Well...
This was definitely surprising.
After seeing surprisingly positive feedback(some questioning the bot, while others the Arial font) I thought this would be a race between Grim Harvester, Not Mr Bones and the Skeleton Hoverbot(doesn't have a name?) meme.
Thoughts:
I think I've put the thoughts of the bot well into the title, the original concept I had with the Pumpkin and having a Mr Bones hidden inside it(invade Botm with Mr Bones copies) was great, later on I get the idea of adding the chassis of thatVS into the mix. However, the final product could look a lot better.
That idea changed a bit when I wanted it angled, as you can see it didn't fully work out because RA2 clips the wedges at different point(not sure if it has something to do with the vertex, probably just how RA2 draws stuff).
Having a VS in there wouldn't have worked out that well, so I thought about something else, what would work better than a creepy hand/claw that could grab bots(and even deweapon spinners?)
The idea of having rocket thruster drive appeared later on, would fit well with the ghost theme but in the end, having traditional drive inside would still be a better choice.
Building wasn't that much of a pain even if the entire bot was done twice. The Pumpkin itself wasn't too challenging(getting a skeleton head inside however was, sadly didn't have full space for it) had a idea on how I wanted to build it and while it took at least 15 minutes to build(and would be a pain to move around if I wanted to), I wouldn't say it was too challenging, only issue is that certain parts wouldn't want to be placed, so CF had to be used(wanted to do this mostly legit)
Using the orange plastic extenders was a perfect plan, since I don't think skinned components were allowed for this(and DSC's pack didn't appear until later) a rather accurate pumpkin could be made. Think the first one did have a better mouth.
Sadly Retooled only had burst pistons, originally wanted a servo one, but it could still work as surprise effect and since only a head(instead of a full skeleton) would have place, it wouldn't be that bad, allowing a nice jack in the box effect.
The Thrusters were a nice idea, however I don't recommend them as the bot still slides around a lot and you're going to spend a lot of weight on gas just so you can drive around, think the bot has a bit too much but rather be on the safe side. Best to just use a classic drive system inside the bot, however, might as well try something out since botm is about looks and not functionality.
Was thinking about using a hovercraft, however the bot could still be thrown into the air and the turning would be very slow, also adding more weight to the bot that was already going to be a SHW.
As for the hand, that was originally just made out of extenders, I did later find the beater bars, but adding them under the hand would destroy the look and make it too heavy, luckily the beaters have some good attachment points(not as much as extenders, but still enough)
I didn't expect this bot to do well, especially not after it turned into a SHW, think with a little bit of luck you can defeat a AW but that's it(might fit better as some kind of House Robot?), the beater hand doesn't really get to do a lot of damage and quickly gets ripped off, probably because of the angle connectors, neither do the drills do much. every time you fire the hand, the bot jumps, no back supports and the weight/strong power of the motors do that.
Before doing the splash I thought about adding a second beater finger on the bottom so that they work as some kind of works, intersecting with the other fingers when the hand closes, however since this was so close to the GTM signups, it didn't get done.
At first I wasn't really sure if I'd enter this as I wasn't happy with how the final product looked, however after seeing that there are only a few entries, I thought I'd enter it so we have at least more than 3 entries to vote on the bot does have a few references which some people understand here, in case you don't:
Wedgelets
we can haz them too
A joke between Sewer Snake and Original Sin, bots that seem to meet a lot in finals of the combots cup:
(http://combots.net/cup/OriginalSin-sm.jpg)
Sewer Snake having "I can haz wedgelets two" referencing one loadout of Original Sin that has 3 wedgelets and Original Sin referencing the Red Tires.
Do you like my Bot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atuFSv2bLa8
Only expected 090901 to get that one.
Since the Rocket Thrusters slide around that much, drifting is something that commonly happens with that bot, can be a bit hard to control but I got used to it, also thrusters don't require the bot to be on the ground so you can almost always self right in some way.
Originally thought about making this a animated gif(hand opening and closing, Skeleton head appearing out of the Pumpkin), however because the background had so many colors already(thanks to it being a jpg) it wouldn't work out too well, so I went for this, there were some space issues but I think in the end it turned out rather nice, would've been even better if it had a spooky font.
https://gametechmods.com/Robot_Exchange/Custom/R01_R01_BotM_Oct_2016_Grim_Harvester.zip
Feel free to use it, but I'd like if you mention my name as creator of the original.