COOLRUNNER's Craptacular DSL Showcase!

[COOLRUNNER87]

Most of you don't know of me. However, if you were ever at RFSHQ, you may remember me there as a very amateur robot builder in RA. Now, I come here to show you the good, the bad, and the ugly (which will likely be most of my 'bots) as I'm not very experienced with DSL.

Well, now to show my first robot, The Dark Knight!


Weapon: 4x Gothic Axe on 2 100cm Discs, Powered by an E-Tek Dual Axle; also an 80cm titanium front skirt
Motors/Wheels: 2x Backlash Wheels on 2 Team Whyachi Motors (Drive version)
Batteries: 1x Long Black (mistake, I know) and 2x Ant Batteries
Armor: Plastic 5

Here's a picture of the innards:


The robot has some issues (Mako-style flipping when the motor starts up) and easy tipping. Also, as you can see, I am just over the weight limit for the MW division (which is where I want to get it to).

So, do you have any ideas, thoughts, or n00b!!!! comments?

[Jack Daniels]

Welcome to the forum. We hope you stick around. I recommend to downgrade the front skirts to aluminum and bring the plastic armor down a notch so that you can have enough weight to add a hinge and a "tail" to the back of the bot. The tail can be a sheet of aluminum too if you want.  A lot of the builders that make Vertical Spinners seem to favor having skirts go in different directions (front/back, left/right etc) it makes the bot operate more stable.

I am sure there are other pointers to offer... I will leave those tips to some of the other builders.

[R1885]

You could use lighter wheels, but the best option would to use any armor under 3mm Aluminum. DSA in DSL is just as heavy, but with far less strength than 1mm Plastic. Might I recommend 1mm titanium?

[russian roulette]

Also you can also build to the weight limit or down grade a couple things to make a middleweight.

[COOLRUNNER87]

Also you can also build to the weight limit or down grade a couple things to make a middleweight.

Trust me, I was trying to build to the weight limit, but upgrading the armor from Plastic 3 to Plastic 5 made it go just above the limit.

Also, thanks to Jack and R1885 for the help. Now, for the updated Dark White Knight:


Did much of what Jack said: downgraded to Plastic 3 armor, 80cm Aluminum side and back plates. No more Mako flipping or easy tipping. Of course, I'm still open to more ideas.

[Sage]

Well, how does it perform?

[123savethewhales]

For side stabilizer you can try mounting a half sheet on the bottom along with 2 40cm polycarbonate skirts on each end.

[cephalopod]

I dunno what you've done with the batts for the new one, but it is commonly accepted that, for spin motors, 1 ant batt per motor is enough.

Welcome to GTM, or welcome back to the RA community, one or the other :P

[Naryar]

Use Vlads or Hypnos, 4-5 ant batteries and something else than these axes since they have normals = less damage.

Good to see oldtimers to return.

[COOLRUNNER87]

I dunno what you've done with the batts for the new one, but it is commonly accepted that, for spin motors, 1 ant batt per motor is enough.

Welcome to GTM, or welcome back to the RA community, one or the other :P

That seems a bit... light, especially for that hulking thing.

As for battling this thing... I've yet to do it.  I have classes 11 hours a day twice a week, and school/sleep trumps robot making. I'll test it out tonight when I get back from classes and my gaming club's meeting.

Also, I've got an AW in the works, and some of you may remember the stock LW edition of it back over at RFSHQ: Clothes Off! However, I've got to rework it, since it makes *insert horrible RA2 builders here* work look good.

[cephalopod]

That seems a bit... light, especially for that hulking thing.

And that's exactly what a lot of people thought when the discovery about motor use/battery output was discovered :P you can easily run a dual perm (the huuuuge motor) with just 1 ant batt. Obviously, it's better to have more - a lot of people have a maximum of 2 to a spin motor.

[Naryar]

For some weird reason all spin motors in RA2 drain 10 amps, so a bot needs 1 ant batt by spin motor.

However, if you don't want your bot's batteries to run out of power too easily, you can add a few more, but more than 2 per spin motor (burst motors not included if you use some) is overkill for a 3-minute fight.

Edit: I forgot to mention than the WP836E is the worst battery choice you have in RA2.

[COOLRUNNER87]

For some weird reason all spin motors in RA2 drain 10 amps, so a bot needs 1 ant batt by spin motor.

However, if you don't want your bot's batteries to run out of power too easily, you can add a few more, but more than 2 per spin motor (burst motors not included if you use some) is overkill for a 3-minute fight.

Yeah, I'll be probably changing it up to 4-5 ants, changing the weaponry to put on 2-4 irons (depending on weight) per disc and taking off the Gothic Axes.

[123savethewhales]

Consider switching to small DSL Disk (the silver one) if you intend to put 4 irons on each disk.

[COOLRUNNER87]

Sorry I've been away for the last few days. Been dealing with school. Anyway, I've just finished updating The White Knight, and here it is:


And the insides:


You can see I've done a few things to update this:
2 new 120cm Polycarb side extenders to keep WK from turning on his fool head
4 Ant Batteries; no more issues with Long Black and Crappy
2 Hypno wheels
And the biggest change: replaced the 100cm discs for 2 Small DSL Discs with 4 Iron Spikes per Disc

It does decently against most of the 2.1 AI, but it obviously still needs some improvement.

[S.T.C.]

use multiextenders instead of anchors

[Reier]

use multiextenders instead of anchors

It's ok in this case I think STC.
That's pretty good for someone this new, KUTGW.

[S.T.C.]

I was told to use multiextenders so I assumed always,but idk

and yeah,really decent for a new member

[Jack Daniels]

I was told to use multiextenders so I assumed always,but idk

and yeah,really decent for a new member

The main purpose to use multi extenders is to save weight.  In this case he needs an angle directly from the chassis that a multiextender cannot provide... and if you added a angle extender to a multi extender it would defeat the purpose of saving weight.

So, yeah, this is one of those rare instances when a multiextender really would not be useful.

[123savethewhales]

I think you can use multi-extender in this case, you just use the side connection so you can rotate it.

That aside, I don't think the point of multi-extender is the 1kg, but the reduce in space used, allowing for smaller chassis.