How is DSL "realistic"

[Sparkey98]

Everyone says that stock is for unrealistic building and that DSl is for realistic. But how is Modern DSL building that realistic? Narmour, popups, SNS. Non of theese designs would work IRL. Say we have LDL's Sns with the saws on each arm. Sure, nothing passes through each other, but if it were to battle in real life, that would totaly damage the saw motors! And PWNS rammer with all the wheels. Don't get me wrong, I love that bot. But there is no way in that thing would actualy be able to move in a strait line. And don't even get me started on Narmour (even if it has been outlawed in CC now) it never should have been used. This might spark(ey) a massive flame war, but I don't understand why "realism" suddenley means "nothing passes through each other."

Discuss, and no flame wars

[Naryar]

This is an (unrealistic) game, with infinite possibilites, why should we restrict ourselves ? Why should we not let our creativity unfettered as long as the result is interesting ?

[Stagfish]

I have to agree with you for once sparkey, people would rather have powerful bots than realistic bots.

[Sparkey98]

This is an (unrealistic) game, why should we restrict ourselves ?

Oh and you can bet this is going to spark a flame war.

I'm not saying you should restrict yourself, I'm just saying if you want to build realistic in DSL think about how realistic is realy is first. Or don't call it that. This isn't a call out to modern building, but to what it's refered to as.

[Thyrus]

I must say this is the first of Sparkeys threads that isn`t full of MKB sh*t.

I don`t get the "realism" of DSL too. I mean popups would work in RL but noone ever build a good one in real. some stabilized sns would work too I guess but I doubt them to be as effective as in the game (but that`s the games fault)

my buildingstyle is far away of the style many other builder have but so is the effectivness (is that a word?).

[Scorpion]

I KNEW you'd make a thread for this as soon as I read your last post 
Here's the bottom line, RA2 was never, and can never be fully realistic.
It's just the way the game's evolved that some things are regarded as "realistic" and some not.
Besides, it all seems fair to me as long as the rules for "realism" are mostly constant (which they pretty much are).

Also, it's not like people get punished or hated on for building realistic bots, infact in some cases they get more praise.

[Stagfish]

I KNEW you'd make a thread for this as soon as I read your last post 
Here's the bottom line, RA2 was never, and can never be fully realistic.
It's just the way the game's evolved that some things are regarded as "realistic" and some not.
Besides, it all seems fair to me as long as the rules for "realism" are mostly constant (which they pretty much are).

Also, it's not like people get punished or hated on for building realistic bots, infact in some cases they get more praise.

 

[Naryar]

This is an (unrealistic) game, why should we restrict ourselves ?

Oh and you can bet this is going to spark a flame war.

I'm not saying you should restrict yourself, I'm just saying if you want to build realistic in DSL think about how realistic is realy is first. Or don't call it that. This isn't a call out to modern building, but to what it's refered to as.

Good point, and indeed it might make people more honest with themselves. Then we should get three categories of building -

Realistic - can be built and work well IRL
Half-realistic - can be built IRL but will not necessarily work (popups, jugglers, wammers, etc)
Unrealistic - cannot be built IRL (stacking, overlapping, servo use, etc)

Here's the bottom line, RA2 was never, and can never be fully realistic.

Another good point, and why I place myself into the half realistic part. See Raptor.

[Scorpion]

Well the term "DSL realistic" is pretty much the same thing as what you meant by half-realistic.
But seriously, is anybody stupid enough to actually think that all the bots in the showcases deemed realistic can be made, fully working IRL.

[Sage]

If you want realism, get CAD and design a real life robot. The "realism" rule in DSL was to encourage designs that didn't break the rules of physics like stock does, not to build bots that would work IRL. Because DSL uses IRL components, we wanted something different than stock 36HS's made with different shaped components.

I don't see where the problem is here?

[kill343gs]

Sage is hitting the nail on the head.

[LiNcK]

DSL bots are theorically realistic, While Stock isnt...
You could describe DSL as "Powergaming", Its not breaking the rules but it sure exploits the whole point of it...

Just like if you say: You cant cross this line. (TO stop some guy to grabbing something on your side?)
And the guy takes a stick & Pushes the thing to his side of the line... He didnt break the rules, But the point of the rule is gone :P

[Scorpion]

Well that's a better analogy than Nar's atleast.

[NFX]

The thing is, we see designs that COULD be built in the real world, but maybe they wouldn't be as effective IRL. Things such as popups, they could be built IRL, but with a slightly different setup. Kinda in the same way as a Ring Spinner can't be built in RA2 because of the components used, and the attachment method. The damage dealt would be significantly different, thanks to the dodgy physics engine, but they COULD be built in real life. The extenders on something such as Mako would have to be immensely strong, stronger than current technology can produce, but they COULD be built. And I guess the main point of it brings us back to Sage's point, it stopped the ridiculous 36HS-in-a-shoebox building style, with stacking and eFFeing motors close to each other, and brought us closer to a more realistic building style, with a lot more diverse designs.

[Stagfish]

New designs? People still havnt given up on popups yet NFX.

[NFX]

I never said new, I said diverse. In Stock, the most effective robot types seem to be Popup and HS exclusively. Whereas in DSL, you have Popups, HS, VS, SnS, FSS, Sheck Spinners, Rammers, and a lot of other effective robot types. It all depends on how well they're built.

[Clickbeetle]

Popups and HS (and SnS) are still the most effective bot types in DSL.  It's not really any different from stock.  There are always other effective designs, but they are generally inferior to popups and HS if the two are built equally well.


IMO most of the current unrealism in DSL started when people realized that having a lot of small, light weapons was still better than having one, big weapon despite all the weapons being equally balanced.  That and when I discovered how spin motor power consumption works, which enabled the current style of tiny-chassis-with-3-ants-and-everything-else-external.

[JoeBlo]

the argument got broken at some point in this thread

people are saying that designs that are good are unrealistic as they would suck IRL ?

nothing can be done about this..

separate the parts to balance each bot type realistically you say? been there tried that and nobody liked it..

just let it be... any changes wont be fully accepted as it will result in backwards building, just wait for DSL 3 or ignore it...

[123savethewhales]

If it can be physically done in real life, then it's OK for DSL.

Limiting the design to only those that are "effective in real life" essentially means "Replica Wars".  But we already have that.  It's fine as a tournament, but it will make DSL really boring if that's the only thing you can do.

[Scorpion]

Popups and HS (and SnS) are still the most effective bot types in DSL.  It's not really any different from stock.  There are always other effective designs, but they are generally inferior to popups and HS if the two are built equally well.


IMO most of the current unrealism in DSL started when people realized that having a lot of small, light weapons was still better than having one, big weapon despite all the weapons being equally balanced.  That and when I discovered how spin motor power consumption works, which enabled the current style of tiny-chassis-with-3-ants-and-everything-else-external.

While I agree with you on pop ups being probably the most popular design type in stock AND DSL, HS seem to be a lot less common in DSL as in stock.
There's far more flexibility in DSL, you can make effective VS, SS, drums, full-body drums, side hammer, flipper, rammer and full body spinners to name a few in DSL, and most of them are often not effective (or impossible to make at all) in stock.

People seem to whine about the wedge war in DSL, but it's easily avoided and even can be used against the oponents bots (as I am trying to do more in my DSL bots), but in DSL, even the generic VS seem to have wedges, infact the only common stock bots that seem to not have wedges are HS, and even then , if a HS doesn't follow the perfected formula it's gonna get easily beaten by other HS.

Rant over, sorry, just felt like putting in my two cents, I would play stock and I do like the idea of utilising the glitches, but it's just too repetitive IMO.