Razer as seen in Robot Wars would be in serious trouble if it took a hit at any angle from Tombstone. I'd love to see an updated, beefed up and tweaked Razer in the future. It's weapon isn't as dramatic as a spinner, but it's just as fun to watch.
I'd like to see a weapon built around the jaws of life.
In fact the more I think about it, the more I really want to see the robot equivalent of mortal kombat fatalities happen to more robots. Tombstone destroying things is viscerally satisfying in that way.
I'd like to see a weapon built around the jaws of life.
In fact the more I think about it, the more I really want to see the robot equivalent of mortal kombat fatalities happen to more robots. Tombstone destroying things is viscerally satisfying in that way.
Im sure i've seen a bot with the Jaws of Life as a weapon. Don't think it was too successful though. JoL can apply a bunch of force but don't do it particularly fast. It'd have to pin the target down to close the jaws. If it could get the pin like that, it'd do some damage, but getting that pin would be tough.
Thinking the bot in question was a house bot from robot wars... sarge or something. Maybe killalot?
well, I'm going to guess that damage they took in the first match didn't really help, but they fucked up the initial engage with wedgebot (sorry I mean bite force) and pretty much lost the fight there*
fuck I hate wedges
* it went to judges decision but it would be a steal if they gave it to tombstone.
Ghost Raptor sucked and Bite Force becoming basically a wedge to beat Tombstone just seemed unfair. Modification between matches seemed like a way for bots to get around that mandatory weapon thing. Lame. I guess Tombstone vs Bronco was really our championship, that wasn't hard to predict.
pretty sure that's why there's been a lot of talk about making an arena with topology (ramps) to it: it should foil wedges. I think you could still run a horizontal spinner as well, but they'll be more like Icewave in design than Tombstone or Captain Shrederator.
The Tombstone/Bite Force fight was good, imo. Sure, Bite Force became boring with that wedge, but Bite Force was boring before. Really, it came down to Bite Force having lucky easy fights and dropping their Anti-Spinner weapon down at the end. Tombstone was great to watch, even when it was being destroyed by Witch Doctor and Bite Force. If Tombstone had gotten one good shot on Bite Force's side, this would have ended way differently. Bite Force did a great job keeping that shield wedge in front of the spinning weapon and caused Tombstone to burn himself out. Which isn't something we've seen before because Tombstone had never had to go the distance. Until Witch Doctor, Tombstone had gone against bots that were soft (Plan X, Radioactive, I forgot that double vertical saw blade bot's name). Tombstone got lucky that Witch Doctor can't self-right otherwise he would have died there.
Also, Bronco was so terrible with that flipper. Their reaction time was god-awful and they lost because they were late so many times with it. You'd think that you'd be good at it since it's your main weapon.
And last thoughts, Nightmare should have gotten a wildcard. It's funny how he destroyed two bots at once and other bots got in instead.
The Tombstone/Bite Force fight was good, imo. Sure, Bite Force became boring with that wedge, but Bite Force was boring before. Really, it came down to Bite Force having lucky easy fights and dropping their Anti-Spinner weapon down at the end. Tombstone was great to watch, even when it was being destroyed by Witch Doctor and Bite Force. If Tombstone had gotten one good shot on Bite Force's side, this would have ended way differently. Bite Force did a great job keeping that shield wedge in front of the spinning weapon and caused Tombstone to burn himself out. Which isn't something we've seen before because Tombstone had never had to go the distance. Until Witch Doctor, Tombstone had gone against bots that were soft (Plan X, Radioactive, I forgot that double vertical saw blade bot's name). Tombstone got lucky that Witch Doctor can't self-right otherwise he would have died there.
Also, Bronco was so terrible with that flipper. Their reaction time was god-awful and they lost because they were late so many times with it. You'd think that you'd be good at it since it's your main weapon.
And last thoughts, Nightmare should have gotten a wildcard. It's funny how he destroyed two bots at once and other bots got in instead.
Your assessment with Bronco was spot-on, the only way to take out something like Tombstone is by taking the initiative. Another cool bit about Bite Force is it's the first robot with tank tracks for a drive system that's actually won a tournament; anticipate lots of mediocre copy cats at future competitions.
In other news, the basic means of achieving high-traction omnidirectional drives has been figured out: an expanding drum brake fitted to the interior of a Mecanum (or standard) omnidirectional wheel. With the brake expanded, the drive behaves mostly normally (with reasonable traction for pushing matches, too). With the brake retracted the rollers are free to move, allowing for unhindered translation in all directions with or without rotation.
edit: But wait, There's More! Giant Bolts that fit the Giant Nut as Most Destructive Robot and Best Designed Robot trophies.
The Tombstone/Bite Force fight was good, imo. Sure, Bite Force became boring with that wedge, but Bite Force was boring before. Really, it came down to Bite Force having lucky easy fights and dropping their Anti-Spinner weapon down at the end. Tombstone was great to watch, even when it was being destroyed by Witch Doctor and Bite Force. If Tombstone had gotten one good shot on Bite Force's side, this would have ended way differently. Bite Force did a great job keeping that shield wedge in front of the spinning weapon and caused Tombstone to burn himself out. Which isn't something we've seen before because Tombstone had never had to go the distance. Until Witch Doctor, Tombstone had gone against bots that were soft (Plan X, Radioactive, I forgot that double vertical saw blade bot's name). Tombstone got lucky that Witch Doctor can't self-right otherwise he would have died there.
Also, Bronco was so terrible with that flipper. Their reaction time was god-awful and they lost because they were late so many times with it. You'd think that you'd be good at it since it's your main weapon.
And last thoughts, Nightmare should have gotten a wildcard. It's funny how he destroyed two bots at once and other bots got in instead.
Your assessment with Bronco was spot-on, the only way to take out something like Tombstone is by taking the initiative. Another cool bit about Bite Force is it's the first robot with tank tracks for a drive system that's actually won a tournament; anticipate lots of mediocre copy cats at future competitions.
The tank tracks only worked for them here because it gave them traction and kept them from spinning out like we saw many bots with wheels do on the steel floor. Had they gone against a full bodied spinner like Captain Shrederator, they wouldn't have been able to turn fast enough to keep that wedge shield in front and would have been sitting ducks.
Seriously fuck it, if this is what they'll allow. No wedges, they said, they're boring, they said, but when the final happens boom, a fucking wedge and a judges decision.
Bite Force is not a champion. I know this means nothing coming from someone who never built a robot and isn't super deep into robot fighting but fuck it, I know how to build a damn thick wedge and stick it to an RC car. I'll even use an RC car with tracks that make it kewl.
Hell, when it comes to finals, let them fight till one can't continue, play Wimbledon rules, no judges or timer. A part of me feels like Tobstone would have won if it kept going because the guy was an actual aggressive driver even with the smoke.
The bronco/tombstone match was really good because even if tombstone did a dumb thing by attacking during the countdown, hell, he gets points for being aggressive all the time. And Bronco simply didn't practice enough with the new lift to really make it work (as seen by trying to flip back.
Fucking Ghost Raptor, I'd rather there be a straight disqualification for not fixing the damn blade weapon.
The grudge match shows the crime of not giving Nightmare a wildcard, it did better than both bots who got to the QFs.
But seriously, no more wedges. I don't care if it's the secondary weapon, no wedges. Enforce it like a mofo. Finals should not be one of the worst matches in the entire series.
That was a great match! Very well driven by the teams.
Very good fight with Tombstone and Bite Force, good use of the armor to make it through Tombstone's attacks. Very aggressive with the pins and flips as well. And really, if the cause of Tombstone's battery failure was that hit on Ghost Raptor? That was pure irony. To quote Han Solo, Don't get cocky.
I'll also second that I'm not a fan of the announcers. They need to get more nerds in there, talk about the bots more in depth. I get that this was the "first" season and they're still trying to get a sense of how to put the show together, but still...Get Grant or Jamie from MythBusters on there, they know robots, and they'll be able to talk about it.
FTC: honk.
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
Honestly, I think the biggest problem might just be that there aren't any rules against modular design; to me, a bot should be a one size fits all affair as opposed to having a menagerie of flair that gets added or removed in order to counter specific bots.
A great example of this kind of shenanigans was in the form of Tornado form Robot Wars UK, who had no less then 9 seperate variations of their bot developed for use over the course of 3 series.
Like seriously, look at this shit:
They built a frame specifically to prevent razer from being able to get to reach their bot, and this frame was only ever used against it.
I dunno, I think modular bots are much better. Think of it this way, without modular bots, Tombstone or Icewave would have swept, and that's never interesting. I like the builders having to think on their feet, and come up with plans for whatever they may meet. Look at Witch Doctor. It knew it's little bot wasn't going to be much good against Tombstone, so it left it out and put a huge piece of steel on the front and almost took out Tombstone.
FTC: honk.
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
Modularity is fine, but shouldn't be used as a loophole to bring a wedgebot into the fight. If your weapons break and you're left with a wedge? DQ. If you apply some modularity and suddenly you're a wedge? DQ.
I dunno, I think modular bots are much better. Think of it this way, without modular bots, Tombstone or Icewave would have swept, and that's never interesting. I like the builders having to think on their feet, and come up with plans for whatever they may meet. Look at Witch Doctor. It knew it's little bot wasn't going to be much good against Tombstone, so it left it out and put a huge piece of steel on the front and almost took out Tombstone.
And I completely disagree; The nature of the competition should be that you design the best bot you can and from the moment you sign it up it's design should be static.
Otherwise it just rewards teams that come to the competition with the biggest pile of Mods.
Welding a bit fat wedge onto the bot was just cheesy bullshit. The modifications really need to go and blatant wedgebots like that can eat shit. Bots need to show up with static designs and not be allowed to mod themselves like because it's pretty clear that Biteforce's "weapon" was not going to see any use whatsoever from the start. Should have been an automatic DQ when they showed up as a wedgebot.
Similarly, Icewave getting punked out like it did was pretty shitty too. They were taken out by a specific mod, not by a good overall bot design or clever driving. Absolutely lame.
Overall I'm pretty 'eh' on this show. The production side is just incredibly annoying and the mods allowed made for some shit fights.
I'm just going to say I'm very much looking forward to a second season if they decide to not go with a completely flat floor anymore, that should prove very interesting (and might make the whole surprise wedgebot issue moot).
And as for modular design, I'd rather they have rules saying you can only use what you made before you came to the tourney (minus armor/chassis repair). Instead of welding a giant battering ram on (though granted this rule doesn't leave out slapping a big wedge on your bot, but if you had it I guess that's sort of fair).
I also hope next season the seeding isn't completely stacked on one side like it was this year (like, the only scary bot on the left bracket was Icewave).
Well, nobody's going to remember the modular bullshit bots. Everyone will remember interesting static designs, even if they lose.
Have you read the last few pages? Because more then a few are about how much bullshit biteforce was and how lame that last match was for it.
Anyways, back to my discussion about arena's not being perfectly flat: It looks like they designed the floor as a series of 4X4 foot squares; what if as part of adding bumps and obstacles they made it so that the layout of the arena could be rearanged on a week to week basis in order to keep drivers on their toes?
Modular robots are a good idea in general, but I think some tightening of the rules can be done to eliminate "wedge mode with a tiny, token weapon" designs. For example, most of Ghost Raptor's MacGuyvered modular bits could all still move, so they weren't going so far as to change their lifter component as make it more effective for whatever match they had. Switching from an active primary weapon to a wedge as your primary weapon should be discouraged.
Modular robots are a good idea in general, but I think some tightening of the rules can be done to eliminate "wedge mode with a tiny, token weapon" designs. For example, most of Ghost Raptor's MacGuyvered modular bits could all still move, so they weren't going so far as to change their lifter component as make it more effective for whatever match they had. Switching from an active primary weapon to a wedge as your primary weapon should be discouraged.
By discouraged you mean result in disqualification? Because fuck wedgebots.
I don't mind modular but if you are going to ban wedge bots you need to BAN WEDGE BOTS and mods that turn bots into wedge bots. You having some slow moving arm thing that could not really flip anything as other than a self righting mechanism is NOT A WEAPON. That bot did not have an active weapon and should have been DQ'ed. As should ghost raptor after it broke its main weapon it basically was a bad wedge bot with a useless actuator arm that did nothing.
Adding armor fine turning your bot into a wedge bot to get around the whole no wedge bot limitations is not okay.
Modular robots are a good idea in general, but I think some tightening of the rules can be done to eliminate "wedge mode with a tiny, token weapon" designs. For example, most of Ghost Raptor's MacGuyvered modular bits could all still move, so they weren't going so far as to change their lifter component as make it more effective for whatever match they had. Switching from an active primary weapon to a wedge as your primary weapon should be discouraged.
Realistically though, there is no way to prevent that from happening as long as Modular weapons are allowed.
Sure there is use the same rules the bots entered the competition with. No wedge bots and must have an active weapon. They just need to tighten down the rules regarding active weapon. Both ghost raptor and the one that won had no weapon capable of doing any damage or even incapacitating their opponents other than as ramming wedge bots. The weapon must be capable of some reasonable effective offensive action or it should not be considered a weapon.
Modular robots are a good idea in general, but I think some tightening of the rules can be done to eliminate "wedge mode with a tiny, token weapon" designs. For example, most of Ghost Raptor's MacGuyvered modular bits could all still move, so they weren't going so far as to change their lifter component as make it more effective for whatever match they had. Switching from an active primary weapon to a wedge as your primary weapon should be discouraged.
Realistically though, there is no way to prevent that from happening as long as Modular weapons are allowed.
It can be mitigated though. It looks like design reviews are here to stay, and having modular robots examined to a higher standard is a fair trade for the options they give you. For example: if Bite Force had the wedge mount to the front of the robot rather than the rear, with lifter jaws that lied flush with the wedge surface, that would have been a much more acceptable design.
Sure there is use the same rules the bots entered the competition with. No wedge bots and must have an active weapon. They just need to tighten down the rules regarding active weapon. Both ghost raptor and the one that won had no weapon capable of doing any damage or even incapacitating their opponents other than as ramming wedge bots. The weapon must be capable of some reasonable effective offensive action or it should not be considered a weapon.
That would disqualify Lock Jaw and Stinger, which is not a good move. Plus, imagine if all three of Tombstone's blades had been destroyed. It's not fair to disqualify someone from making emergency modifications to a robot in a competition built around engineering skill.
Modular robots are a good idea in general, but I think some tightening of the rules can be done to eliminate "wedge mode with a tiny, token weapon" designs. For example, most of Ghost Raptor's MacGuyvered modular bits could all still move, so they weren't going so far as to change their lifter component as make it more effective for whatever match they had. Switching from an active primary weapon to a wedge as your primary weapon should be discouraged.
Realistically though, there is no way to prevent that from happening as long as Modular weapons are allowed.
It can be mitigated though. It looks like design reviews are here to stay, and having modular robots examined to a higher standard is a fair trade for the options they give you. For example: if Bite Force had the wedge mount to the front of the robot rather than the rear, with lifter jaws that lied flush with the wedge surface, that would have been a much more acceptable design.
Having a higher degree of review just means that the Judges have to sort through an ever increasing morass of design specs and theorize whether or not the suggested mod is in fact a viable weapon, and they still allowed biteforce to go in with a weapon that basically did jack squat the whole tournament; I don't think it ever even performed it's role as a grabber.
Static designs do away with this issue, and if these guys have half a brain then they'll have replacement parts for anything that is likely to take damage or need to be replaced.
Something probably needs to be done to prevent everybody from converting to wedge bots after the initial match. If you are ruling out wedge bots you need to keep them out. If you are going to allow wedge bots then you should say that up front so people can design accordingly. Witch doctor was a bit of a wedge bot but it had a strong enough frontal weapon that I was pretty okay with it.
Modular robots are a good idea in general, but I think some tightening of the rules can be done to eliminate "wedge mode with a tiny, token weapon" designs. For example, most of Ghost Raptor's MacGuyvered modular bits could all still move, so they weren't going so far as to change their lifter component as make it more effective for whatever match they had. Switching from an active primary weapon to a wedge as your primary weapon should be discouraged.
Realistically though, there is no way to prevent that from happening as long as Modular weapons are allowed.
It can be mitigated though. It looks like design reviews are here to stay, and having modular robots examined to a higher standard is a fair trade for the options they give you. For example: if Bite Force had the wedge mount to the front of the robot rather than the rear, with lifter jaws that lied flush with the wedge surface, that would have been a much more acceptable design.
Having a higher degree of review just means that the Judges have to sort through an ever increasing morass of design specs and theorize whether or not the suggested mod is in fact a viable weapon, and they still allowed biteforce to go in with a weapon that basically did jack squat the whole tournament; I don't think it ever even performed it's role as a grabber.
Static designs do away with this issue, and if these guys have half a brain then they'll have replacement parts for anything that is likely to take damage or need to be replaced.
Not as much as you'd think, most of the final decisions are at the event during safety & rules checks, where there is plenty of time to tell a builder to make modifications or they'll call in an alternate. These checks also occur after every major configuration change (in other words, every single one of Ghost Raptor's matches).
The extenuating circumstances with having replacement parts is that the normal build period for these is 15-20 weeks, rather than the 5 that was allotted for the competitors this time. Plus, on-the-fly modifications are not as 'optional' in many cases. Like my example revolving around a spinner having shitty luck and needing to macguyver a new design in a few hours, the tournaments are too unpredictable to ban mods. The right choice is just to be more stringent when performing weight, safety, and rules adherence checks.
I remember the good 'ol days, when spinners weren't very popular.
Oh well. It's still nice to see you again.
The biggest problem with Robot wars back in the day was that it wound up being infested with wedge flippers who for the most part weren't particularly interesting to watch because they were effectively the same bot just with a different paint job.
That having been said, 4 bots stood out in my mind for their solid designs
It doesn't look like much, but when Chaos 2 was first unleashed it was an utter nightmare; it was incredibly fast and nimble and it's Co2 flipper hurled robots into the air. Matches ended in seconds as this thing through it's oposition clean out of the ring.
Statistically the best bot in robot wars history, razer was well designed and with rare exception amply capable of inflicting catastrophic damage on anyone unfortunate enough to be in the arena with it.
The orginal Stinger was an interesting bot; with al of it's mechanisms inside of it's wheel casings, it presented a comparatively tiny target that was extremely durable if not actually hard hitting; to the best of my knowledge they were never actually imobilized.
Not neccesarily the most powerful bot, Pussycat was still a solid design that infuriated flippers; no matter how it landed this bot would have at least two of it's wheels on the ground and thus still able to fight. Yes, it is technically a "spinnerbot" but it's spinner was a comparatively small grinder and not some 50 lbs monstrosity going at 4000 RPM.
Razer would beat any bot in this tournament in 5 seconds except tombstone, who they would also beat if they managed to dodge its first hit. It's punch blade actually worked, unlike the one in this show which looks like it from MIT.
Unlikely. Based on previous discussions about most UK bots, their armor is very deficient when it comes to spinners. Entertainingly, there was one robot in this tournament with the same approximate plating as Razer, and that's Chomp. Now, Chomp lost more due to inexperience while driving than anything else, but as you can see all it takes is one hit from modern US spinning weapons to tear out your drive train if you come into the arena with 0.1" thick armor plate. Also, the MIT weapon is specifically a grabber: it's not made to penetrate much, but the shape does assist in finding grooves or gaps to hook into on another robot.
The UK house robots used massively thick armor plating compared to the contestants to prevent them having to be repaired after each match, and since they had no weight restriction. In multiple matches Razer, after annihilating its main opponent, attacked the house robots and easily breached their armor, despite approaching on an angle to it rather than vertically (since the house robots were so massive and 'artistic' that they could have angled armor plate near to ground level). They also in a few matches managed to punch the blade THROUGH the spinning disk of opposing spinning robots, which is clearly an even thicker again piece of metal.
Razers weapon was orders of magnitude more powerful than anything I've seen in terms of 'bitey' weapons in this tournament. It would indeed be destroyed by Tombstones spinner, but clearly a 'modern' Razer would have modified armor and internal electronics to take a hit from a modern spinner. Also, the razer team was very good at driving, and I would feel would be more than capable of dodging the spinner bots in this tournement and getting their first attack in.
Modular robots are a good idea in general, but I think some tightening of the rules can be done to eliminate "wedge mode with a tiny, token weapon" designs. For example, most of Ghost Raptor's MacGuyvered modular bits could all still move, so they weren't going so far as to change their lifter component as make it more effective for whatever match they had. Switching from an active primary weapon to a wedge as your primary weapon should be discouraged.
Realistically though, there is no way to prevent that from happening as long as Modular weapons are allowed.
It can be mitigated though. It looks like design reviews are here to stay, and having modular robots examined to a higher standard is a fair trade for the options they give you. For example: if Bite Force had the wedge mount to the front of the robot rather than the rear, with lifter jaws that lied flush with the wedge surface, that would have been a much more acceptable design.
Having a higher degree of review just means that the Judges have to sort through an ever increasing morass of design specs and theorize whether or not the suggested mod is in fact a viable weapon, and they still allowed biteforce to go in with a weapon that basically did jack squat the whole tournament; I don't think it ever even performed it's role as a grabber.
Static designs do away with this issue, and if these guys have half a brain then they'll have replacement parts for anything that is likely to take damage or need to be replaced.
Not as much as you'd think, most of the final decisions are at the event during safety & rules checks, where there is plenty of time to tell a builder to make modifications or they'll call in an alternate. These checks also occur after every major configuration change (in other words, every single one of Ghost Raptor's matches).
The extenuating circumstances with having replacement parts is that the normal build period for these is 15-20 weeks, rather than the 5 that was allotted for the competitors this time. Plus, on-the-fly modifications are not as 'optional' in many cases. Like my example revolving around a spinner having shitty luck and needing to macguyver a new design in a few hours, the tournaments are too unpredictable to ban mods. The right choice is just to be more stringent when performing weight, safety, and rules adherence checks.
But that Just leads us right back to the final match that we got; Biteforce had a legitimate "active weapon" that could have functioned as a flipper against most of the bots in this series and if it could have concievably flipped tombstone a few times.
In practice though, they just used their up armored ass to ram tombstone a bunch and almost completely circumnavigate the active weapons rule (I say almost because they did gently pat tombstone a couple of times with their forks).
They just need to put a max width on wedges. Like, just to pull a number out of nowhere you can have a 6 inch wedge (or half the width of the wedge side of your bot, whichever is less) so you can use it in ramming to try to get under the other bot and turn them over, but that's it.
Modular robots are a good idea in general, but I think some tightening of the rules can be done to eliminate "wedge mode with a tiny, token weapon" designs. For example, most of Ghost Raptor's MacGuyvered modular bits could all still move, so they weren't going so far as to change their lifter component as make it more effective for whatever match they had. Switching from an active primary weapon to a wedge as your primary weapon should be discouraged.
Realistically though, there is no way to prevent that from happening as long as Modular weapons are allowed.
It can be mitigated though. It looks like design reviews are here to stay, and having modular robots examined to a higher standard is a fair trade for the options they give you. For example: if Bite Force had the wedge mount to the front of the robot rather than the rear, with lifter jaws that lied flush with the wedge surface, that would have been a much more acceptable design.
Having a higher degree of review just means that the Judges have to sort through an ever increasing morass of design specs and theorize whether or not the suggested mod is in fact a viable weapon, and they still allowed biteforce to go in with a weapon that basically did jack squat the whole tournament; I don't think it ever even performed it's role as a grabber.
Static designs do away with this issue, and if these guys have half a brain then they'll have replacement parts for anything that is likely to take damage or need to be replaced.
Not as much as you'd think, most of the final decisions are at the event during safety & rules checks, where there is plenty of time to tell a builder to make modifications or they'll call in an alternate. These checks also occur after every major configuration change (in other words, every single one of Ghost Raptor's matches).
The extenuating circumstances with having replacement parts is that the normal build period for these is 15-20 weeks, rather than the 5 that was allotted for the competitors this time. Plus, on-the-fly modifications are not as 'optional' in many cases. Like my example revolving around a spinner having shitty luck and needing to macguyver a new design in a few hours, the tournaments are too unpredictable to ban mods. The right choice is just to be more stringent when performing weight, safety, and rules adherence checks.
But that Just leads us right back to the final match that we got; Biteforce had a legitimate "active weapon" that could have functioned as a flipper against most of the bots in this series and if it could have concievably flipped tombstone a few times.
In practice though, they just used their up armored ass to ram tombstone a bunch and almost completely circumnavigate the active weapons rule (I say almost because they did gently pat tombstone a couple of times with their forks).
My take is they should have said, upon viewing the wedge design, "No, you can't enter that. That's not a sufficiently active weapon to make sense. You're stuck with the claw. If you can find a way to make the robot light enough to fit the wedge on, great, but you have to have the whole claw."
I remember the good 'ol days, when spinners weren't very popular.
Oh well. It's still nice to see you again.
The biggest problem with Robot wars back in the day was that it wound up being infested with wedge flippers who for the most part weren't particularly interesting to watch because they were effectively the same bot just with a different paint job.
That having been said, 4 bots stood out in my mind for their solid designs
It doesn't look like much, but when Chaos 2 was first unleashed it was an utter nightmare; it was incredibly fast and nimble and it's Co2 flipper hurled robots into the air. Matches ended in seconds as this thing through it's oposition clean out of the ring.
Statistically the best bot in robot wars history, razer was well designed and with rare exception amply capable of inflicting catastrophic damage on anyone unfortunate enough to be in the arena with it.
The orginal Stinger was an interesting bot; with al of it's mechanisms inside of it's wheel casings, it presented a comparatively tiny target that was extremely durable if not actually hard hitting; to the best of my knowledge they were never actually imobilized.
Not neccesarily the most powerful bot, Pussycat was still a solid design that infuriated flippers; no matter how it landed this bot would have at least two of it's wheels on the ground and thus still able to fight. Yes, it is technically a "spinnerbot" but it's spinner was a comparatively small grinder and not some 50 lbs monstrosity going at 4000 RPM.
Razer would beat any bot in this tournament in 5 seconds except tombstone, who they would also beat if they managed to dodge its first hit. It's punch blade actually worked, unlike the one in this show which looks like it from MIT.
Unlikely. Based on previous discussions about most UK bots, their armor is very deficient when it comes to spinners. Entertainingly, there was one robot in this tournament with the same approximate plating as Razer, and that's Chomp. Now, Chomp lost more due to inexperience while driving than anything else, but as you can see all it takes is one hit from modern US spinning weapons to tear out your drive train if you come into the arena with 0.1" thick armor plate. Also, the MIT weapon is specifically a grabber: it's not made to penetrate much, but the shape does assist in finding grooves or gaps to hook into on another robot.
The UK house robots used massively thick armor plating compared to the contestants to prevent them having to be repaired after each match, and since they had no weight restriction. In multiple matches Razer, after annihilating its main opponent, attacked the house robots and easily breached their armor, despite approaching on an angle to it rather than vertically (since the house robots were so massive and 'artistic' that they could have angled armor plate near to ground level). They also in a few matches managed to punch the blade THROUGH the spinning disk of opposing spinning robots, which is clearly an even thicker again piece of metal.
Razers weapon was orders of magnitude more powerful than anything I've seen in terms of 'bitey' weapons in this tournament. It would indeed be destroyed by Tombstones spinner, but clearly a 'modern' Razer would have modified armor and internal electronics to take a hit from a modern spinner. Also, the razer team was very good at driving, and I would feel would be more than capable of dodging the spinner bots in this tournement and getting their first attack in.
Most important factor bolded. Still, that doesn't change the fact that Chomp is actually as strong as Razer using a less ideal form of power transmission after a downgrade. Both put about 9 tons through their weapons, but Chomp was initially designed to put out 30 tons. We also didn't get to see a good match from Mohawk, which had an interesting dual-hydraulic system for fast actuation and then high-force.
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In fact the more I think about it, the more I really want to see the robot equivalent of mortal kombat fatalities happen to more robots. Tombstone destroying things is viscerally satisfying in that way.
i swear to pete if that means biteforce or ghost raptor wins... :rotate:
that was really bad for a semi final
Im sure i've seen a bot with the Jaws of Life as a weapon. Don't think it was too successful though. JoL can apply a bunch of force but don't do it particularly fast. It'd have to pin the target down to close the jaws. If it could get the pin like that, it'd do some damage, but getting that pin would be tough.
Thinking the bot in question was a house bot from robot wars... sarge or something. Maybe killalot?
fuck I hate wedges
* it went to judges decision but it would be a steal if they gave it to tombstone.
Also, Bronco was so terrible with that flipper. Their reaction time was god-awful and they lost because they were late so many times with it. You'd think that you'd be good at it since it's your main weapon.
And last thoughts, Nightmare should have gotten a wildcard. It's funny how he destroyed two bots at once and other bots got in instead.
In other news, the basic means of achieving high-traction omnidirectional drives has been figured out: an expanding drum brake fitted to the interior of a Mecanum (or standard) omnidirectional wheel. With the brake expanded, the drive behaves mostly normally (with reasonable traction for pushing matches, too). With the brake retracted the rollers are free to move, allowing for unhindered translation in all directions with or without rotation.
edit: But wait, There's More! Giant Bolts that fit the Giant Nut as Most Destructive Robot and Best Designed Robot trophies.
And they could have awarded them on the show too if they hadn't used so much filler on the last match
He called Stinger a bee when it clearly had a yellowjacket on the bot and that awful Hickey Dickey Dot, You're about to get clocked?
The intros at the finals were close enough to a professional boxing intro as you were going to get.
@ Stinger remark: Stinger, The Killer Bee is the full name. The Graphic is wrong, but that's really what it was called.
this is literally the first season of Last Comic Standing. Literally, both literally and figuratively.
Seriously fuck it, if this is what they'll allow. No wedges, they said, they're boring, they said, but when the final happens boom, a fucking wedge and a judges decision.
Bite Force is not a champion. I know this means nothing coming from someone who never built a robot and isn't super deep into robot fighting but fuck it, I know how to build a damn thick wedge and stick it to an RC car. I'll even use an RC car with tracks that make it kewl.
Hell, when it comes to finals, let them fight till one can't continue, play Wimbledon rules, no judges or timer. A part of me feels like Tobstone would have won if it kept going because the guy was an actual aggressive driver even with the smoke.
The bronco/tombstone match was really good because even if tombstone did a dumb thing by attacking during the countdown, hell, he gets points for being aggressive all the time. And Bronco simply didn't practice enough with the new lift to really make it work (as seen by trying to flip back.
Fucking Ghost Raptor, I'd rather there be a straight disqualification for not fixing the damn blade weapon.
The grudge match shows the crime of not giving Nightmare a wildcard, it did better than both bots who got to the QFs.
But seriously, no more wedges. I don't care if it's the secondary weapon, no wedges. Enforce it like a mofo. Finals should not be one of the worst matches in the entire series.
Very good fight with Tombstone and Bite Force, good use of the armor to make it through Tombstone's attacks. Very aggressive with the pins and flips as well. And really, if the cause of Tombstone's battery failure was that hit on Ghost Raptor? That was pure irony. To quote Han Solo, Don't get cocky.
I'll also second that I'm not a fan of the announcers. They need to get more nerds in there, talk about the bots more in depth. I get that this was the "first" season and they're still trying to get a sense of how to put the show together, but still...Get Grant or Jamie from MythBusters on there, they know robots, and they'll be able to talk about it.
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
A great example of this kind of shenanigans was in the form of Tornado form Robot Wars UK, who had no less then 9 seperate variations of their bot developed for use over the course of 3 series.
Like seriously, look at this shit:
They built a frame specifically to prevent razer from being able to get to reach their bot, and this frame was only ever used against it.
FTC: HONK.
PAX Prime 2014 Resistance Tournament Winner
Also, just noticed the thread title change
And I completely disagree; The nature of the competition should be that you design the best bot you can and from the moment you sign it up it's design should be static.
Otherwise it just rewards teams that come to the competition with the biggest pile of Mods.
Similarly, Icewave getting punked out like it did was pretty shitty too. They were taken out by a specific mod, not by a good overall bot design or clever driving. Absolutely lame.
Overall I'm pretty 'eh' on this show. The production side is just incredibly annoying and the mods allowed made for some shit fights.
And as for modular design, I'd rather they have rules saying you can only use what you made before you came to the tourney (minus armor/chassis repair). Instead of welding a giant battering ram on (though granted this rule doesn't leave out slapping a big wedge on your bot, but if you had it I guess that's sort of fair).
I also hope next season the seeding isn't completely stacked on one side like it was this year (like, the only scary bot on the left bracket was Icewave).
Have you read the last few pages? Because more then a few are about how much bullshit biteforce was and how lame that last match was for it.
Anyways, back to my discussion about arena's not being perfectly flat: It looks like they designed the floor as a series of 4X4 foot squares; what if as part of adding bumps and obstacles they made it so that the layout of the arena could be rearanged on a week to week basis in order to keep drivers on their toes?
By discouraged you mean result in disqualification? Because fuck wedgebots.
Adding armor fine turning your bot into a wedge bot to get around the whole no wedge bot limitations is not okay.
Realistically though, there is no way to prevent that from happening as long as Modular weapons are allowed.
It can be mitigated though. It looks like design reviews are here to stay, and having modular robots examined to a higher standard is a fair trade for the options they give you. For example: if Bite Force had the wedge mount to the front of the robot rather than the rear, with lifter jaws that lied flush with the wedge surface, that would have been a much more acceptable design.
That would disqualify Lock Jaw and Stinger, which is not a good move. Plus, imagine if all three of Tombstone's blades had been destroyed. It's not fair to disqualify someone from making emergency modifications to a robot in a competition built around engineering skill.
Having a higher degree of review just means that the Judges have to sort through an ever increasing morass of design specs and theorize whether or not the suggested mod is in fact a viable weapon, and they still allowed biteforce to go in with a weapon that basically did jack squat the whole tournament; I don't think it ever even performed it's role as a grabber.
Static designs do away with this issue, and if these guys have half a brain then they'll have replacement parts for anything that is likely to take damage or need to be replaced.
Not as much as you'd think, most of the final decisions are at the event during safety & rules checks, where there is plenty of time to tell a builder to make modifications or they'll call in an alternate. These checks also occur after every major configuration change (in other words, every single one of Ghost Raptor's matches).
The extenuating circumstances with having replacement parts is that the normal build period for these is 15-20 weeks, rather than the 5 that was allotted for the competitors this time. Plus, on-the-fly modifications are not as 'optional' in many cases. Like my example revolving around a spinner having shitty luck and needing to macguyver a new design in a few hours, the tournaments are too unpredictable to ban mods. The right choice is just to be more stringent when performing weight, safety, and rules adherence checks.
The UK house robots used massively thick armor plating compared to the contestants to prevent them having to be repaired after each match, and since they had no weight restriction. In multiple matches Razer, after annihilating its main opponent, attacked the house robots and easily breached their armor, despite approaching on an angle to it rather than vertically (since the house robots were so massive and 'artistic' that they could have angled armor plate near to ground level). They also in a few matches managed to punch the blade THROUGH the spinning disk of opposing spinning robots, which is clearly an even thicker again piece of metal.
Razers weapon was orders of magnitude more powerful than anything I've seen in terms of 'bitey' weapons in this tournament. It would indeed be destroyed by Tombstones spinner, but clearly a 'modern' Razer would have modified armor and internal electronics to take a hit from a modern spinner. Also, the razer team was very good at driving, and I would feel would be more than capable of dodging the spinner bots in this tournement and getting their first attack in.
But that Just leads us right back to the final match that we got; Biteforce had a legitimate "active weapon" that could have functioned as a flipper against most of the bots in this series and if it could have concievably flipped tombstone a few times.
In practice though, they just used their up armored ass to ram tombstone a bunch and almost completely circumnavigate the active weapons rule (I say almost because they did gently pat tombstone a couple of times with their forks).
My take is they should have said, upon viewing the wedge design, "No, you can't enter that. That's not a sufficiently active weapon to make sense. You're stuck with the claw. If you can find a way to make the robot light enough to fit the wedge on, great, but you have to have the whole claw."
Most important factor bolded. Still, that doesn't change the fact that Chomp is actually as strong as Razer using a less ideal form of power transmission after a downgrade. Both put about 9 tons through their weapons, but Chomp was initially designed to put out 30 tons. We also didn't get to see a good match from Mohawk, which had an interesting dual-hydraulic system for fast actuation and then high-force.