In this first installment of Mythbusters: RA2 Edition, we're testing the myth that a bigger chassis has more HP than a small chassis.
At first I thought this myth was true because of the stock AI. They all have a huge chassis, and they're surprisingly durable. Even the best popup is incapable of one-hit KOing Big Dog.
But then I found out that the stock AI are actually more durable because they all have double strength armor (even DS steel and titanium). Apparently, in an early version of the game all the armor was twice as strong. But when the developers cut the armor durability in half, they forgot to adjust the stock AI accordingly. (Incidentally, this is also why DS aluminum exists in the present game. The developers also forgot to edit the default chassis armor.) That evidence makes it look like Myth: Busted.
Now recently Naryar boldly claimed the myth is true, so I decided to find once and for all the truth.
In order to test this myth, I made a modified Omni AI routine that will do exactly 10 damage to itself at the beginning of the match. Then, it uses the getHealth command to find out the percentage of its HP remaining after the 10 damage, and from that, calculate total HP.
For anyone interested, you can download this AI
>here.<You can just open Bindings.py and replace "Omni" with "Omnihptest" and then play RA2 to find out how much HP the bot has.
Now, on to the myth. I started testing with the smallest possible chassis with DS Aluminum armor.
So this chassis has 60 HP. To put things in perspective, extenders have 100 HP and most weapons have 1000. So 60 is like, nothing.
Now let's test the biggest possible chassis, with the same armor, and see if it has more than 60 HP.
0.0 4259 HP? That's no random variation. Looks like the bigger chassis actually has a
lot more HP than the small one!
Of course, you're never going to use either of those test chassises on a serious bot, so let's see how much HP is on a more realistic design.
First, Tempus Fugit, a LW with as tight a chassis as you can get.
204 HP. Pretty crappy, actually. Good thing TF has that plow in front, because 204 HP will last only slightly longer than Frosty the Snowman on the Sun.
Next I checked Leprosy, a generic HW HS with a slightly larger chassis.
518 HP is better, but it's still not going to hold up long. That's about as much HP as a razor tip.
For a middling-sized chassis, I tested Hunter-Killer Tank.
1350 HP is actually pretty decent for stock RA2. It's more than any component, at least.
Finally, I tested the biggest chassis you're likely to use in a serious bot: Osiris and Epic.
Now that's pretty good. You still don't want to leave your chassis overly exposed, but the difference is great enough that you might want to consider making room for your drive motors inside the chassis instead of stacking them on burst motors.
I think we can safely call this myth: CONFIRMED.
This also brings up another relevant myth, though: Is DS Aluminum REALLY stronger than steel? Chassis HP could either be calculated by surface area or by weight. If it's by weight, then steel will automatically be more durable than any type of aluminum.
This myth was easy to test. I just gave my first two test bots steel armor, and re-checked their HP.
Remember, with DS Aluminum, the small chassis had 60 HP, and the big one had 4259 HP. So it looks like this myth, too, is CONFIRMED.
Got any more RA2 myths that need testing? Post them here!
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