One wheeled bots, should they be banned?

[R1885]

As of late, I noticed that one wheeled bots have been getting the ax recently. My question is, why? One wheeled bots have been built for years, many melty brain spinners exist in US tournaments, I can name two right now if I wanted to. What makes them such a taboo?

[Jack Daniels]

I voted No. I am not a big fan of banning bots.

However, because tournaments are AI driven in RA2... The part that irks me about 1 wheeled bots is that the opposing AI drives straight into a spinning vortex of razors.  No strategy to be had usually.  At least against a Melty Brain bot IRL you can use a bit of driving skill to defeat it.  In RA2... the AI has limitations... so having a one wheeled bot in some cases is a cheap exploitation of the opponents bot AI.

EDIT: hahahahah... i based my vote on the question for the topic header... not the question in the poll. (which are opposite questions) Sneaky Ribbsy... you tricked me.

[Fracture]

My guess is that the controversy lies around the AI being able to drive one-wheeled bots with proficiency far exceeding that of a human...I could definitely not drive one of those things in a straight line.

[Resetti's Replicas]

It's funny, this is actually quite similar to the Son of Whyachi controversy.

In the case of Son of Whyachi, they revoked its extra weight allowance, maybe we could do something similar. 
How about crawlers and one-wheelers have their weight allowances cut by 1/3?

[Enigm@]

SON OF WHYACHI BEAT BIOHAZARD SO THERE FOR CHEATED.

[Sage]

If you can't drive it as good as the AI does yourself, it shouldn't be allowed.

[Sparkey98]

Once again, this hateful community lessens the fun in a dying game :/

[Sage]

Once again, this hateful community lessens the fun in a dying game :/

People have been saying ra2 is dying for years.

[Sparkey98]

Hmmm true. But killing off designs won't help.

[Sage]

Hmmm true. But killing off designs won't help.

I'm all for the design! Just not Melty brain

[Fracture]

Hmmm true. But killing off designs won't help.

Hmmm true. But killing off just the game-breaking designs will. =D

I think we should wait and see how many tourneys S_M wins :P Dark Void 2 didn't win DoD, did it?

[Urjak]

Banned from tournaments? Why, because there good? :P I don't see why they should be banned in tournaments. Its not like they severely unbalance the game. In DSL they just allow for a few more weapons to be put on. In stock they seem to just allow one wheel HS to more easily outweapon their two wheel counterparts.

[Badnik96]

Was Sheer Death a meltybrain?

Didn't it just use the spinner to steer?

If 1wd bots do that, it'd be easier to beat them.

[kill343gs]

Leave it up to the tournament host, plain and simple. At that point the community's willingness to vote for your tournament becomes the deciding factor, and eventually if enough people want them gone the tournaments that will accept them will become less prevalent and we won't have to fight about it anymore.

Simple economic principle.

[R0B0SH4RK]

- IIRC, all BBEANS participants up until BBEANS 6 had to pass a controlled movement test in which Clickbeetle would manouever the robot himself manually through the test garage. Any robots that failed this test would not be permitted in BBEANS in order to limit bots from skimping on critical components (like drive) in favour of massive weaponry. This rule was implemented because building close-to-immobile weapon walls IS EXPLOITING THE LIMITS OF THE AI IN RA2. Because the AI is simply not smart enough to stop attacking when a robot is stuck or immobile before the immobility counter starts, there is nothing to prevent a bot from reckless suicide attacks, thus simultaneously killing itself and keeping its opponent mobile. Because of this rule, 1WD robots have been formally banned from tourneys in the past. There is a precedent in place for "killing off" this one particular design.

- I hear the "but it exists IRL" argument for questionable designs far too often, but let's accept the "existing in real life" argument as the foundation of the realistic rule for a minute. Logically then, designs that do NOT exist IRL should be outlawed because they violate the realistic rule on the grounds of not existing. If we are to follow this path, then we should ban every single type of gut-ripper ever concieved as well as the use of burst wedges, door hinge wedges, razor tips, burst-enhanced weapon motors, chained motors and all building glitches, including bursted/spinning weapons passing through any external or internal component. If we're worried about killing off designs, I really suggest we don't go here.

- For the record, one-wheeled melty brain-controlled flail shell spiners don't exist in real life anyways. So why are we using the "they exist!" argument at all? It doesn't defend them. Actually, if we follow the logic I outlined above, they should be outright banned anyways.

In conclusion, no matter how you look at it, we can't defend the existence of melty brain shell spinners in RA2. They're unrealistic on two levels: 1) the advantage that melty brain on a FSS gives is unrealistic in the sense that there would be no such advantage in real life. Human drivers are smarter, and could simply avoid until the correct time and wait for an opening to attack. Also, 1WD FSS can't be piloted by humans. I know that even today's IRL melty brains can be driven manually, so 1WD FSS are also unrealistic because they don't work! And 2) even if you take the perspective of "because melty brain exists in real life, it does not violate the realistic rule," your logic still does not justify how the controversial one-wheeled flail shell spinner is allowed since they do not exist in real life.

Unless the 1WD robot can be driven in the test garage in an identical or similar manner as it will behave under AI guidance, it should be banned.

[Thyrus]

I voted no. even though it`s unrealistic (mostly) it limits creativity. and that`s what this game is all about

[Urjak]

- IIRC, all BBEANS participants up until BBEANS 6 had to pass a controlled movement test in which Clickbeetle would manouever the robot himself manually through the test garage. Any robots that failed this test would not be permitted in BBEANS in order to limit bots from skimping on critical components (like drive) in favour of massive weaponry. This rule was implemented because building close-to-immobile weapon walls IS EXPLOITING THE LIMITS OF THE AI IN RA2. Because the AI is simply not smart enough to stop attacking when a robot is stuck or immobile before the immobility counter starts, there is nothing to prevent a bot from reckless suicide attacks, thus simultaneously killing itself and keeping its opponent mobile. Because of this rule, 1WD robots have been formally banned from tourneys in the past. There is a precedent in place for "killing off" this one particular design.

- I hear the "but it exists IRL" argument for questionable designs far too often, but let's accept the "existing in real life" argument as the foundation of the realistic rule for a minute. Logically then, designs that do NOT exist IRL should be outlawed because they violate the realistic rule on the grounds of not existing. If we are to follow this path, then we should ban every single type of gut-ripper ever concieved as well as the use of burst wedges, door hinge wedges, razor tips, burst-enhanced weapon motors, chained motors and all building glitches, including bursted/spinning weapons passing through any external or internal component. If we're worried about killing off designs, I really suggest we don't go here.

- For the record, one-wheeled melty brain-controlled flail shell spiners don't exist in real life anyways. So why are we using the "they exist!" argument at all? It doesn't defend them. Actually, if we follow the logic I outlined above, they should be outright banned anyways.

In conclusion, no matter how you look at it, we can't defend the existence of melty brain shell spinners in RA2. They're unrealistic on two levels: 1) the advantage that melty brain on a FSS gives is unrealistic in the sense that there would be no such advantage in real life. Human drivers are smarter, and could simply avoid until the correct time and wait for an opening to attack. Also, 1WD FSS can't be piloted by humans. I know that even today's IRL melty brains can be driven manually, so 1WD FSS are also unrealistic because they don't work! And 2) even if you take the perspective of "because melty brain exists in real life, it does not violate the realistic rule," your logic still does not justify how the controversial one-wheeled flail shell spinner is allowed since they do not exist in real life.

Unless the 1WD robot can be driven in the test garage in an identical or similar manner as it will behave under AI guidance, it should be banned.

Who cares what BBEANS did. Also, you seem to be confusing dumb AI attacking immobile objects with Melty-brain AI driven bots, which can actively seek out and attack their opponents. Honestly your stupid-AI argument can be just as easily applied to rammers, where as a smart human driver would go for the back of the rammer, the "stupid" AI attacks head on. That is just how RA2 works, it has nothing to do with the legality of 1-wheeled bots.


Honestly, I would only use the "they exist in real life argument" when someone claims they are unrealistic because they cannot be found IRL. Your argument about how FSS are given an unfair advantage because "Human drivers are smarter, and could simply avoid until the correct time and wait for an opening to attack" is ridiculous. This could be applied to many other robot types, ranging from regular SS and SnS to rammers and popups. Obviously a human AI would try to outmaneuver and attack an opponents weak points. In RA2, AIs simply aren't as smart as humans. Deal with it.


IRL Melty Brain bots are driven by a computer that takes signals given by the humans and transforms it into small changes in the drive speed. It is just as computerized as any AI except humans can give generalized commands to said computer.


In conclusion, your use of the "stupid AI" argument is no good because it can be applied to a multitude of other bot types and simply flies in the face of how RA2 AI has always and probably will always work. Of course FSS don't exist in real life. Neither do gut rippers. When dealing with realism it is a question of "whether or not this bot could POSSIBLY be built," not whether or not it would work well.

[Somebody]

This is the DSL LW equivalent of the 36HS. And thesae bots are the original powerful bots like ULTIMATUM and Absolute Chaos. Building will catch up. Otherwise, R0B0 still has a point. If every bot has to pass a controlled movement test, then that is the end of this design.

[Urjak]

controlled movement test,

You mean a manual controlled movement test. They can function just fine, and seeing how these are AI tournaments and all I don't see why human control should even get involved.

[Sage]

controlled movement test,

You mean a manual controlled movement test. They can function just fine, and seeing how these are AI tournaments and all I don't see why human control should even get involved.

Because they WOULD be human controlled if RA2 wasn't so damn laggy.