Srmech tester

[Classicus]

Idea for a srmech tester:


Second Sentinel or similar with no mobility, you just drive up to it, it flips your bot and you then see if it can right itself. Something for DSL 3 maybe?

[Reier]

Or you can just use the ramps and flip yourself

[NFX]

I tend to just drive off of the "Flipper" in the test area. It's sometimes difficult to turn yourself over, though, but you could always fight a dummy bot in The Octagon to see if it works. It might be a bit more convenient if there was an Octagon-style flipper in the Test Area somewhere, but it's not desperately important.

[smashysmashy]

Not really a good idea to remove SS's mobility - it'd get counted out pretty quickly.

[Gropaga]

Make ramp big as flipper

[Classicus]

The ramps are crap at flipping. Thats why I suggest just a dummy bot similar to SS that can just flip your bot over. Instead of wasting time with the flippers in the test area, you could get an answer in under 10 seconds which is more efficient. Also with flippers like SS's you would land in different ways so you could test properly.

[Gropaga]

No,nothing exculding your bot moves without outside force in test garage.
So you can't have immobile flipperbot that fires flipper on touch or heckraiser in test garage

[Trovaner]

Mad made a special garage with a second level for flipping but I can't find the link anymore and my copy seems to have disappeared. IIRC, Click didn't want it for DSL so it was being converted into the SC4's garage. This could mean that there has already been work done to the DSL's garage but I can't say for certain.

The DSL "flipper" obstacle is hard to use and doesn't work the way most people think. As the wheels of your bot make contact with the ramp's surface, their associated direction is reversed. So to flip your bot, you are suppose to hold the forward key to gain both speed and momentum so that the sudden swap in direction causes your bot to flip itself. The problem is that most bots aren't fast enough or top heavy enough to make this an effective solution. I personally would have liked a normal ramp that is that tall so that you can fall off the front.

Since this has been an issue for both me and everyone else, I added an option to start upside down in my garage. I'm only about 40% done with it though and I've been working on it off and on for nearly 2 years. Though that sounds like a lot of time, I've had many other projects keeping me busy.

Gropaga is right that you can't add bots (or even an arena flipper) to the test garage but that doesn't mean that their aren't solutions. As far as the test garage goes, anyone could mess with gravity ("plus.gravity(X,Y,Z)") or even apply a force that only affects your bot ("plus.force(BotID,X,Y,Z)"). Mods could include a button that does any of those, a ramp, a ledge, or an upside down starting point.

As far as other ways of testing your bot, you could fall off the walkway in the obstacle arena, fall off the bridge in the bridge arena, step on one of the force thingies in the stunt arena, etc. You are not limited to getting flipped by your opponent. If you were, I guess, you could turn off the countdown clock ("plus.practice(Boolean)") whenever you faced an AI that didn't move but don't forget to turn things back on when your done.

[Philippa]

...or an upside down starting point.

I thought it was impossible to do that iirc.

[Trovaner]

Nope, its completely possible. The only reason why it has never been done before is because there is no easy way of changing the starting point without swapping out the whole arena. It also hasn't been used in any arenas because realistically, the bots should never start upside-down unless you specifically designed it to perform best under those conditions. In which case, you would realistically flip your own bot because it isn't normal.

[Mr. AS]

Mad made a special garage with a second level for flipping but I can't find the link anymore and my copy seems to have disappeared.

http://www.madiaba.gametechmods.com/SCstuff-9.rar

[JoeBlo]

^ Highly recommend playing that for the sake of playing it.


Bunch of little secrets and challenges to find in that test arena

[NFX]

I just downloaded it. It's crazy mental. I like launching myself from the top deck into the blocks.

[cephalopod]

Also had a lot of fun playing that.. have no idea what the 'computer on' thing is though D:

[Naryar]

Octagon arena, also you can perfectly invert yourself on the ramps if your bot isn't agonizingly slow.

[Mr. AS]

Also had a lot of fun playing that.. have no idea what the 'computer on' thing is though D:

basically if you do X amount of damage to the computer in the corner (the one nearest the window) after it says 'computer on', it starts attacking you, and if you do Y more damage after it starts to attack you, it breaks

[Clickbeetle]

I use FB's cheat mode and enter fly().  Quicker way of applying force with Python.

[Thyrus]

Small bump that adds to the topic:

you coild also go in multiplayer mode and choose the bot you want to test and some other random bot. make sure that the other bot isn't ready and start the match in the octagon arena.