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Messages - Clickbeetle
2981
« on: August 03, 2008, 08:08:47 PM »
It's not in the UI folder. The cursor is part of RA2.cfz. (cfZ, not cfG). You can replace the RA2.cfz with the stock one, though that will also revert the scrollbars to stock.
2982
« on: August 03, 2008, 07:59:25 PM »
My only complaint about Iron Spaghetti is that it can't drive worth beans. It just *barely* passes the controlled movement test. Aside from that, it's a great bot. Perhaps if the drive motors were placed further apart it could drive better...
2983
« on: August 03, 2008, 07:38:58 PM »
I see you got the reflection maps down. Looks great. Can we expect to see more shiny chrome weapons? I think pointy tips would work... anything rounded. Flat components don't look good with reflection maps.
2984
« on: August 03, 2008, 07:16:25 PM »
Can't say the epic music is a perfect fit with robot combat, but it's still a great video. You've captured quite a nice variety of exciting highlights.
I'm putting a link to it on the BBEANS main page.
2985
« on: August 03, 2008, 06:59:39 PM »
Addressing some questions... i sent clickbeetle an email with my entry so why am i not here? Because I didn't get any e-mail from you. When you submit an entry, make sure you get a confirmation message from me. Hey CB, just a quick question. How do you normally organize the brackets? Do you just "pick names out of a hat" or do you choose who fights who? First I write the names of all the ranked competitors on slips of paper and draw them out of a hat, and fill them in as far apart on the bracket as possible. Then I draw the rookies out of the hat and fill in the rest of the bracket top to bottom. And a clarification on the entry update rules: You're allowed to update your entry, not totally change it. Naturally the line gets a little blurry here, but if your bot has the same weapon and can use the same AI, then it should be fine. I'm trying something new here, so if there's a big fuss over it I can change it for the next tournament. That said, here's a slightly updated splash image. Meganerdbomb and Silver are the only ones who updated. And I will agree that Meganerdbomb's update was necessary--the original No Leaf Clover's skirts were glitchy to the point of being crippling. Silver's update was very minor: exchanging an iron spike flipper for a long skirt. My current AI progress is 24 out of 32 bots. So almost done! I don't have time to write general predictions for every bot, but I will say my top 5 picks for possible winners (in no particular order): Hazardous Contraption - There's no shortage of Neglected Waterbug clones, but few of them are actually as good as the original. Hazardous Contraption is one of them. Don't underestimate this rookie competitor. Enfilad3 - Fast, hard to get under, and very powerful. This bot has everything working in its favor except armor. I'm just glad it's the only popup to worry about. Diarrhea of a Madman - There's a lot of vertical spinners, and they're all good. If one of them is going to win, though, I think the original builder of Mako has the best chance. Ham-mer Sandwich 2 - Few bots can survive those hammers long enough to get off Ham-mer Sandwich's wedges. Even vertical spinners should be wary, since most of them have exposed weapon motors. Iron Spaghetti - This bot is either going to own or be owned depending on who it faces. I think the number of bots it can own, however, outnumber the number of bots that own it. Edit: Forgot to mention... thanks to madiaba, for BBEANS4, when a bot gets really damaged it will occasionally start on fire! It's a purely visual effect, but a purely cool one too.
2986
« on: July 30, 2008, 01:37:11 AM »
The double Perm says it drains tons of amps, but because of some fluke in RA2 you can get by on much less. Kind of like how in stock RA2, you can power a 10 HP Z-tek bot with 2 Supervolts. With that in mind, Canadian Devil's power is probably just adequate.
Thorny Devil is a good bot, though it could use less batteries and more weapons on the drum, or perhaps more front armor.
2987
« on: July 30, 2008, 01:20:45 AM »
Here's the splash pic for BBEANS4.There's actually a nice variety of designs here (if you ignore all the Mako lookalikes, that is). There's a couple of drums, a couple of piston rammers, a couple of hammers, and not an overwhelming number of horizontal spinners. There's even a three-wheeled rammer! It may be a VS-dominated bracket, but with all that other variety it promises to be an interesting tourney. While it's still technically legal for you to update entries up to the point when the brackets are posted, I would very much appreciate it if no one made any changes to their bot so I won't have to make any changes to the picture.
2988
« on: July 29, 2008, 08:18:09 PM »
Well you know what one I have to vote for...
#6
2989
« on: July 23, 2008, 07:22:25 PM »
Thanks for the offer, but it would be almost as much work getting the bots to you as it would be making it myself (meaning it's not much work). Besides, I still don't know whether Death or Harcsa will be the final entry.
2990
« on: July 23, 2008, 07:10:37 PM »
ha.
hahahaha.
lmao.
:] ? Anyways, that looks like a great bot. You would be hard pressed to make it any better. I certainly can't think of any ways to improve it. Except maybe lowering that caster so it protects the chassis and the drive motors more. It seems to me that gap between the plows is more likely to get hit (say, by a rammer) than the upper chassis and the weapon motors.
2991
« on: July 23, 2008, 06:52:02 PM »
what would be cool is if you could make a kind of ref bot that you (clickbeetle) can control while the other two are battling so you could have an F2 camera. i know the other bots would attack you but cant you make it in the AI code for the bots to ignore you or something? then also if the two fighting bots got tangled or something the ref bot could go and give them a nudge. just a thought. Actually having a refbot would make the camerawork harder. With no human player, the Orbit camera is centered at the 0,0,0 point of the arena. This allows me to pan around the whole arena with an equal view on all sides. If you watch some old BBEANS match videos you can see how it works. With a human-controlled refbot in there, the orbit camera's center would be offset and also moving around, and it would be harder to get a good angle on the action depending on where the bots were in relation to the refbot. I can guess that the added source of human error would also be the source of a lot of complaints. For example, if the bots get stuck dancing in circles, and the refbot comes in to nudge them, which allows one bot to get under the other and win. It IS an interesting idea, though. You could definitely tweak the AI's priority so they would ignore the refbot. But I don't think I want to try it right now. Perhaps in another tournament. Oh yeah, and I lied. Today is the last day I can post before leaving. I thought I wouldn't be able to but I can now. Still no news from Death.
2992
« on: July 22, 2008, 11:06:18 PM »
Nasty bots all. I agree that Tetrax could probably be made invertible with a few simple tweaks.
I have Go Betty Go on my computer since that was Barbie's original entry. And I can say that it's tougher than it looks. It actually has four ant batteries (still underpowered but a lot better than two) and that blade hits HARD. Like Barbie said though, the main problem is that it gets pushed around a lot, and it's so powerful that it often flips itself on a hit. The weight of those wheel guards could be put to better use, I think. Perhaps for some sort of additional stability, or a srimech, or extra batteries.
2993
« on: July 22, 2008, 10:55:49 PM »
The wall is supposed to retract early if a bot gets flipped into the blade, so the bot doesn't get stuck in there.
An easier way to decrease the retraction time, though: just change the default value of self.wallmaster. In def __init__, just change "self.wallmaster = 0" to "self.wallmaster = 100" or something. If you want to increase the retraction time, then self.wallmaster will have to be negative.
2994
« on: July 22, 2008, 10:05:46 PM »
Good news bad news time.
First, the good news. We actually got to 32 entries! A full bracket!
...The bad news, some of you just missed out. Most notably madiaba and eFFeeMMe. It would have been awesome to see both of you compete. But alas, just enough people got in ahead of you.
The last slot is still uncertain at this point. Death sent in an illegal entry on the 17th, but I allowed him to use it as a placeholder so he would have a week to update to something legal. He hasn't so far. If I don't get a legal bot from him by the 24th, then Seastalker (aka Harcsa) will get the last slot.
I'll be on vacation on Thursday, however, so we won't know who the last entry is until next Tuesday at the earliest.
2995
« on: July 20, 2008, 09:17:52 PM »
Okay, we're achingly close to 32 entries, there's still a smattering of people who said they wanted to enter but haven't yet, and I still have a lot of AI'ing to do, so I'm extending registration another two days. You have until Tuesday the 22nd to get your entry in. But I absolutely CANNOT extend registration any farther than that because I'm leaving on vacation this week! So after Tuesday, that's it, no more entries. Get your bots in quick!
2996
« on: July 19, 2008, 10:11:02 PM »
You can program AI bots to do that, but you can't make a component that will do it.
2997
« on: July 19, 2008, 10:07:26 PM »
That's awesome. Nearly useless, but awesome.
I think if you replaced some of those flamethrowers with spikes and trimmed the chassis and drive (and probably armor, I can't imagine where else all the weight would be unless those air tanks are stacked), you could get it down to a MW. Then it might actually be somewhat battle-worthy.
Cheaty tip: if you wire the flamethrowers with an analog and hold down the button, they will keep firing at full power even if you run out of air, until you let go of the button.
2998
« on: July 19, 2008, 09:59:04 PM »
Does it obey the realistic rule? It's arguable, but I decided to let it pass because it's not blatantly unrealistic, and we're kinda short on entries anyway. If I had to predict a winner now, Enfilad3 would be in my top 5. That battle with Shebeast looks like it was close though. Somebody, it sounds like you're not putting the arena in the right place. Perhaps you pasted the files into the Arenas folder? (check to see if there's another Arenas inside Arenas). It should be extracted in the main RA2 folder.
2999
« on: July 19, 2008, 09:44:54 PM »
Well the Mars arena has always been delicate. It seems to just not work on certain computers, possibly those with nVidia graphics cards.
The other arenas I don't have, so I don't know what's going on.
3000
« on: July 18, 2008, 11:21:24 PM »
So I was twiddling around, trying to bolster SF's drive, and somehow I did this.  Not only did I upgrade to NPC drive, but I also put an extra ant battery in there! Most of the extra weight came from using lighter wheels. SF still lacks enough armor to survive against strong HS's long enough to get in some good flail hits. But it can at least shove them around good now, and sometimes flip them. Its turn speed is also improved, making it slightly more effective against fast wedges. I'll be using this update for BBEANS.
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