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Messages - Clickbeetle
2481
« on: August 12, 2009, 10:23:47 PM »
Nice wedge, armor, and weapons, but again you could use 4 wheel drive... 4WD popups are 5X more dangerous than 2WD.
I shudder to think of what RODW would have done to Chernobyl if it had 4WD.
2482
« on: August 12, 2009, 10:13:32 PM »
To hit wedges? To reach under tribars and hit exposed weapon motors?
In any case, great bot. It's like a side hammer version of Child's Play IV. I didn't think side hammers could be effective in the LW class, but that one looks pretty effective. How does it do in battle?
Hmm... if you switch those 22.5 degree angle connectors for 20 cm extenders, you'll have enough weight to use 2 razor tips instead of 1 iron spike on each arm. Or just leave it as is and use 3 razor tips each. I don't know if that would be better, but it might be worth testing.
2483
« on: August 12, 2009, 10:08:53 PM »
Very nicely built bot. The only drawback appears to be the short reach on the weapon; it barely sticks through the plow. You could possibly put the Snapper inside the chassis (it takes up next to no space when it's vertical; you might not even need to build a new chassis) in order to bring the plow back a little, closer to the motor. Also, it's just my opinion, but I find wedges on most LW's unnecessary. LW popups aren't common enough or dangerous enough to make a wedge worth the weight, except possibly on some LW popups. Heck, my LW popup Noble Sacrifice doesn't have a small wedge and it does just fine. That said, the small wedge is a nice insurance against those few LW's that do have a small wedge. But you could do a lot of stuff with 32+ extra kgs... ^^^Correct, but would mounting the drive on the snapper really save me weight? With Z-teks, usually yes. With anything smaller, usually no. The small amount of chassis space needed for the motors usually isn't as much weight as the extenders needed to attach the motors, especially with plastic armor. (keyword: usually. If you're very conservative with your extenders you can save weight, but it won't be a lot.)
2484
« on: August 12, 2009, 09:50:06 PM »
Oh well, next time I guess.
Though, I am still in the rumble. And I was the last rookie in BBEANS.
Oh, Robo, have fun with Seism. Yep, I had to point that out, because now BBEANS is going to be won by a veteran for the first time. Exciting times. At this point, it's looking like the rumble will involve SurgicalStrike, Vela, Big Flip's Revenge, and Trojan Horse if R4 wins against CI, or if it loses again, either Trojan Horse or R4, depending on whether R4 loses 0-3 or 1-2. I'll also do a special Champion's rumble, as I have mentioned before, which will involve PitA 8, 45-70 Magnum, Copyright Infringement, and whoever the champion of BBEANS5 turns out to be. There won't be prizes for it except bragging rights, but with four champions in the tournament, I can't not do it.
2485
« on: August 12, 2009, 09:14:53 PM »
Good work. How did you decide the rankings of the wedges and the burst motors? Was it just a lot of trial runs? If so, it might be good to know the exact statistics, like whether DDT's are a lot better than Snapper 2's, or just a little.
Also, while these are good general rules, remember that there are so many other factors affecting wedginess (weight distribution, angle, ground clearance, speed, effect of spinning weapons) that it's usually impossible to predict how good a wedge will be by just looking at it.
I have a hunch that DDT's are only the best for wedges because they're the heaviest, and putting more weight at the front of your bot makes a better wedge. The fact that Snapper2's are the next best and Snapper II's are the worst support this. If true, then servos would be about equal to Snapper 2's.
On that note, you forgot to test flat Snapper 2's with the body in front of the axle. In theory, you would get better weight distribution and a better wedge.
And also ballasts combined with a small wedge.
But that would be a lot of work, of course, and you've done a lot already.
2486
« on: August 12, 2009, 08:48:14 PM »
Hmm... I'll take the Deadly Extender, since nobody else has it  and it looks interesting. Out of curiosity, how close was the voting?
2487
« on: August 12, 2009, 08:37:42 PM »
Copyright Infringement vs. Seism 13 and R4 vs. SurgicalStrike are up!
And now, at last, we have one of our two finalists. I can say no more without spoiling anything.
2488
« on: August 12, 2009, 08:30:38 PM »
I will want to enter. Don't have bots ready yet, but if need be I'll just send in a couple of my old MW's that work well as a team.
ARENA
It's a surprise. Unlike most tournaments, you won't know the arena or it's hazards until everyone has their bots in. Fun, right?
Aw, man! I was hoping to find out what the arena was, so I could know if a Symbiote-type strategy had any chance of working. But now it's just too risky. At least I have other ideas. Charybdis and Scylla work well as a team... And yes, I will admit that keeping the arena a secret does make things interesting.
2489
« on: August 09, 2009, 08:54:44 PM »
You need the file selectbot_computer.gib (in UI/exhibition) that is modified to display 6 bot teams. This file should be included in both Starcore and in DSL.
If you have that version of the file, it may be a problem with Teams.txt in the AI folder. But check selectbot_computer.gib first.
2490
« on: August 09, 2009, 08:47:13 PM »
I try to help when I see someone asking about Python or GMF's, but you usually get to them first
2491
« on: August 09, 2009, 08:27:37 PM »
*freakishly awesome and scary bot* NOOOOOOO.... I remember Tidal Wave was easily one of the toughest bots in Starcore 2, and definitely the most annoying, and it can still be annoying on occasion when it rips off your wedge and/or gets under you. The undercutting anglemotor spinner design is very underestimated, methinks. And now you've gone and given it a wedge and 4WD. I can imagine how annoying Leech must be to fight. Very appropriate name choice. Possible replacement for Tidal Wave in Starcore 4? I'd vote for it.
2492
« on: August 09, 2009, 08:15:44 PM »
If the reach isn't long enough with irons you can use razor tips on 20cm extenders or something. If it's too big then you could attach them to the T connector by the side attach point, or raise the motor. I'm sure there's several ways to do it.
2493
« on: August 09, 2009, 08:08:58 PM »
And you say I'm the only original builder left on the forums. Nice work Sage. I've seen attempts at sideways popups before (there's one in the PYS AI I believe, Step Off 2), but never done that effectively. Also, all the sideways popups I've seen fire in just one direction, not with a forward throwing action like that.
2494
« on: August 09, 2009, 07:44:11 PM »
Autops[E] is great. You've almost got a Heaven's Sawmill-type plow wedge going there! The only potential weakness I see is if some bot got under the plows and hit those extenders. But I think you would need the chassis at ground level with internal drive in order to fix that.
And Lobotomy... that looks good enough to beat some LW's. If it's "much more dangerous than it looks" then it must be very dangerous indeed.
Easy way to save weight: use a T connector instead of a disc. You're only using 2 connection points on the disc anyway. That will get you 10 kgs, which is enough to upgrade to iron spikes, which will compensate for the reduced diameter of the T connector.
2495
« on: August 09, 2009, 06:38:54 PM »
Excellent tutorial. I wish this was around a couple years ago; it would have saved me a lot of grief. It was a while before I finally understood those dang TM rows. Two things I have to add. One, a helpful tip: Attach points always face in the positive Z direction. So whatever way you want stuff to attach, make the Z axis face that way. Two, a more in depth explanation of rotating TM_ROWs. Say you need to rotate, say, an attach point 30 degrees, or even something really weird like 271.2 degrees. How do you do that? Well, it's pretty simple with a little math, and once you realize that the length of any one of the TM_ROWs always equals 1.The examples Mad gave full of 0.7071's will rotate the attach point 45 degrees. Why all the long decimal numbers? Well, since the length of any axis always equals 1, you can't just do *TM_ROW1 1 0 -1
*TM_ROW2 0 1 0
*TM_ROW3 1 0 1
in order to rotate the attach point 45 degrees, halfway between the X and Z axes. That won't work. In order to get the correct numbers, you need to imagine a circle with radius 1, and rotate the axes inside that. It will help here if you've had some basic trigonometry because you'll be using sine and cosine functions. Basically, the cosine of the angle you want gives you the X coordinate on the circle, and the sine of the angle you want gives you the Y coordinate. Plug in cos(45) to a calculator and you'll get about 0.7071. That is the terminal X coordinate of a line with length of 1 at 45 degrees. You'll get the same number for sin(45). So the correct numbers for a 45 degree rotation are *TM_ROW1 0.7071 0 -0.7071
*TM_ROW2 0 1 0
*TM_ROW3 0.7071 0 0.7071
***IMPORTANT NOTE*** If you're doing sine and cosine on a calculator, MAKE SURE YOU'RE IN DEGREE MODE AND NOT RADIANS. Radians are multiples of pi with 180 degrees = pi and 360 degrees = 2pi. Obviously, 45 will be a much different number in Radians mode than in Degree mode, and you'll get bogus numbers. Now let's get back to doing weirder rotations like 30 and 271.2 degrees. Once you understand 45 degrees (or any other angle), it's pretty simple. Just plug in cos(30) and sin(30) as the x,y coordinates of the X and Z axes. *TM_ROW1 0.866 0 -0.5
*TM_ROW2 0 1 0
*TM_ROW3 0.5 0 0.866
Sketching it out on a piece of paper helps to understand where to put the numbers, and whether they should be positive or negative. The key thing to remember is that the angles between axes are always 90 degrees, so if you rotate one axis, you will have to rotate another one to compensate for it. If you get the numbers wrong, you'll end up with something like the Distortion Field in Firebeetle's Component Pack I think that just about covers it. Basically, you just need to "get it" with one angle, and then you'll understand them all.
2496
« on: August 09, 2009, 05:07:14 PM »
I would have picked Grindhouse winning against Shinigami with no wheels as the best moment. But there's plenty of other best moments, so no biggie.
My votes are cast.
2497
« on: August 09, 2009, 04:28:53 PM »
You can win "Most Controversial Bot". On a more serious note, I think Bumble Bee is one of the top contenders for Most Fearsome Opponent, right alongside Absolute Chaos.
2498
« on: August 09, 2009, 04:04:38 PM »
Absolute Chaos vs. R4 and SurgicalStrike vs. Shadow Tyrant are up!
Sorry for the delay followed by the tiny update. It's been a busy week for me, and to top it all off, a storm knocked out my internet yesterday, when I was planning on posting the videos. The Semis and loser's bracket Quarters should come sooner this week.
And in case you haven't noticed, we're down to our final four bots now. You can practically feel the tension... well, at least I can, I don't know about anyone else... as one of these bots is destined to become the champion.
2499
« on: August 09, 2009, 03:49:14 PM »
You're getting good at this. I'm not going to need any HW replicas for DSL (after I make the existing replicas their proper weight classes, there will be a great overabundance of HW's) but if you ever make some LW's or MW's, I am quite confident you could get them to DSL-quality.
I got your PM and I agree the tooth would make a nice addition to DSL3. Couldn't hurt at least. Just needs a bit of skin work, which wouldn't be too difficult.
2500
« on: August 04, 2009, 10:30:33 PM »
Really? I haven't heard about H2Overdrive. Sadly I'm almost never near arcades anymore... all my video games are played at home. I wonder if the sequel is as good as Hydro Thunder.
Rush 2049 was another awesome game. I had that for the N64 too. Did you know, that game was the inspiration for the Stunt Arena in DSL? I used to spend hours in stunt mode, trying to get those gold coins. And the multiplayer battle mode rocked too--I spend at least as much time battling as racing or doing stunts.
Did you ever find the secret stunt room in one of the race tracks? I forgot which one it was in, but you went in a parking ramp, and there was this huge room full of ramps and half pipes and whatnot, and a few coins too.
And the Obstacle Course was one of the greatest challenges I've encountered in gaming. Took me a good many tries to get through that one without crashing.
Good times, good times...
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