I wonder how many rounds that chain on Tombstone had seen, chains have a rather specific break point and I'm curious if he got lazy or cocky with it.
I'm curious about who took the chain home.
Seems like the kind of trophy that Bombshell would really like to hang in the work shop.
+1
facetiousa wit so dryit shits sandRegistered Userregular
New episode:
(including probably the single funniest moment I've ever witnessed in a bot fight)
I laughed hysterically when Huge suddenly fell apart despite being ahead in the fight. The eyes on Huge made it 10000% funnier.
Rotator's strategy was brilliant, and their precision cutting was beautiful to behold. The last second scalping was... *chef kiss*
The intro to Bronco/War Hawk reminded me that not only is Bronco 4-0, but it's had one of the toughest lineups. Beating Lockjaw and Sawblaze is impressive. I think they're the favourites for sure, but then I thought that as soon as Tombstone was eliminated. And probably before, honestly. Admittedly I'm a Bronco fanboy, but they look better than ever this season.
And yeah, another perfect performance by Bronco. The driving was so good.. waiting for their moment, and as soon as they got the first flip they swarmed. The flip onto the screws was pinpoint, although I'm still amazed War Hawk managed to escape (briefly).
Also the superfluous flip onto the minibot was hilarious. The fact that the force of the flip alone dislodged all of its wheels was awesome.
Sometimes I forget how good BiteForce can be. Sometimes it just looks so.. ordinary in the current sea of spinners. But its maneuverability and driving can be lethal in a matchup like that. I knew Rotator had no chance other than a lucky KO just because it's always so unwieldy and unsteady in its driving, whereas BiteForce is so under control and well-driven.
Well... damn. I like Whiplash well enough, but not only am I sad my prediction got so quickly proven wrong, but as a Bronco fan I'm devastated. No more beautiful flips.
Predicting the winner at this point seems like a crap shoot though, just because they're all so similar. I guess Minotaur is the favourite now? But I have a feeling BiteForce is a bad matchup for it for similar reasons as Rotator, though Minotaur is somewhat more controlled than Rotator. Maybe Lockjaw is the favourite, actually, for pedigree and being probably the sturdiest bot left to withstand the spinners. I dunno!
"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde
In fights where they didn't get cut in half, they often seemed to be sagging in the middle quite alarmingly. I'm amazed bouncing up and down and flexing that weak joint hasn't done it before, but after what Icewave did to them, it's definitely a weak point. Had they won, Rotator would have probably done the same thing to them - chop up the wheels until that defenseless chassis is in reach. They fared better than I thought against Biteforce, the standard vertical disk spinner doesn't seem to pose the same threat, it's the horizontal spinners that do it to them, and their seed put them up against one in the second round regardless.
Favorite:
With all the horizontal doom spinners gone, Bronco gone, and Huge gone in two different directions, it's seriously wide open. Everyones' chances seem to weigh on who wins the other side as much as their own side. Minotaur probably has the advantage, they stood up to Tombstone so nothing on this field's going to get a brute force KO, but on the other side Whiplash is the only one I think they can get a clean kill on. And all four drivers left are really good, so you want knockouts or painfully clear damage wins, you don't want the judges calling fights on control and strategy because they get fickle.
I actually feel like I can call the championship matches easier than either semifinal. I think Minotaur's a favorite over Lockjaw (he's much more surgical than a horizontal spinner like Whyachi, he's not going to break his drum on that plow until he knows it'll break more on Lockjaw), but not by much, and Biteforce vs. Whiplash is anyone's guess.
Lockjaw vs. Whiplash: Lockjaw has the ass plow, but Whiplash is really smart about using their various movies with that arm to bypass spot defenses like that. Whiplash.
Lockjaw vs. Biteforce: I don't count Donald Hudson's pedigree for as much as some people. I remember him from the old Comedy Central days and I remember he basically sent entire brackets home in bags, but none of those giant nuts are with Lockjaw, only that Desperado trophy. Bite Force has a giant nut with literally this robot. The ass plow might hurt, but Biteforce's weapon hasn't been taken out that I can remember except a lucky hit to the chain from Chomp (and that's protected now, not that Lockjaw can do fuck all about it). Biteforce.
Minotaur vs. Whiplash: Minotaur walks it home, Whiplash got wrecked to high heaven by Tombstone, and I expect a repeat. Whiplash is the most strategically unique bot left, but it's also the least durable, and Minotaur's the most destructive.
Minotaur vs. Biteforce: There's no choice but to go weapon on weapon, they could easily run out the whole clock jockeying for a shot at something breakable. We saw Minotaur lose two out of four belts doing that with a weaker opponent, I think Biteforce is good for all four.
Whiplash's driver is something else. I know Bronco is not the most maneuverable of bots but Whiplash retained positional advantage for almost the entire three minutes. And that lifting arm is really precise.
It was obvious it was about to happen but Bronco's diagonal self-flip into the center of the battlebox was still really cool to see. And Whiplash was right there to pick up where it'd left off.
Whiplash's driver is something else. I know Bronco is not the most maneuverable of bots but Whiplash retained positional advantage for almost the entire three minutes. And that lifting arm is really precise.
It was obvious it was about to happen but Bronco's diagonal self-flip into the center of the battlebox was still really cool to see. And Whiplash was right there to pick up where it'd left off.
One thing that seems to have really taken center stage, this year more than the others, is pushing power. In that Whiplash/Bronco fight, Bronco was just pushed sideways all around the ring and just couldn't maneuver off the side of Whiplash. All of the Sawblaze victories were the exact same way. He overpowered the opponents motors and wheels and just shoved them all around. I wonder if there's some new high torque electric motors that are just now getting incorporated that is allowing them to so vastly overpower opponents. It really allows a bot to focus on driving a lot more than just bringing the biggest kinetic energy weapon they can.
There are some crazy electric motors being used in the sport, the guy who writes Battelbotsupdate.com and has a perennial failed alternate robot team has written a bit about motors. A couple episodes back, during the opening, they showed off some trashed parts and the crazy prices they cost - he hefted an Agni motor and said it was $1500. That's one of the smaller ones that mid-tier spinners like Warhawk commonly use to run their weapons.
There's a reason why the real contender robots cost more than a car, if not a house.
Mintotaur defeats Lockjaw
I don't think Lockjaw gets knocked out, but it won't be able to damage Minotaur while the bull will fuck up those tines and possibly take off a wheel or two.
Bite Force beats Whiplash
Whiplash's spinner is tactical but has never seemed particularly powerful, while Bite Force is maneuverable and hits hard. Those wheels on Whiplash are going to get chewed up and I see a knockout coming.
Mintoaur takes the Giant Nut
Minotaur's armor is too strong for Bite Force's spinner to do much of anything. I think Minotaur is going to chip pieces away from Bite Force's frame and possibly disable its spinner, leading to an easy call.
After watching:
Looks to me Lockjaw's radio got knocked out, just went to a dead stop. Otherwise I called it.
Bite Force v Whiplash as expected.
Minotaur and Bite Force I got all wrong. Bad luck for the bull losing their drum, but Bite Force was straight chewing through that armor like it was candy. Even with the drum I think Minotaur would've needed its own disabling hit to take this match. Props to Bite Force for having spinner that is consistently effective and resilient.
I'd like to see Minotaur re-tool a bit with a bit longer reach. It seems the current meta means it does a lot of grinding on opponents without the opportunity to really dig into them.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
That was some really impressive control on Tombstone's part, to just take the hands off like that.
Like, the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion, but just clipping those hands off before the kill? Nice.
Seeing that hand embed itself in one of the corner posts was also pretty cool.
Bite Force win, its spinner doesn't look like much but it was still tossing around 250 lb bots every match and it had the durability to keep doing it until the end.
The level of sportsmanship Team Biteforce has shown consistently makes me want to see them win. And I'm happy with the outcome, it would have been cool to see Minotaur win just for the drivers reaction but I'm happy with the result. I was actually pretty impressed too with how Billings handled getting knocked out of the competition, he had bought into being the heel the first season but he seems to be relaxing a lot in the newer one.
From what I understand, Ray Billings has always had a good reputation with other drivers. Outside of the three minutes he's in the box with you and the thirty seconds he's talking to the camera right before, he's got a reputation for being helpful and encouraging. Some drivers are dicks to people with bad robots like Subzero or Battle Royale, but Billings has been known to have his engineer help fix them, and he doesn't hit robots that aren't actively moving.*
*-To be fair, that's just as much because Tombstone can rip itself apart better than most opponents can hope to and he can never afford to be frivolous with the big hits.
On the subject of Tombstone breaking itself: Apparently the reason Bombshell broke the weapon chain goes all the way back to Minotaur. Tombstone's frame had deformed in that fight, and they had to weld it in place in its new shape to make their next fight. Over the following fights it got worse because the forces were all out of line with the frame, and after that fight where the weapon and drive couldn't run at the same time, a half-link had to be added to the weapon chain to reduce the tension. That half link was a weak point, and bombshell sheared that of all points on the chain.
I know it's irrational, but I just don't like Bite Force.
Does that stem from eking out a questionable victory over Tombstone in the 2015 finals when he re-configured to essentially just be a hard wedge? That said, I do like the new configuration better, and it's clear from both of those fights that he builds incredibly sturdy bots (probably one of the sturdiest in the competition's history).
Considering Tombstone was basically min/maxed to take advantage of the "no brick bots" rule I have a hard time getting upset with intentional counters to it. It's still terrifying to watch, and I only noticed today when I looked at that picture again how big the damned bot actually is.
Considering Tombstone was basically min/maxed to take advantage of the "no brick bots" rule I have a hard time getting upset with intentional counters to it. It's still terrifying to watch, and I only noticed today when I looked at that picture again how big the damned bot actually is.
Purpose built Tombstone killers only won half the time against it, and cumulatively the had an awful record against anything else (Duck's season was just ok, and Bombshell did literally nothing else all season.
So, yeah. There's three idea that if you want to win, you need to able to beat Tombstone, becuase if you don't fight Tombstone, you fight the person who did. But taken too far, you end up with Bombshell, who I'm pretty sure was the vengeful spirit of it's previous version. It could never fully apply itself to any task except the one that bound it to this existence, and once it's unfinished business was through it simply faded from this plane, finally to know rest.
Oh no doubt, but to be surprised that people build specific Tombstone counters is silly. My favourite robot was Chomp and it would have been torn to shreds in seconds against Tombstone.
0
facetiousa wit so dryit shits sandRegistered Userregular
This video randomly popped up as a suggestion for me, so it seems like they're filming a new season.
The science channel and discovery channel apps and websites have last season for free. Particularly nice if you didn't see the bonus fights last year. I was able to get the science channel episodes on the Roku and Android apps without logging in.
I went to Discovery's website, and apparently the first episode is on TV tonight but it's been online for a week already, if you have a cable subscription?
So I'm like...almost 20 years out of date on battlebot technology. Do flamethrowers actually inflict any damage, or are they just for show?
If combined with a grappling mechanism, they can do some damage to rubber components (wheels, sometimes drive belts) and electronics.
Mostly just for show though.
If a flamethrower is visually impressive, it's probably not doing shit. If you've ever adjusted a torch to get the best effect you'll know that the hottest flame is pale, blue, and conical. Most Battlebots flamethrowers are bright, orange (or colored with additives like Sawblaze or Witch Doctor), and billowy. Which looks really cool, but isn't actually all that hot.
Only two battlebots seem to have done shit with flamethrowers:
-During the ABC seasons, Complete Control had a grappler/lifter with a pale blue conical flame in the center. In one fight, he managed to actually melt some plastic internal parts off of an opponent (sticky burning mess dripping out and all, it was quite impressive). Even then, in most fights, even his wins, he didn't actually get the torch through a gap like that time, 99% of the time it just ruined the paintjob.
-Last season Free Shipping's flamethrower nozzle got bent backwards into its own chassis and completely destroyed most of their own wiring. Twice. It did exactly shit to anyone else's.
Huge's builder seemed to worry a lot about fire, and against Free Shipping their wheels *did* seem to sag a bit more than usual. But three minutes of exposure to that flamethrower versus twelve seconds of exposure to Icewave's blade will show you what Huge's real weakness is - horizontal spinners. Nothing to worry about fire.
Some builders are clearly aware of this. The builders of Witch Doctor and Warhead have both talked about using the flamethrower for disruption and to screw up visibility, Warhead likes to put on a show more than go for killer knockouts. Witch Doctor doesn't even seem to bother with the flamethrower against most veteran opponents, and the only time Warhead ever seems to have actively used their fire as a weapon is after they broke the drum spinner against Warrior Dragon last year.
Just saw the Tombstone vs Tantrum match from last season.
Still an impressive display of control for Tombstone to take both those hands off before obliterating the bot.
Quote from my wife: "Subzero looks a lot better than oh nevermind it's cut in half now."
That shit was fucking SCARY. Subzero has never really been good, but it could always take a hit like a champ, and it was literally shredded to bits.
Another scary weapon: that mega vertical spinner. It didn't fight today but they showed it's first full speed test. Half the weight is in this four foot bar spinner, but the gyroscopic forces mean the slightest turn while spun up and it's weapon dug six inches deep in the floor, slammed it almost through the glass, ripped all it's armor off, and spilled its internals all over the place. That weapon has the vertical power of Bronco in spinner form, but if it can't move while it's spun up it's worthless.
Another scary weapon: that mega vertical spinner. It didn't fight today but they showed it's first full speed test. Half the weight is in this four foot bar spinner, but the gyroscopic forces mean the slightest turn while spun up and it's weapon dug six inches deep in the floor, slammed it almost through the glass, ripped all it's armor off, and spilled its internals all over the place. That weapon has the vertical power of Bronco in spinner form, but if it can't move while it's spun up it's worthless.
It's like that guy saw Nightmare and thought I can make a robot that's even more unstable!
I hope he got something figured out though, because it would be fun to see that thing punt another robot into the glass across the battlebox.
My favorite part of the episode might be Deathroll deathrolling his ass around the arena.
So I'm like...almost 20 years out of date on battlebot technology. Do flamethrowers actually inflict any damage, or are they just for show?
They can be super damaging
It's just that in the amount of time that they require to be super damaging there is much much more damage that could have been inflicted in the same amount of time.
In their defense "flame-thrower/cutting torch obliterated all of the internals" just means there's potential catastrophe.
I have to wonder if Quantum will prompt a rule change. Drivers are going to be pretty salty about it not being able to disengage once it gets a good bite, sending fights to the judges early and with the last word being Quantum permanently bonding with it's opponent.
So I'm like...almost 20 years out of date on battlebot technology. Do flamethrowers actually inflict any damage, or are they just for show?
They can be super damaging
It's just that in the amount of time that they require to be super damaging there is much much more damage that could have been inflicted in the same amount of time.
In their defense "flame-thrower/cutting torch obliterated all of the internals" just means there's potential catastrophe.
Yeah, all things being equal, a good spinner is going to beat a great flame thrower pretty much any day of the week,
I have to wonder if Quantum will prompt a rule change. Drivers are going to be pretty salty about it not being able to disengage once it gets a good bite, sending fights to the judges early and with the last word being Quantum permanently bonding with it's opponent.
I don't know all the rules, but it made sense to me that if there's a rule that says "Robot must release it's grip after 30 seconds" and a robot is unable to comply with that rule, then that robot should be disqualified. Like how entanglement weapons are against the rules. Biting down on a robot and then being unable to let it go is entangling it. Maybe it's more of a guideline than a rule.
Combining a penetrating weapon with a flamethrower seems like it would be a great idea. Inject that fire into the other robot through a hole in the spike. I think Mohawk tried something like that, but I don't think I ever saw it work.
The rules are that you have to do everything you can to release. If you still can't disengage the clock is paused, both teams, officials, and the safety crew enter the box and separate the robots, and the fight resumes. If the robots can't be safely separated* then it goes to the judges prematurely.
*This was the case with Quantum and Blacksmith. Blacksmith was on fire, which was probably part of it, but after disassembling them both, they couldn't get the tooth and armor apart with a hydraulic press, there was no way they were coming apart in the box with prybars.
The entanglement rule doesn't apply to incidental entanglement - a weapon meant to do something else getting entangled only triggers the stuck together rule, and getting entangled on broken parts like weapon chains counts as battle damage.
Quantum didn't technically break the rules as they stand, but I see some hard feelings over it.
Shatter has a neat feature, wheels with these little diagonal rollers that let them drift in turns or straight up strafe sideways. They can aim their hammer way better than Blacksmith, Beta, or Chomp ever could.
Still can't hit shit but it looks cool while they drift charge past you to miss and ding some sparks off the floor.
May be an even better demonstration of why spinners dominate. They do all this crazy shit to try and land a hit while Tombstone just collides with a target.
I was skeptical of the ablative armor (an inch of the stuff Huge's wheels are made of over their steel armor), but it actually seems to have tanked hits from Witch Doctor. And if you saw that thing on Twitch last week, the new Witch Doctor ripped Tombstone apart and fully de-wheeled Bronco in under a minute.
Shatter's driver didn't really seem to take advantage of that awesome maneuverability to me. It looked awesome though. I wonder why your Minotaurs or Whiplashes don't use wheels like that? Seems pretty rad.
I'll bet Shatter could be more effective if they fought like Sawblaze. A durable, powerful bot that tanks hits and pushes the other bot around and when you get the chance when you've got him pinned against the wall you bring that hammer down and whack something good. Drifting around at a distance and trying to time the perfect shot just seemed like a good way to miss constantly (like Chomp, and she's got targeting assist automation!) and at worst, as we saw, totally whiff and then get your weapon struck and disabled.
0
ObiFettUse the ForceAs You WishRegistered Userregular
edited June 2019
Those kinds of wheels have been around for a bit (not in battlebots though) and from what I remember reading the downside is why bots like minotaur don't use them. You don't get enough traction to push another bot around
The way they drift or strafe is by spinning wheels in opposing directions. You floor the throttle and because the wheels are spinning against each other the rollers make you creep to the side. So it's really inefficient, making little side to side adjustments is like constantly charging balls out, and we've seen robots burn out their internals doing that too much.
I liked his quote, "It might not hit as hard as a spinner, but we can swing 50 times in three minutes and if they all hit..."
A spinner swings a fuck lot more than 50 times in the fight, and connects a lot more reliably. Physics also hurts hammers. Newton's first law eats half of your power by lifting up on your bot, where the same power in a flipper or vertical spinner your wheels plant and that energy gets rebounded back into the only thing that can move - your target.
Blacksmith makes a lot of money on sponsors and sells a lot of merch, though. The crowd likes fire and putting fire in the hammer and just spewing is a crowd pleaser. There *is* more to the sport than the giant hardware trophies.
Posts
I'm curious about who took the chain home.
Seems like the kind of trophy that Bombshell would really like to hang in the work shop.
(including probably the single funniest moment I've ever witnessed in a bot fight)
Rotator's strategy was brilliant, and their precision cutting was beautiful to behold. The last second scalping was... *chef kiss*
The intro to Bronco/War Hawk reminded me that not only is Bronco 4-0, but it's had one of the toughest lineups. Beating Lockjaw and Sawblaze is impressive. I think they're the favourites for sure, but then I thought that as soon as Tombstone was eliminated. And probably before, honestly. Admittedly I'm a Bronco fanboy, but they look better than ever this season.
And yeah, another perfect performance by Bronco. The driving was so good.. waiting for their moment, and as soon as they got the first flip they swarmed. The flip onto the screws was pinpoint, although I'm still amazed War Hawk managed to escape (briefly).
Also the superfluous flip onto the minibot was hilarious. The fact that the force of the flip alone dislodged all of its wheels was awesome.
Sometimes I forget how good BiteForce can be. Sometimes it just looks so.. ordinary in the current sea of spinners. But its maneuverability and driving can be lethal in a matchup like that. I knew Rotator had no chance other than a lucky KO just because it's always so unwieldy and unsteady in its driving, whereas BiteForce is so under control and well-driven.
Well... damn. I like Whiplash well enough, but not only am I sad my prediction got so quickly proven wrong, but as a Bronco fan I'm devastated. No more beautiful flips.
Predicting the winner at this point seems like a crap shoot though, just because they're all so similar. I guess Minotaur is the favourite now? But I have a feeling BiteForce is a bad matchup for it for similar reasons as Rotator, though Minotaur is somewhat more controlled than Rotator. Maybe Lockjaw is the favourite, actually, for pedigree and being probably the sturdiest bot left to withstand the spinners. I dunno!
Steam: Chagrin LoL: Bonhomie
Favorite:
I actually feel like I can call the championship matches easier than either semifinal. I think Minotaur's a favorite over Lockjaw (he's much more surgical than a horizontal spinner like Whyachi, he's not going to break his drum on that plow until he knows it'll break more on Lockjaw), but not by much, and Biteforce vs. Whiplash is anyone's guess.
Lockjaw vs. Whiplash: Lockjaw has the ass plow, but Whiplash is really smart about using their various movies with that arm to bypass spot defenses like that. Whiplash.
Lockjaw vs. Biteforce: I don't count Donald Hudson's pedigree for as much as some people. I remember him from the old Comedy Central days and I remember he basically sent entire brackets home in bags, but none of those giant nuts are with Lockjaw, only that Desperado trophy. Bite Force has a giant nut with literally this robot. The ass plow might hurt, but Biteforce's weapon hasn't been taken out that I can remember except a lucky hit to the chain from Chomp (and that's protected now, not that Lockjaw can do fuck all about it). Biteforce.
Minotaur vs. Whiplash: Minotaur walks it home, Whiplash got wrecked to high heaven by Tombstone, and I expect a repeat. Whiplash is the most strategically unique bot left, but it's also the least durable, and Minotaur's the most destructive.
Minotaur vs. Biteforce: There's no choice but to go weapon on weapon, they could easily run out the whole clock jockeying for a shot at something breakable. We saw Minotaur lose two out of four belts doing that with a weaker opponent, I think Biteforce is good for all four.
It was obvious it was about to happen but Bronco's diagonal self-flip into the center of the battlebox was still really cool to see. And Whiplash was right there to pick up where it'd left off.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
There's a reason why the real contender robots cost more than a car, if not a house.
I don't think Lockjaw gets knocked out, but it won't be able to damage Minotaur while the bull will fuck up those tines and possibly take off a wheel or two.
Bite Force beats Whiplash
Whiplash's spinner is tactical but has never seemed particularly powerful, while Bite Force is maneuverable and hits hard. Those wheels on Whiplash are going to get chewed up and I see a knockout coming.
Mintoaur takes the Giant Nut
Minotaur's armor is too strong for Bite Force's spinner to do much of anything. I think Minotaur is going to chip pieces away from Bite Force's frame and possibly disable its spinner, leading to an easy call.
After watching:
Bite Force v Whiplash as expected.
Minotaur and Bite Force I got all wrong. Bad luck for the bull losing their drum, but Bite Force was straight chewing through that armor like it was candy. Even with the drum I think Minotaur would've needed its own disabling hit to take this match. Props to Bite Force for having spinner that is consistently effective and resilient.
I'd like to see Minotaur re-tool a bit with a bit longer reach. It seems the current meta means it does a lot of grinding on opponents without the opportunity to really dig into them.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Like, the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion, but just clipping those hands off before the kill? Nice.
Seeing that hand embed itself in one of the corner posts was also pretty cool.
And the exhibition match was pretty amazing.
*-To be fair, that's just as much because Tombstone can rip itself apart better than most opponents can hope to and he can never afford to be frivolous with the big hits.
On the subject of Tombstone breaking itself: Apparently the reason Bombshell broke the weapon chain goes all the way back to Minotaur. Tombstone's frame had deformed in that fight, and they had to weld it in place in its new shape to make their next fight. Over the following fights it got worse because the forces were all out of line with the frame, and after that fight where the weapon and drive couldn't run at the same time, a half-link had to be added to the weapon chain to reduce the tension. That half link was a weak point, and bombshell sheared that of all points on the chain.
Also, further on the subject of Tombstone (link for large image):
https://www.battlebotsupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/tombstoneposter.jpg
Does that stem from eking out a questionable victory over Tombstone in the 2015 finals when he re-configured to essentially just be a hard wedge? That said, I do like the new configuration better, and it's clear from both of those fights that he builds incredibly sturdy bots (probably one of the sturdiest in the competition's history).
Purpose built Tombstone killers only won half the time against it, and cumulatively the had an awful record against anything else (Duck's season was just ok, and Bombshell did literally nothing else all season.
So, yeah. There's three idea that if you want to win, you need to able to beat Tombstone, becuase if you don't fight Tombstone, you fight the person who did. But taken too far, you end up with Bombshell, who I'm pretty sure was the vengeful spirit of it's previous version. It could never fully apply itself to any task except the one that bound it to this existence, and once it's unfinished business was through it simply faded from this plane, finally to know rest.
Steam: Chagrin LoL: Bonhomie
https://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/battlebots/full-episodes/thats-what-you-call-a-ko-part-1?
Premiered 5/31/19, that's the new season right?
Edit: lul it's only half of the first episode
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
I think largely show, but can occasionally cause wiring problems and disable a bot.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
If combined with a grappling mechanism, they can do some damage to rubber components (wheels, sometimes drive belts) and electronics.
Mostly just for show though.
Only two battlebots seem to have done shit with flamethrowers:
-During the ABC seasons, Complete Control had a grappler/lifter with a pale blue conical flame in the center. In one fight, he managed to actually melt some plastic internal parts off of an opponent (sticky burning mess dripping out and all, it was quite impressive). Even then, in most fights, even his wins, he didn't actually get the torch through a gap like that time, 99% of the time it just ruined the paintjob.
-Last season Free Shipping's flamethrower nozzle got bent backwards into its own chassis and completely destroyed most of their own wiring. Twice. It did exactly shit to anyone else's.
Huge's builder seemed to worry a lot about fire, and against Free Shipping their wheels *did* seem to sag a bit more than usual. But three minutes of exposure to that flamethrower versus twelve seconds of exposure to Icewave's blade will show you what Huge's real weakness is - horizontal spinners. Nothing to worry about fire.
Some builders are clearly aware of this. The builders of Witch Doctor and Warhead have both talked about using the flamethrower for disruption and to screw up visibility, Warhead likes to put on a show more than go for killer knockouts. Witch Doctor doesn't even seem to bother with the flamethrower against most veteran opponents, and the only time Warhead ever seems to have actively used their fire as a weapon is after they broke the drum spinner against Warrior Dragon last year.
Still an impressive display of control for Tombstone to take both those hands off before obliterating the bot.
Quote from my wife: "Subzero looks a lot better than oh nevermind it's cut in half now."
That shit was fucking SCARY. Subzero has never really been good, but it could always take a hit like a champ, and it was literally shredded to bits.
Another scary weapon: that mega vertical spinner. It didn't fight today but they showed it's first full speed test. Half the weight is in this four foot bar spinner, but the gyroscopic forces mean the slightest turn while spun up and it's weapon dug six inches deep in the floor, slammed it almost through the glass, ripped all it's armor off, and spilled its internals all over the place. That weapon has the vertical power of Bronco in spinner form, but if it can't move while it's spun up it's worthless.
It's like that guy saw Nightmare and thought I can make a robot that's even more unstable!
I hope he got something figured out though, because it would be fun to see that thing punt another robot into the glass across the battlebox.
My favorite part of the episode might be Deathroll deathrolling his ass around the arena.
They can be super damaging
It's just that in the amount of time that they require to be super damaging there is much much more damage that could have been inflicted in the same amount of time.
In their defense "flame-thrower/cutting torch obliterated all of the internals" just means there's potential catastrophe.
Yeah, all things being equal, a good spinner is going to beat a great flame thrower pretty much any day of the week,
I don't know all the rules, but it made sense to me that if there's a rule that says "Robot must release it's grip after 30 seconds" and a robot is unable to comply with that rule, then that robot should be disqualified. Like how entanglement weapons are against the rules. Biting down on a robot and then being unable to let it go is entangling it. Maybe it's more of a guideline than a rule.
Combining a penetrating weapon with a flamethrower seems like it would be a great idea. Inject that fire into the other robot through a hole in the spike. I think Mohawk tried something like that, but I don't think I ever saw it work.
*This was the case with Quantum and Blacksmith. Blacksmith was on fire, which was probably part of it, but after disassembling them both, they couldn't get the tooth and armor apart with a hydraulic press, there was no way they were coming apart in the box with prybars.
The entanglement rule doesn't apply to incidental entanglement - a weapon meant to do something else getting entangled only triggers the stuck together rule, and getting entangled on broken parts like weapon chains counts as battle damage.
Quantum didn't technically break the rules as they stand, but I see some hard feelings over it.
Still can't hit shit but it looks cool while they drift charge past you to miss and ding some sparks off the floor.
May be an even better demonstration of why spinners dominate. They do all this crazy shit to try and land a hit while Tombstone just collides with a target.
I was skeptical of the ablative armor (an inch of the stuff Huge's wheels are made of over their steel armor), but it actually seems to have tanked hits from Witch Doctor. And if you saw that thing on Twitch last week, the new Witch Doctor ripped Tombstone apart and fully de-wheeled Bronco in under a minute.
I'll bet Shatter could be more effective if they fought like Sawblaze. A durable, powerful bot that tanks hits and pushes the other bot around and when you get the chance when you've got him pinned against the wall you bring that hammer down and whack something good. Drifting around at a distance and trying to time the perfect shot just seemed like a good way to miss constantly (like Chomp, and she's got targeting assist automation!) and at worst, as we saw, totally whiff and then get your weapon struck and disabled.
I liked his quote, "It might not hit as hard as a spinner, but we can swing 50 times in three minutes and if they all hit..."
A spinner swings a fuck lot more than 50 times in the fight, and connects a lot more reliably. Physics also hurts hammers. Newton's first law eats half of your power by lifting up on your bot, where the same power in a flipper or vertical spinner your wheels plant and that energy gets rebounded back into the only thing that can move - your target.
Blacksmith makes a lot of money on sponsors and sells a lot of merch, though. The crowd likes fire and putting fire in the hammer and just spewing is a crowd pleaser. There *is* more to the sport than the giant hardware trophies.