BOTM May 2012

[ACAMS]

This month will be Stock BW (125.1kg to 175kg)

 
RULES:

• AI parts are allowed, excluding the 140cm square extender
• cheatbot2 is not allowed
• Custom parts ARE NOT allowed
• Realistic rule DOES NOT APPLY
• Normal building with normal glitches allowed (no AAM, BFE or hax mode)
• Make a splash and upload it using the uploader
• Show the weight in your splash
• You MUST include a shot of the insides
• Entries can be no wider than 700px and no taller than 800px
• Entries can be any image type NO LARGER than 1.0 MB (1024KB or less)
• Only one entry per member
• Entries need to be in by Friday 4/27/12 12:00 midnight Central time

[Fracture]

• excluding the 140cm square extender

Why you gotta do this to us ACAMS

I'm hoping for NFX's memory to fail him so he forgets to enter.

[NFX]

Because it is unbalanced and ghey. =P Although c3:++ used it pretty well, I thought.

Although history says I cannot get 3 BOTM's in a row. But I must do this to infuriate JoeBlo.

[Philippa]

BW? No thanks.

[Fracture]

Because it is unbalanced and ghey. =P Although c3:++ used it pretty well, I thought.

We accepted the SnapperII with loving arms...

/!\ END 140CM SQUARE EXTENDER DISCRIMINATION TODAY /!\

[HurricaneAndrew]

Because it is unbalanced and ghey. =P Although c3:++ used it pretty well, I thought.

We accepted the SnapperII with loving arms...

/!\ END 140CM SQUARE EXTENDER DISCRIMINATION TODAY /!\

Yes, but the SnapperII sucks.

[Fracture]

Because it is unbalanced and ghey. =P Although c3:++ used it pretty well, I thought.

We accepted the SnapperII with loving arms...

/!\ END 140CM SQUARE EXTENDER DISCRIMINATION TODAY /!\

Yes, but the SnapperII sucks.

That it surely does not.

[Naryar]

yeah the 140cm is teh ghey

Aaaaanyways, back on topic... BW. Boring. Unless I find some interesting design, I am out of this one.

[HurricaneAndrew]

Because it is unbalanced and ghey. =P Although c3:++ used it pretty well, I thought.

We accepted the SnapperII with loving arms...

/!\ END 140CM SQUARE EXTENDER DISCRIMINATION TODAY /!\

Yes, but the SnapperII sucks.

That it surely does not.

Let me reiterate... Stock sucks.

[Clickbeetle]

Because it is unbalanced and ghey. =P Although c3:++ used it pretty well, I thought.

We accepted the SnapperII with loving arms...

Actually no.  For the first couple years that I was on the official Atari forums, the Snapper II was considered a cheat part.  Even Emergency wedges and other AI parts were considered cheating back in the day.
 
I don't know how exactly, but over time the Snapper II became gradually more accepted until it became standard on just about everything.
 
I expect the acceptance of the 140cm square extender will also be a gradual process.

[Jonzu95]

Stock BW?

Yaay.

[ty4er]

here you go tx, beetleweight :P

[TeamXtreemer]

y u no dsl


But cool, I'll try make something.

[ACAMS]

Because it is unbalanced and ghey. =P Although c3:++ used it pretty well, I thought.

We accepted the SnapperII with loving arms...

Actually no.  For the first couple years that I was on the official Atari forums, the Snapper II was considered a cheat part.  Even Emergency wedges and other AI parts were considered cheating back in the day.
 
I don't know how exactly, but over time the Snapper II became gradually more accepted until it became standard on just about everything.
 
I expect the acceptance of the 140cm square extender will also be a gradual process.

I doubt the extender will ever be accepted because of it's weight.

The Snapper II was accepted because it was so weak.

[NFX]

But the SnapperII was never used for its original intention. It was supposed to be a burst motor, but people instead used it to create super-compact Snapper-loaded designs. The 140cm extender might be broken because of its weight, but you pay the price in terms of fragility. It's such a big target, and one decent hit will easily take it off.

[ACAMS]

It will NEVER, EVER be allowed in BOTM as long as it only weighs 5kg.

[Trovaner]

But the SnapperII was never used for its original intention. It was supposed to be a burst motor, but people instead used it to create super-compact Snapper-loaded designs. The 140cm extender might be broken because of its weight, but you pay the price in terms of fragility. It's such a big target, and one decent hit will easily take it off.

Actually the SnapperII wasn't being used for stacking purposes until way after it was accepted. I have a feeling that if it had been, it wouldn't have been accepted. One "decent" hit is also much harder to do on a well-built bot than you are giving it credit for. Humans and AI have a hard time aiming for something that thin and it would never be used for widening except when making trappers (which would be screwed either way if you managed to get on its side). As far as random chance goes, most builders could find a use for the weight loss to reduce the chance of receiving significant damage. It also would usually take more than one hit to the extender for it to break off (since it is impossible to break something off with only one weapon hitting it (it requires at least two weapons or two hits from a single weapon)). Also to take it one step further, here is some data that I took for HWs in multiple packs:

Code: [Select]

Pack:    AverageDamge | MaxDamage | Damage>=100
BBEANS AI:       59.3 |   669.4   | 17.6%
ReStocked V0.1b: 45.8 |   478.5   | 9.9%
Pys AI:          52.5 |   597.3   | 13.2%
Starcore V4a:    53.6 |   680.0   | 14.7%
Comprehensive:   54.1 |   680.0   | 14.7%

AI vs AI with no bot participating more than twice.
Excludes the trinity bot (Starcore V4a would have gotten 53.9 | 1554.4 | 14.8% and the Comprehensive would have gotten 54.2 | 1554.4 | 14.7%).
Doesn't include anything less than 10.
The test was conducted by telling the game to save all damages to a text file. By having the game do it, I got 100% accurate results and stacked weapons would be grouped together whenever they hit at once.
So just to be clear, only about 3 of every 20 attacks ever exceed 100. This means that most 100HP with 15 fracture components take 3 hits to break off. Decent no, lucky yes.

I agree with ACAMS that the 5kg 140cm extender is far too unbalanced. Every time that I have used it, I always ended up using two of them (which is 18kg less than if I had used 20cm round extenders instead). If I didn't have the weight to add protection, e.g. two blades (20kg), then I could easily use two 20cm extenders with razors instead (18kg). Also, doing it this way gave me the exact same HP as using purely 20cm extenders (if I had the additional 2kg than I would have had 600HP more) but with the added benefit of delivering damage with the razors. I should also note that though I'm referencing 20cm extenders as the alternative, the rule of 7 gets in the way of actually being this efficient. Changing gears, it is also important to understand how you use them. They are long enough to put snowplows on them with minimal effort making them excellent for trappers (again saving 18kg that could be used elsewhere). Since they are often longer than our chassis, they can take advantage of APs that would otherwise be too far back and, if done right, the extender is covered up by the chassis. If you used a SnapperII than each resulting AP costs 4.5kg (admittedly this is due to the SnapperII being unbalanced when using it for stacking purposes) and is for the most part protected by the chassis (so comparatively speaking, it is .5 kg less than using a baseplate anchor (chassis space and the eFFe glitch aside)). If you wanted to use it for height purposes or wedges then you could still protect the extender as previously mentioned or use less protection to keep it light (hammer). If you think about it, all bot types would benefit from using a 140 extender but that is because they are far less balanced than their alternatives. Any bot not using them would be at a disadvantage to a similar bot that is. If they were balanced, their impact on bot efficiency would be much more subtle.

[Fracture]

So legalizing the SnapperII was a mistake? It's 9 kg lighter than the Snapper2 and has double the potential of stacking otherwise space-wasting components. I won't argue that the 140cm isn't balanced, but it sure as isn't any more so than the SnapperII.

[Trovaner]

The thing is, the SnapperII wasn't accepted because of its ability to stack. It was accepted because, though it weighed less, it required more chassis weight and didn't have enough power to do much more than hold a wedge. It has since been abused to the point of being unbalanced. The same is starting to be said for the axle mount but I doubt it will go so far. The extender starts out unbalanced and dominates all other options. With time it can only get worse. The SnapperII is not without its drawbacks which inevitably make you consider other options. I personally prefer to use a Snapper 2 but other options include the axle mount, servos, pistons, or even baseplate anchors. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages but they come out pretty even IMO. More to point, there are no plausible alternatives to the 140cm extender.

If people want to continue discussing this, please do it here because we are drifting off topic.

[Fracture]

If people want to continue discussing this, please do it here because we are drifting off topic.

Right, I was just thinking it would be okay here or in the BOTM Discussion thread since the 140cm extender is allowed everywhere else.

Last thing I'm gonna say, the 140cm has been allowed for quite some time now, and honestly nothing even close to game-breaking has happened, so I don't see how it could give someone a big advantage in BOTM. It's used in optimal situations only, like the SnapperII, when otherwise it's really just too long or doesn't give enough attachment points. If you really want to get detailed the only thing it really replaces is a 120cm + 20cm/100cm + 40cm/etc..

At least some on-topic stuff: Someone should enter a bot with 60cm + 80cm square extenders attached to each other to troll ACAMS into thinking it's a 140cm.