Moulds DSL Showcase

[Mould]

Hey, extremely new to this. Never used RA2, had DSL 2.1 for a few days now. Nerd cubed brought me here.

So without talking more, here's my first robot.
http://i.imgur.com/0g4zLf0.png

It's very reminiscent of 'Razorback' which is what it was inspired from. I think it makes for a decent replica being that it plays basically the same. The idea is that the skirt and wedge can get me under things and use the spikes to wreck the underside. So as far as I can tell this is like a pop-up but far less functional. It uses the lowest wheels so hopefully not a lot can get under it. It uses the double strength aluminium default thingie. I hope.

Issues-
1. Chassis could be 'sunk' between wheels to save weight
2. The outward facing chassis edge is pointless and could be replaced by skirting, which would also save weight.
3. The armoring sucks.
4. Chassis is unnecessarily high.

It being my first proper bot I didn't really plan it, nor did I know at the time you could actually put motors outside the chassis, which explains why it has so much spare unnecessary room. I think if it was remade with a better chassis, with the space saved it could possibly be mid weight, or I could actually armor it, but that would require extender work and I find that really tough.
At least I can beat my friends with it

So yeah, fresh meat. Tear into it.

On a subnote- How do you get flamethrowers to work? I added air for it, but it comes up red when I try to control it and nothing comes out.

[I Like Tacos]

Ok I don't know much about DSL but it looks like you can fit the srimech inside the chasis, and the chassis can be shrunk a little bit too.

[akshaylan]

Looks pretty nice for a new builder. It's good that you build to weight limit. Just a few things:

Don't use DSA is DSL; it's the weakest of all armours. Only use DSA in stock.
Also use multi extenders rather than baseplate anchors.

I leave the more technical stuff to the more experienced builders.

[cephalopod]

Right, you have a fair grasp already, I'll try help you advance. Beware long post.

Try using wheels that aren't Slipperbottoms - they aren't amazing, for the weight you can get the much grippier Hypno Wheels (which will touch the floor if you use the NPC Left/Right variants)
In terms of power, generally use 1 ant motor per spin motor but then fully power any bursts as the description of them states, so you may need a little more.
For the srimech, that motor is actually LESS powerful than the green burst and is heavier, so switch those out, but if you make your popup weapon larger and chassis smaller, you might be able to just use the popup weapon.
This leads me to the weapon - you definitely need more. 1 razor is not sufficient on a LW popup let alone anything else, and spike strips, although awesome looking, have normals (and as such only do damage with 1 side - the tips)
Your armour idea is good though, consider mounting some armour with a skirt hinge or something similar and using some of the skirt components down across the front. You can then hide your popup weapon inside the chassis and add MOAR RAZORS to it to increase the damage output.
Your wedge is sufficient for your level (no offense :P) but if you want to improve it, Metal Hinges are generally seen as better wedge makers than skirt hinges.

Also, use img tags in your post, then the picture will pop up without having to click it :D

[Naryar]

Slipperbottoms are just fine wheels, what are you saying craaig-chan ?

[Mould]

Thanks for the words, I didn't expect to find such activity if I'm honest

So what's the general consensus on slippers? I just used them for lower ground clearance. But I'll try the hypnos.
And yeah I agree on the weapons, the idea was always that the spikey things would be the main damaging weapon, the razor tip was just an afterthought to place on the flipper as it was a bit underweight, but if you're correct and they only work on the tip then I agree I need to replace them. I'll edit it now.

[Naryar]

Hypnos are a bit faster but slipperbottoms are good for invertibility.

[Mystic2000]

Those white plates you put on the side are crappy as armor, or anything in general, use DSL bars, they're found in weapons tab

the design is not bad but the problem is that the flipper may hinder the rack s'action unless you put like Critical Emergency has.

Also i recommend using the image host of the forum, it's on the home page under "Image Host"

[Mould]

Okay, so I tried to do a remake based off of some of the advice I got on this thread so far, and I ended up with this:



I managed to half the weight and end up with a bot that's actually better than my original. I was going to make it full sized again, but I felt like maybe it would be better to have it as a medium, especially considering I couldn't figure out how to fit very many razors on the end of a single motor. I don't think I did it right and I'm sure there must be an easier way, but that's what I got. I didn't think 6 razors was enough for a heavyweight. It now works as a proper pop-up though, instead of a ramming flippery thing.

It uses titanium 3.

I think the only thing that isn't improved is now it's missing a self righter cause of weight limitations.
I think it might have been better to put the batteries less near to the front, but I'm not very good at stacking and I can't do it on the panasonics, so they had to go there. 

[Naryar]

Good progress, that's a good popup by newbie standards.

Less empty space, more ant batteries, needs to be less tall.

[Mould]

Ok nar



Pretty sure that's as tight a chassis as I'm able to do with this design. I already had problems with fitting the razors now, so I don't think I could go much smaller.
But, with the weight saved, I was able to fit on a srimech :D
Would it be better to upgrade my armor and leave the srimech out?

Ant batteries - 6 cause I'm sh** at stacking
Speaking of which, I don't really understand the power system in this game. How do I go about making sure that I fully power the burst motors while only using 1 ant for the wheel motors? That's what I've read I ought to be doing, but I don't have a clue how.

[Badnik96]

Better, you could mount your extenders horizontally (so they make a line like this ====) instead of vertically (the way you have them now, where it looks like this 0000). That'll save you a little weight for some external armor.

You could get rid of the srimech by mounting the two popup motors the other way (flip them around so the shaft is more forward), and you can also make the chassis even shorter by moving the slider to the very top of the chassis bar then clicking underneath the bottom of the slider bar.

[akshaylan]

6 cause I'm sh** at stacking

Don't try to stack in DSL; it's meant to be realistic 

[Mould]

Better, you could mount your extenders horizontally (so they make a line like this ====) instead of vertically (the way you have them now, where it looks like this 0000). That'll save you a little weight for some external armor.

You could get rid of the srimech by mounting the two popup motors the other way (flip them around so the shaft is more forward), and you can also make the chassis even shorter by moving the slider to the very top of the chassis bar then clicking underneath the bottom of the slider bar.

I think I tried having them sideways, but I couldn't fit as many razors that way
And I'm not sure what you mean on the other part. Does that make the motors more powerful in some way? AFAIK the razors aren't long enough to be self-righting.

[Badnik96]

Instead of mounting one long extender sideways, mount a 20cm extender sideways and attach more 20cms to that. You should have more spaces to put razors.

Also, turning the motors around makes them stick out further, which should give you enough leverage to self right.

[123savethewhales]

Don't stack in DSL.  Just make the chassis bigger.  Mount the drive directly to the chassis.

Small chassis popups are not even good in DSL, so you do not need to use arcane methods to save space.

[Mould]

I gave up on the pop-up because they're super boring to make and play with and against, so I made another medium weight...



It's pretty boring I know. I did make another thing, but then I unlocked the bbeans team on the game, and it was pretty much a worse version of mako.
I think this counts and a horizontal spinner. Both of the discs spin outward, which makes sure it knocks away. No stacking, no nothing. It has 4 spin motors and it's powered by 4 ants. It's invertible. It does pretty decent damage. Should I replace it with razors? I'm worried about them all coming off. Anyone have any ideas for armouring the top?

[Naryar]

unrealistic, though not bad

do not expose these motors they're very weak, put them inside the chassis.

irons are underwhelming as weapons

extender work can be improved