Author Topic: The Metal Hinge Wedge... (Read 4554 times)

Vertigo · « **on:** January 25, 2011, 12:44:33 PM »

Why did it take so long to be discovered as beng better than skirt hinge wedges? Surely someone experimented with them at some point?

More confusing, when Batmobile AI was entered into BBEANS 2, people saw it had a much better wedge than other bots, did nobody realise this was because of the metal hinges?

G.K. · « **Reply #1 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:45:26 PM »

Urjak was the true pioneer of it, with Lousy Launcher in RAW 1, IIRC.

cephalopod · « **Reply #2 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:45:49 PM »

2 theories I have is the AGOD put people off, or not being able to change the angle.

GoldenFox93 · « **Reply #3 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:46:41 PM »

Quote from: G.K. on January 25, 2011, 12:45:26 PM

Urjak was the true pioneer of it, with Lousy Launcher in RAW 1, IIRC.

And I also did it with Cassius II's wedge in Replica Wars 1. Not pretty, but did its job.

G.K. · « **Reply #4 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:48:35 PM »

...about a year later, by which time we all knew they were very good.

Vertigo · « **Reply #5 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:49:38 PM »

Quote from: G.K. on January 25, 2011, 12:45:26 PM

Urjak was the true pioneer of it, with Lousy Launcher in RAW 1, IIRC.

When was this though? Why wasn't it discovered so much earlier?

I can't believe how much it was staring people in the face during BBEANS 2, and nobody questioned why the wedges were so good?

GoldenFox93 · « **Reply #6 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:49:56 PM »

Quote from: G.K. on January 25, 2011, 12:48:35 PM

...about a year later, by which time we all knew they were very good.

Admittedly I hadn't known very much about them back then.

123savethewhales · « **Reply #7 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:50:38 PM »

Because wedge, even until now, has not exactly been the best known science in this game. Even now, nobody really know why the metal hinge works.

Sometimes wedge just works, sometimes it doesn't. There's almost no control over that.

So like why is the small wedge so good? I still have no idea. I try to modify it's GMF to see if I can make a better wedge, but so far every tweak to it, be it make it longer or flatter, seem to just make it worst.

Vertigo · « **Reply #8 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:54:22 PM »

Quote from: 123savethewhales on January 25, 2011, 12:50:38 PM

Because wedge, even until now, has not exactly been the best known science in this game. Even now, nobody really know why the metal hinge works.

Sometimes wedge just works, sometimes it doesn't. There's almost no control over that.

So like why is the small wedge so good? I still have no idea. I try to modify it's GMF to see if I can make a better wedge, but so far every tweak to it, be it make it longer or flatter, seem to just make it worst.

Wouldn't someone have simply noticed how the metal hinge makes good wedges?

123savethewhales · « **Reply #9 on:** January 25, 2011, 12:56:21 PM »

I didn't start playing this game until August 18, 2009. By then metal hinge being better was already a well known fact.

I mean, nobody seemed to pay attention to component HP either until after I joined. People were still talking about protecting the motors and all that. You will think people will notice the difference between 400 HP and 12000 HP. Chassis were HUGE back then too, most of the time filled with empty space. I guess DSL gotten more competitive since then.

When a community expected things to work a certain way, and nobody looks, then conventional wisdom takes over. Everybody will try to fit their observation into the existing paradigm. Only until the old fails hard or by accident do new ideas come up, the latter being much more common than the former.

NFX · « **Reply #10 on:** January 25, 2011, 01:03:06 PM »

They're better than skirt hinges if they're used well, much like anything else. I can rarely seem to make efficient or effective DSL wedges, so I tend to leave them out. I find bots actually look better if they're wedgeless rather than have long, thin arms sticking out of them holding a glorified doorstop.

Personally, I think the war with efficiency and wedges is wrecking some of the more artistic elements of the game. Which is partly why I build IRL robots, I would rather see something which is aesthetically pleasing than a razor-spammed uber-wedgy popup, or yet another flail razor shell spinner, or anything held together with ridiculously flimsy extender work.

I'm wanting to keep this on-topic, I'm not sure why people didn't try metal hinge wedges instead of skirts. Maybe they just didn't want to end up as cannon fodder if it turned out to be worse.

Scrap Daddy · « **Reply #11 on:** January 25, 2011, 02:07:03 PM »

lol hardly anyone used to play dsl.

stock was where it was at.

Badnik96 · « **Reply #12 on:** January 25, 2011, 02:30:12 PM »

I miss those days ;(

NFX · « **Reply #13 on:** January 25, 2011, 02:41:41 PM »

Stock building has pretty much turned into a wedge war now, though. More specifically in the higher weight classes. LW's are usually dominated by spinners, but the lack of lightweight and efficient components makes it difficult to get a degree of diversity in Lightweight and sub-Lightweight robots. Middleweights can be either or, depending on how well they've been built, but it's almost inevitable going to be a ramplated popup winning a Heavyweight tourney in Stock. HS's just aren't capable of dealing enough damage by the time the opponent inevitable gets underneath them. Maybe they'll get one or two ramplates off, but that's about it. The only time a popup doesn't win a HW tourney is if another bot type has a better wedge.

But I digress. Metal Hinges were unknown territory at some point, and I'm guessing people didn't want to look like fools if they didn't work.

Sage · « **Reply #14 on:** January 25, 2011, 04:06:26 PM »

Quote from: NFX on January 25, 2011, 02:41:41 PM

Stock building has pretty much turned into a wedge war now, though. More specifically in the higher weight classes. LW's are usually dominated by spinners, but the lack of lightweight and efficient components makes it difficult to get a degree of diversity in Lightweight and sub-Lightweight robots. Middleweights can be either or, depending on how well they've been built, but it's almost inevitable going to be a ramplated popup winning a Heavyweight tourney in Stock. HS's just aren't capable of dealing enough damage by the time the opponent inevitable gets underneath them. Maybe they'll get one or two ramplates off, but that's about it. The only time a popup doesn't win a HW tourney is if another bot type has a better wedge.

But I digress. Metal Hinges were unknown territory at some point, and I'm guessing people didn't want to look like fools if they didn't work.

Um no. UnBEEtable is the best HW stock bot (in the combat arena at least). Perhaps 36HS aren't as good against popups as they should be, but the HS will usually win if using irons.

123savethewhales · « **Reply #15 on:** January 25, 2011, 04:16:03 PM »

The problem is people start hosting tournaments in open arenas to favor the wedge......

Scrap Daddy · « **Reply #16 on:** January 25, 2011, 06:34:22 PM »

Quote from: Badnik96 on January 25, 2011, 02:30:12 PM

I miss those days ;(

were you even around?

also i'm talking the times where bbeans was the only tournament with the occasional tournament by ianh

R0B0SH4RK · « **Reply #17 on:** January 25, 2011, 07:36:48 PM »

As far as I can remember, this was the first bot that I saw using the metal hinge wedge:

Quote from: philetbabe on November 27, 2008, 07:15:43 AM

and the second LW of this team : Medecine
Titanium 3.

(Image removed from quote.)

Lot of empty space, but i like its look. And by the Way, my first used of metal hinge !

Truthfully, I don't know why it took until 2008 to discover the hinge's proficiency, but when I was building Enfilad3 I just didn't think of using anything other than the skirt hinge for wedges.

Keep in mind that DSL really didn't become as competitive or as popular as it is until Naryar won BBEANS 4 (which is also when we began taking Nary seriously. IIRC he was pretty easily jaded as a noob). Until the community moved here from the Atari forums, the DSL crowd was small and pretty quiet. The official forums were almost exclusively Stock, so none of the big innovations liked the emergence of flails and wedges in DSL happened until years after it was concieved and released, when DSL really became popular.

Jack Daniels · « **Reply #18 on:** January 25, 2011, 08:22:33 PM »

Quote from: 123savethewhales on January 25, 2011, 12:56:21 PM

I mean, nobody seemed to pay attention to component HP either until after I joined.

Everything I learned about component HP I learned paying attention to you. The end result was Haphazard 2. :D There is a balance and everyone seems to have their own style when it comes to bot building.

Funny thing is the building trends tend to follow the successful bots/builders. If a bot with protected motors wins a lot of matches, people will swear behind that method and talk down anything else. I think this his how certain components can build a reputation.

Which is why I want the next Stock BBEANS to be won with a bot using battle axes dammit.

Naryar · « **Reply #19 on:** January 25, 2011, 08:48:12 PM »

Fine, make a popup with battleaxe armor and a good enough wedge then.

...What ? While you probably meant the battle axes to be used as weapons, you didn't explicitly said it