surrounding the building. You can hide behind them and shoot through the holes in the fence. Just make sure your gun is sticking out, and isn't gonna hit anything in the way. Most of the time, people think it's a solid object. But you can also shoot through it and hit someone hiding behind such a fenced in building. It isn't worth it to attempt this though, since most of the time, your shots will hit the fence. But if you move around and try different angles and use the walking tip to change your bot height, then you can use this trick to kill a bot with no health left, otherwise it's too hard to kill a full health bot like this. It might take several attempt to get 1 shot through.

This is a 3D game. So moving one meter to the left or right can be the difference between getting hit or blocking a Zeus bolt. Also, aiming 1 meter to the right or left can be the difference between hitting something or not. This is really, really, important so there's too many spots where this occurs. You could say every map, every location is subject to this, that's why I can't give any examples. This isn't like old school shooters where everything is boxy, rectangular, or flat. Think of this as real life where there's physics, and objects have irregular contours. Combined with understanding how plasma and splash works, this should allow you to use almost anything as cover. Or it should help you find an angle or spot to aim and hit somebody. You'll prolly need to play a lot, or be really observant to find these things.

Bot height. Each bot has different height. So I know my Raijin can fire over some low obstacles that my Fury can't. Same applies to opposing bots when hiding behind low cover. So you need to factor in 3 things for cover, your bot height, red bot height, and cover height to figure out whether one has a sightline on the other. And it might not be symmetric for both, meaning maybe red can hit blue and blue can't hit red or vice-versa. The only way to learn what works, is to play different bots and see what you can fire over. And also against different bots to see what you can hit at those spots. You can use the 3 tiers as a guideline, but it's just a rule of thumb that doesn't always apply as my Raijin vs Fury example shows.

This turned out to be a really long post, so some things might not make sense. Just let me know, and I'll try my best.

Very nice addition @macwarrobots !
I was exhausted from yard work when I was typing this up so I was sure I missed some basic things that you covered. And you went above and beyond providing more specific and advanced examples of when cover isn't simply cover.