Damn they like their typhoon teeth more than we do
I wonder why they use so many small wedges. It's a good look but I'm not sure how it is helping from a combat standpoint.
Hey guys MoonSet416 (Michael Wang on FB) here.First, our tournament does have a ruleset (although far from finalized and we are constantly tweaking it). But sorry for now I just cbb to translate it to English.About the small wedges: they are LOW to the ground when you use them correctly. This ties into the next section as well since it plays a huge role in our meta.The Chinese tournament runs a very very modified version of the game where spinners rule like they do in the real world (and we have a sportsman division for other bots). Here's an observation I made: since the game tournament is held quite often and there's no cost associated with rebuilding from scratch (aside from time), the robot designs evolve faster in game than in the real world <insert SAO S3 reference here>. Our first tournament saw robots that are only tested against the game's original AI bots, and still struggled to defeat things like Shogun and got outwedged by things like Critical Emergency. Most of our robots at the time were somewhat similar to the early RW bots, with a pretty wide variety of weapons and build quality. One of the bots called Hyper Force (based on Bite Force), however, was probably the first to use hinged small wedges in China and achieved great result by basically outwedging everyone else. Paired with its vertical spinner HF did quite well.After the success of HF, a number of similar 4WD verticals with hinged front wedges appeared in the second tournament. At the same time a type of robot was also developed in direct response to these HF lookalikes. NKVD was a huge vertical spinner with no wedges (much like Deep Six) and was able to win a head on collision with an HF style robot by basically only contacting the opponent's weapon and having higher tip speed and bite due to its larger diameter. NKVD did have issues fighting horizontals and did not do very well, but its concept lived on. Also, robots with different configurations also emerged, some taking inspiration from Bite Force's multiple wedges (see a trend here? we really like BF for some reason... maybe it's because it won?) while some other went the path of Bombshell (S2) with completely different weapons for each configuration.I personally think that the third season was very interesting. On the one hand you see the number of non-spinners plummet (they went to the sportsman comp), on the other hand you see a diversification inside the spinner category. You still have your old HF style 4WD spinners, but large diameter verticals definitely took over, within which there are 4WD variants, 2WD variants, and even some that change to a smaller weapon and thick wedge when fighting horizontals. The winner was surprisingly a swiss army bot with a vertical spinner mode for normal use and a flipper mode tailored to large verticals. Turns out that if you stick a sloped surface under large verticals they knock themselves out.And that's just the weapon side of things. With the prevalence of vertical spinners, the fight for lower ground clearance was quite fierce. The formula that we have currently agreed on is hinge + some rod + small wedge. Sounds simple, but the intricacies of how to outwedge another robot with the same style of wedges is beyond me. We have seen situations where A outwedges B, B outwedges C and then C outwedges A. There is definitely a lot to be learnt here.We are also constantly tweaking the "game balance". Two major "patches" were made to largely unify the power to weight ratio of motors and the HP to weight ratio of armor panels. More changes to come.
About the small wedges: they are LOW to the ground when you use them correctly. This ties into the next section as well since it plays a huge role in our meta.
The formula that we have currently agreed on is hinge + some rod + small wedge. Sounds simple, but the intricacies of how to outwedge another robot with the same style of wedges is beyond me. We have seen situations where A outwedges B, B outwedges C and then C outwedges A. There is definitely a lot to be learnt here.
(Image removed from quote.) (Image removed from quote.)
Quote from: MoonSet416 on May 15, 2019, 09:14:58 AMAbout the small wedges: they are LOW to the ground when you use them correctly. This ties into the next section as well since it plays a huge role in our meta.Okay, DSL 2.1 had wedges like that, but it was generally a door/skirt hinge+skirt, which is less useful now with the thicker skirts. Both methods apply useful amounts of pressure to the ground.Quote from: MoonSet416 on May 15, 2019, 09:14:58 AMThe formula that we have currently agreed on is hinge + some rod + small wedge. Sounds simple, but the intricacies of how to outwedge another robot with the same style of wedges is beyond me. We have seen situations where A outwedges B, B outwedges C and then C outwedges A. There is definitely a lot to be learnt here.Wedges are tricky. For example, some robots have wedges flush with each other. This is creating a small weakness. Wedge quality decreases as you move away from the center of the hinge. Quote from: Reier on December 20, 2015, 10:40:16 PM(Image removed from quote.) (Image removed from quote.)This example of degradation uses skirts. The issue is placement, not parts.Perhaps they are trying to make a platform for the opponent to sit on, but there are better ways of doing that. There are other factors too, such as pressure, weight distribution, and sometimes floor meshes.
Quote from: MoonSet416 on May 15, 2019, 09:14:58 AMHey guys MoonSet416 (Michael Wang on FB) here.First, our tournament does have a ruleset (although far from finalized and we are constantly tweaking it). But sorry for now I just cbb to translate it to English.About the small wedges: they are LOW to the ground when you use them correctly. This ties into the next section as well since it plays a huge role in our meta.The Chinese tournament runs a very very modified version of the game where spinners rule like they do in the real world (and we have a sportsman division for other bots). Here's an observation I made: since the game tournament is held quite often and there's no cost associated with rebuilding from scratch (aside from time), the robot designs evolve faster in game than in the real world <insert SAO S3 reference here>. Our first tournament saw robots that are only tested against the game's original AI bots, and still struggled to defeat things like Shogun and got outwedged by things like Critical Emergency. Most of our robots at the time were somewhat similar to the early RW bots, with a pretty wide variety of weapons and build quality. One of the bots called Hyper Force (based on Bite Force), however, was probably the first to use hinged small wedges in China and achieved great result by basically outwedging everyone else. Paired with its vertical spinner HF did quite well.After the success of HF, a number of similar 4WD verticals with hinged front wedges appeared in the second tournament. At the same time a type of robot was also developed in direct response to these HF lookalikes. NKVD was a huge vertical spinner with no wedges (much like Deep Six) and was able to win a head on collision with an HF style robot by basically only contacting the opponent's weapon and having higher tip speed and bite due to its larger diameter. NKVD did have issues fighting horizontals and did not do very well, but its concept lived on. Also, robots with different configurations also emerged, some taking inspiration from Bite Force's multiple wedges (see a trend here? we really like BF for some reason... maybe it's because it won?) while some other went the path of Bombshell (S2) with completely different weapons for each configuration.I personally think that the third season was very interesting. On the one hand you see the number of non-spinners plummet (they went to the sportsman comp), on the other hand you see a diversification inside the spinner category. You still have your old HF style 4WD spinners, but large diameter verticals definitely took over, within which there are 4WD variants, 2WD variants, and even some that change to a smaller weapon and thick wedge when fighting horizontals. The winner was surprisingly a swiss army bot with a vertical spinner mode for normal use and a flipper mode tailored to large verticals. Turns out that if you stick a sloped surface under large verticals they knock themselves out.And that's just the weapon side of things. With the prevalence of vertical spinners, the fight for lower ground clearance was quite fierce. The formula that we have currently agreed on is hinge + some rod + small wedge. Sounds simple, but the intricacies of how to outwedge another robot with the same style of wedges is beyond me. We have seen situations where A outwedges B, B outwedges C and then C outwedges A. There is definitely a lot to be learnt here.We are also constantly tweaking the "game balance". Two major "patches" were made to largely unify the power to weight ratio of motors and the HP to weight ratio of armor panels. More changes to come.First of all on a serious note it's lovely to see how your meta and game has evolved without much if any input from us on the forum. It's an interesting observation and would love to read over your current ruleset!A member here, GuldenFlame, ran a tournament in a similar fashion to your game type with our more strict ruleset, it's still going on I think but you can watch it here "Everything is too OP". I think if you're looking to standardize the rules, that's a good place to look, but I'd like to see the community come up with the solutions for them independently tbh.Finally in regards to the videos and their quality. There's a few things the host can do. Firstly, install the wide screen fix for DSL, which is linked here "Wide Screen Fix for DSL" then set your resolution to your monitor using the ra2.cfg file in the base folder. This should remove the black bars on the side and wont have any stretching issues. Secondly, in the options of the game, you can disable status messages which are the status of each robot, it's entirely optional and dependent on what people prefer.Where can we learn more about the tournament, seeing more videos for it, etc?Thank you for updating and sharing this, hope you continue to do so.
that'd be great, a couple things i was wondering looking at the chinese meta evolution you described:1. how are horizontal spinners doing in this meta ? are tombclones more common or are overheads the majority ?2. did anyone tried the HUGE style of design yet over in china ? seems like it'd be a even more potent counter to the small, Bite Force like verts, althought i imagine the increase in bigger diameter verticals would be very troublesome for them3. you mentioned series 3 winner was a swiss-army with a flipper setup, are there others non-spinners that still go far despite the very spinner-heavy environment ?