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Topics - Reier

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21
Tournament Archives / CENTAURI - Awards
« on: August 30, 2018, 12:35:50 PM »
SBV
SPLASH

Congratulations to the winner, Lightning S.!
I mean this when I say it though, everyone did a good job. Thank you so much for being a great first test for online tournaments. People were respectful to each other and it was much more personal than an AI tournament. It was a huge success in my mind! Hopefully I'll get to do another soon.

That being said, it's time to give out some awards to recognize the achievements of those you think deserve it. The categories are:
BEST DRIVER for who had the most driving skill, using their bot and the arena to their advantage the best.
BEST DESIGN for the most efficient, well constructed build.
INNOVATIVE DESIGN for which design pushed the limits of building and can inspire the building of others in ways maybe not considered before.
BEST MOMENT for your favorite moment from a match.

C&P:
My votes:


Competitors are encouraged to vote, but you may not vote for yourself. Voting closes in 1 week, 9/7.
Congrats to everyone involved!  :mrgreen:

22
General Support / pvp octagon edits
« on: August 27, 2018, 02:37:14 PM »
heyyo
trying to edit the octagon for multiplayer and tournaments and such cause it's just a great arena for that. Need some help though with some edits.
I need to do 2 things:
Nerf the power of the floor flippers
Change/add walls to prohibit driving on the outer ring. so basically theres an invisible wall where the arena raises up by the pits.

I'm not really sure how to do the flippers. I assume it would require editing the coordinates of the hellraisers AddCollisionLine on line 212 (or 183?) but I'm not sure.
The walls I'm pretty sure need a coordinate edit too (line 250?) but I have no idea what to move them to.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

23
Tournament Archives / CENTAURI 2 - online tournament dicussion
« on: August 26, 2018, 06:48:19 PM »
(Centauri is finished filming btw. All matches are done. Just need to edit.)

The first Centauri was a huge success. It went super smooth, much better than I expected it to. Online play is not just viable, but far superior to AI if done well. And now we have proof! Everyone who participated said it was much more fun than AI tournaments to play in, and I think it's much more fun to watch as well.

I won't NECESSARILY do another centauri right away, but there is a good chance I will. Just wanted to talk to people about what meta and weightclass etc, details and such you want.

-----

My opinions/reasons:
I really think Ironforge is by far the best meta for this. I'm personally not interested in stock (and stock weapon-spam doesn't reward driving skill as much), and DSL-IRL utterly fails as a competitive meta. DSL-S is kinda poor man's ironforge at this point. I want this to be as competitive as possible.

The choice of arena is VERY important for online, as humans can actually use hazards. I will increase the damage of any hazards to lethal levels in whatever arena I end up going with. I think this heavily rewards driving strategy and thats what I want. if you don't care about that just do an AI tournament.

Arena and weightclass heavily depend on each other though. In online even more than AI tournaments, it is imperative to build the bot for the arena, and the weightclass should match this. I really think the octagon is a superb competitive arena, as the hazards in play really punish bad and reward good driving. Bots focusing less on weapons and more on control can force opponents into hazards, and we saw this done very effectively in centauri 1. The octagon does have a major problem though with the top ring around the edge. It's too easy to just camp it and exploit it. If I used the octagon I'd try to get help from a coder to make an invisible wall around the edge to prevent access to it.
I do however think that MW is the heaviest weight class that should be played competitively on the octagon. It's just too dense with hazards for HWs without having them hit a one every 2 seconds. LWs I think would be perfect for the octagon, and additionally I think LWs would be a super good weightclass for online. They are much easier to build (and take less time), and nimbler in the arena. This would help players who don't build in ironforge much.
Other alternatives are the Half Circle and Metal Skull arenas. Both would be excellent for MWs, and I think HWs could be viable for the metal skull. Both have a variety of hazards that could be used effectively, and the skull has a pit. Pits are very useful for online. The Clawtop could also be a great choice for MWs and below, we've tried it in MP and it is super fun. At some point I would be down to actually host an 'offroad' tournament in the mars arena, I think it could be real fun. probably not for this one though, I want to get the basics down before trying something crazy.

-----
Things set in stone:
Ironforge (the best competitive meta by far)
3 min, bo3, double elim.
8 entrants max. I know it's small. It is just too hard to coordinate more people than this.
NA entrants only. Sorry, this is required in online to keep lag to an absolute minimum. EU entrants feel free to host your own league (i hope you do), and help people who want to drive but can't build well.
Builders do not have to be the competitors. You can request help to design a bot that you drive. It's not a problem.
The same rules for controls, timezones, etc. Would be chaos without these. They seemed to work well in practice.

Things TBD:
Weightclass. Leaning LW or MW. likely LW. easier and quicker to build, less crash-happy, viable in more arenas. smaller IF bots are easier to make for people that don't play IF much, I understand that it's not everyones gig.
Arena. Heavily leaning to the Octagon again, I really do think it rewards good driving to an extreme degree. Alternatives are Metal Skull, Clawtop, Half-Circle. Open to suggestions but I think these are the best from the stock group. Really want to avoid arenas with minimal hazards and huge flat areas. These just reward generic wedge bots and weapon spam, and not good driving.
I may enter this one. idk. My lag might have an advantage, and I want to play to win. seems a bit in poor taste to win your own tourney though especially since I won two of my own AI ones  :dumb)
Multibots. gonna say they are allowed, but you have to drive them both yourself. :p its too hard to coordinate 3 people consistently. also, LW (prob) multibots. if you're a madman it's your choice I suppose.

Another thought I had however is a possible small balance patch for online. I'd only change like 1 or 2 things. First is I would lighten the wheels considerably, to encourage the use of more than 2wd. wheels are so heavy for no reason and having a 4wd bot, especially a LW, is kinda nuts at the moment. 4wd would be really nice for online since losing a wheel doesn't mean an instant game over. The other change I would make is buffing the servo in power cause it's real weak in ironforge, but super useful for human-controlled bots. I have other patch ideas for ironforge but those would be the only changes I'd make for this. It wouldn't nerf existing bots, the most you'd have to change is being able to add more parts due to wheels being lighter.
-----

Please discuss. I want to make this accessible to as many people as possible. Tell me what you think.

24
Off-Topic Discussion / ancient hot garbage
« on: August 21, 2018, 02:13:08 AM »
from the gtm of yesteryear back when your mommies were still in kindergarten and nary was real

 
clashofthetitans.png

camsy messin with the wrooong dino!!!!

 
GTMland2.png

FLAT-FOOTED mind you

 
LOLnarysage.png

exposed

naryayayaarrr3.png

nary's ultimate form

 
tehahsumbawtz.png

robot rpg

 
kurt150.png

you know who you are

 
billminiBANISHMENT.png
   
GLUE2.png

trust me. we needed this baaaaad for a while there.

 
pikarobo.png



razer8.jpg

go read the thread holy nuts

 
youknowitstrue.png

you know its true

 
GTMland1.png


acamswastebasket.png


 
awsumtrain.gif
 
remember the train crap? no? good.

 
badnikbanned.png

the reason gtmcs is taking an eternity

 
pixelwar5.png

pixel war thread



may post more later once i wash my hands off

25
Tournament Archives / CENTAURI - Online Tournament | SBV
« on: August 13, 2018, 02:05:56 PM »
centaurilogo400px alpha.png

SPLASH

BRACKETS

VIDEOS

26
Discussion / Ironforge potential update
« on: July 19, 2018, 04:12:34 PM »
Ironforge is great but I feel it needs a few additions and some minor changes. In particular, its lack of components kind of hurt it in regards to building freedom. I don't think it needs much, but here's my ideas:


PRIORITY CODE OMEGA changes (everything else can wait):
Buff the servo
Lighten wheels to encourage >4WD
Add shiny hub size wheel


the main changes I'd personally desire are more APs for the armor panels, possible addition of the DSL angled plates, a few intermediate wheel sizes, and beefing up the servo. Some weapons may need a teeny tiny tweak. 

Now from what I heard though 123stw may be against any updates to his mod. that's his right I suppose. Idk. thought I'd bring this up.

thoughts?

27
Tournament Archives / CENTAURI - Online Tournament | SIGNUPS
« on: July 15, 2018, 04:11:32 PM »
centaurilogo400px alpha.png

Here we go. First Parsec tournament.

FORMAT:
8 entries.
1v1, Bo3, double elimination. 3 min.
The Trov action cam will be used.
Major havoks will have the match restarted as necessary.
Octagon arena. One of the benefits of human driving is that we aren't stupid and can dodge and use hazards. Use this to your advantage in both designing your bot and driving it. Hazard lethality has been increased to ironforge standards, the hammer is now able to kill most MWs in a hit or two.
North American entrants only. Sorry to the others. Let's keep the lag to a minimum, at least for now.

BUILDING RULES:
Ironforge MW
DSL-S ruleset, to make it competitive
No external programs allowed (BFE, RA2CF, Ro7B) except for skinning
Entries must show a high degree of controlled movement.
Be creative. Not a rule per se but this is the first online tourney since like 2004! Try to make something to be remembered. Preferably something that is difficult to AI. Build something crazy that works. Go nuts!
No joke entries. This tournament is a showcase to push the envelope of what new designs work in RA2. I’m not going to waste a slot on a bot that isn’t designed to compete well.
I reserve the right to deny any entry for any reason.

Build well. Skin well. Drive well. Let’s make this a tournament to be well remembered, because a lot may ride on it. Online tournaments have the potential to extend the life of RA2, let’s try our best to make this one work.
Make a good and cool bot.


SIGNUPS (close 8/10):
APPROVED
1. 8Bean - Pit Viper
2. Lightning S. - Vipress
3. Freeziez - Burning Up
4. Thrackerzod - Paralytic Dream
5. [cringey name goes here] - Ferromite [mystic2000]
6. Badnik96 - militant sea cucumbers 2
7. Clickbeetle - Falling Star 2
8.

BACKUPS/CURRENTLY UNAPPROVED
...

I would love love loveeee to enter but I’ll sit this one out. My latency may be an unfair advantage, and it’s already gonna be hard enough to organize AND host this thing.
but one of you better host one of these after me so i can enter im serious

For me to accept your entry, you need to send me a PM with ALL of the following files/information:
TWO IDENTICAL copies of your bot (two with differing keyboard controls, or alternatively, one keyboard and one gamepad). The inputs can be whatever you want as long as you pick only ONE color from this diagram for each copy:
This is so two people can potentially play on the same keyboard layout. Learn how to drive well with both, as you will likely be required to.
Do you have access to a gamepad? I technically won’t bar you from entry you if you don’t but would help out TREMENDOUSLY if you do. It simplifies the parsec experience if one player uses a keyboard and one uses a controller, and that way there is no risk of control sabotage by one player to another. I will need to test your controller to make sure it works, we've had some compatibility issues with some of them. Be prepared to use keyboard even if you have a gamepad.
Timezone (Pacific, EST, etc)
Times and days available to fight (be generous please). Saturday and Sunday if at all possible. I will try to work with what you got. But remember that you have the potential to fight any entrant, so the more time you have available, the better. Fights under ideal circumstances shouldn’t last more than 10 or 15 minutes, but plan for perhaps up to 45.
Parsec user ID Link to register

I will not accept your entry until ALL of the above has been submitted and the bot is approved.
Note: The builder of the robot doesn’t necessarily have to be the driver. Not everyone is good at both, and that’s ok. If you are planning on driving someone else’s bot, you need to say who built it and I also need a PM from the builder giving their blessing.

Once I check and accept all the bots I’ll make a public google spreadsheet with the timezones for all participating members, and we can set the bracket and fight times from there. I’m fully aware we may need to reschedule some. I’ll give people notifications of their fight times & dates as far in advance as I can.


POTENTIAL QUESTIONS

Feel free to ask questions. Let's do this.

28
Specifically the metal skull and octagon arenas. I'm using them in ironforge but since the components in that mod are way tougher than stock, the spikes and hammers don't really do any damage. I've looked around a bit in the arena .pys but I'm not really sure which value to change. Any help would be appreciated so I can do it myself next time.

29
Discussion / The problem with competitive IRL in RA2
« on: July 03, 2018, 11:19:05 AM »
This will undoubtedly be controversial but I needed to say it cause I feel like no one else has, or at least in the way that I feel about it. I know I’m not the best at explaining what I think or feel so please try to understand the spirit of what I say and not the letter.

------

In recent years GTM has had a huge shift from the formerly popular ‘DSL-S’/’Standard” style of building that reigned supreme from like 2005-2014 to a more ‘IRL’ style. Now at risk of sounding like some disillusioned geezer who hates change, let me preemptively say that properly built and designed IRL bots are some of the coolest looking designs that I’ve seen ever built in the game.

That’s the issue. They look cool. They suck at fighting.

Little history. Back when RA2 was released the line between ‘stock unrealistic’, ‘standard’ and ‘IRL’ was much more blurred and the terms hadn’t really been invented yet. Now I wasn't an active member until after the official forums died but I’ve done my fair share of looking at as many of the earliest RA2 posts as I could find.
The original RA2 bots were obviously the stock AI, which despite being built with the buggy RA2 engine which allowed parts to intersect with each other, were generally built to look as realistic (ie mimicking actual robots) as possible. But I’m hard pressed to find any showcased bot from ‘04-05 on the official forum which wasn’t stock unrealistic. They were just flat out better at fighting than IRL style because RA2’s engine is not designed in a way that building a robot that would work in real life will be the best in RA2. Why add one spike in the front when you can add 16? A bot with 16 spikes would suck in real life, but RA2 isnt real life. Stock was dominated by these glitch-exploiting, unrealistic, but extremely well engineered bots as a result. That’s basically what stock has remained since then. Extracting every ounce of efficiency possible out of the game engine as you can to make the best robot you can. That was the goal of builders. To make a good robot, and to make it cool if you could on top of that.

So then DSL 1.0 comes by in ‘05 I believe. Can’t say I played much of 1.0 but I remember it being released with all the replicas but none of the stock bot remakes that Click+FB did for 2.0. BBEANS2 and DSL 2.0 were released around the same time, meaning that the generally accepted “standard ruleset” had been around before that for DSL since both the BBEANS2 bots and the 2.0 remakes used the system. It’s a system that works, works well, and has stuck around for like 13 years for a reason. And one that I believe is the best system to build in for RA2 specifically because it has enough of the freedom of stock unrealistic but very little of the silly and abundant exploits that makes stock inaccessible and tedious. I think this is where IRL falls flat on its face.


‘RA2 IRL’ as is popular now is designed for making things look cool, not making things that can fight well. As I said, RA2 as a game is not designed in a way that bots that would work in real life would work well in the game. In RA2 there is a sliding scale of building from ‘efficiency’-to-‘realism’ with stock unrealistic on one end and DSL-IRL on the other. If you make a bot that uses every mechanic in the game to build the absolute most efficient fighting machine possible, it would look nothing like a DSL-IRL bot. (For those who don’t believe me, try adding 4x more spikes to your IRL bot and tell me with a straight face that it isn’t better at winning fights) And on the flip side, making the most realistic looking IRL bot by design isn’t gonna be as good at fighting as the first, since it doesn’t take advantage of mechanics in RA2... it takes advantage of mechanics from real world physics. RA2 doesn’t have real world physics. There is no fall damage. There is no structural integrity, internal or external. Damage and force is not divided by surface area. So on. DSL-S standard is just objectively a more efficient way to build if your focus is to win battles. Period. A DSL-S bot would annihilate an IRL bot every time without question if they are both built with the same level of quality.

It’s the whole root of the problem with building IRL bots “efficiently” (aka- to win) because it inherently is not efficient. To make it more efficient (eg weapon spam) you have to make it less IRL. So people try to make some subjective standard to how many weapons you can use, or how many weapon supports you need, or how many wedges you are allowed to have, or blah blah blahhhh. No no no! It is way too subjective, and if you think it isn’t, I just don’t know how to tell you the sky is actually blue.
 
This is only a problem with IRL tournaments. If you're building IRL to make a cool robot and nothing more, using RA2 as a simulator of sorts just so you can drive it, I’ve got no problem whatsoever with that. What I do have a problem with is people trying to play IRL to win tournaments in which I ask, what is the point? An IRL tournament is like the special olympics. You can watch two disabled bots duke it out (IRL), but why not just watch two professionals do it better (standard)? If you try to build an IRL bot that is good at fighting, it no longer is strict IRL, people get mad, and you’d be better off just building efficiently in Standard. If you build the most realistic thing you can, it’ll be total garbage at fighting due to the nature of RA2. So again, what is the point?   

Then you get reaaal nitpicky and subjective when you try to ban ‘problem’ things in tournaments. “don’t use weapon spam”. “limit of 2 bursts”. “weapons need to have believable supports”. At what point do we just stop using RA2 to build in if we aren’t really gonna build to RA2’s strengths? Just design stuff in CAD at that point. Wanna know what the rules are in Standard?
      1. Don’t make stuff intersect that couldn’t have a slot cut through it in real life (extremely objective)
      2. Don’t use external programs to edit stuff (totally objective)
      3. That’s it
Rules in Stock?
      1. Don’t use external programs to edit stuff (totally objective)
      2. literally again thats it
Rules for IRL?
      1. no one agrees on anything because you really can’t (subjective)
      2. make it look realistic (extremely subjective)
           2a. make sure it has a believable number and design of weapon supports (which are unnecessary in RA2, tying up weight in a pointless thing, and is subjective to the host if they are “realistic”)
           2b. Use a very specific but vague amount of weapons where it is just enough to be competitive but not enough to be “unrealistic” or “tryhard”, and pray that whoever is hosting will agree with you and not see you as leaning to heavily towards the latter (lean too heavily to the latter and you get kicked out, too heavily to the former and you just lose)
          2c. Don’t use too many motors to be unrealistic but enough to be competitive (same as above)
          2d. make the chassis look however you want including making it unrealistically small and unhittable as long as it looks realistic with tons of extenders (and totally not just to make other parts sacrificial and make the actual chassis hard to hit, trust me…)
      3. external programs are okay to use (CF, RO7B, BFE) despite the fact that they count as cheating in other mods due to their ease of exploitation
      4. don’t use cheat parts except sometimes (flatmotors, judge burst), even though using them in other rulesets is cheating due to their power

it’s all so silly.

It’s impossible to make a universally agreed ruleset for IRL because it is just a subjective way to build in the first place. And if you balance components buffing them to make them “““competitive””” for IRL then it make them horribly unbalanced for actual competitive modes like dsl-s where your only goal is to build the best bot you can with the limits of a single rule. and it doesn’t even fix the problem, cause you could just use two of the buffed weapon instead of one, again a subjective and arbitrary condition.


RA2 sucks as a game engine but its the best we got. Stock and standard rulesets both play to its strengths, as unrealistic as they may be. When we start adding all these silly arbitrary and VERY subjective rules like IRL wants to do it just gets real dumb real fast. What joy is there in winning an IRL tourney when you realize that you didn't build the best bot you could, you just built the bot with juuust enough weapons to win (meaning more weapons than anyone else) but not too many that you got kicked out by the host for being “tryhard”. That is sooo lame.
Why is it so taboo to be tryhard? To just build the best bot you can build with a universally agreed ruleset (eg stock or dsl-s)? Just build the best bot you can with stock or standard and no one can tell you that your bot is too ‘X’ because the rules are actually objective.

Man. I just want to be able to fight again. I want to build efficiently without people complaining about being a ‘tryhard’. It’s almost the entire point of the game. Why build if you don’t fight. And if you fight, why limit yourself to some bizarre subjective rules that no one agrees on but still all limit you to building something inefficient? ugh.

I get why people who were sick of the difficult stock rules and the efficiency-mentality of dsl-s and stock wanted a reprieve to just 'build what they want.' I do get it. But the pendulum swung way, way too far as a result.
 
I got no problem with people that build to be efficient. That’s what I do. And I got no problem with people that build to make something cool even if it sucks at fighting (the only thing IRL can do WELL). I DO have a problem with people that build something cool that can’t fight and expect the standards of every other bot to be lowered so they have a chance of winning. And that is competitive IRL.



Reply if you want, or dont. I’m not necessarily trying to change anyone’s mind. Just wanted to say what I think and why I thinking building IRL competitively is broken from the start.


30
Tournament Archives / THE KESSEL RUN (parsec tournament)
« on: June 19, 2018, 09:39:55 PM »
figured someone would have tried a small test tournament with parsec by now but I guess not.

----------
Basically what I am thinking, subject to change with feedback:
8 entries.
1v1, Bo3, double elimination. 3 min.
Major havoks will have the match restarted as necessary.
Octagon or Metal Skull. One of the benefits of human driving is that we aren't stupid and can dodge and use hazards. Use this to your advantage in both designing your bot and driving it. Hazard lethality has been increased to ironforge standards.
US entrants only. Sorry to the others. Let's keep the lag to a minimum, at least for now.

Building rules:
Ironforge [HW]
DSL-S ruleset, to make it competitive
No external programs allowed except for skinning (BFE, RA2CF, Ro7B)
Entries must show a high degree of controlled movement.
Be creative. Not a rule per se but this is the first online tourney since like 2004! Try to make something to be remembered. Preferably something that is difficult to AI. Build something crazy that works. Go nuts!
No joke entries. This tournament is a showcase to push the envelope of what new designs work in RA2. I’m not going to waste a slot on a bot that isn’t designed to win.
I reserve the right to deny any bot for any reason.

Build well. Skin well. Drive well. Let’s make this a tournament to be well remembered, because a lot may ride on it. Online tournaments have the potential to extend the life of RA2, let’s try our best to make this one work.
Make a good and cool bot.

SIGNUPS (Note: NOT OPEN UNTIL I POST THE TOPIC):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Backups:
1…
I would love love loveeee to enter but I’ll sit this one out. My latency may be an unfair advantage, and it’s already gonna be hard enough to organize AND host this thing.
but one of you better host one of these after me so i can enter im serious

For me to accept your entry, you would need to send me a PM with ALL of the following:
TWO IDENTICAL copies of your bot (one with keyboard controls, one with gamepad). The inputs can be whatever you want. Learn how to drive well with either, as you will likely be required to.
Do you have access to a gamepad? I technically won’t bar you from entry you if you don’t but would help out TREMENDOUSLY if you do. It simplifies the parsec experience if one player uses a keyboard and one uses a controller, and that way there is no risk of control sabotage by one player to another.
If you do have a gamepad, state your control preference (keyboard or gamepad, keep in in mind you may have to drive with either).
USA Timezone (Pacific, EST, etc)
Times and days available to fight(be generous please). Saturday and Sunday if at all possible. I will try to work with what you got. But remember that you have the potential to fight any entrant, so the more time you have available, the better. Fights under ideal circumstances shouldn’t last more than 10 or 15 minutes, but plan for perhaps up to 45.
Parsec user ID [link to register]


I would not accept your entry until ALL of the above had been submitted and the bot is approved.

Note: The builder of the robot doesn’t necessarily have to be the driver. Not everyone is good at both, and that’s ok. If you are planning on driving someone else’s bot, you need to say who built it and I also need a PM from the builder giving their blessing.
Once I check and accept all the bots I’ll make a public google spreadsheet with the timezones for all participating members, and we can set the bracket and fight times from there. I’m fully aware we may need to reschedule some. I’ll give people notifications of their fight times & dates as far in advance as I can.

POTENTIAL QUESTIONS (subject to change with feedback)
----


an online tournament has the potential to be way more fun to build for, partake in, and watch than any AI tournament. better for all parties involved, assuming it works. I fully expect it to have some hiccups but every failure is a learning experience to make it better for next time. I just want to give it a shot and hope you will too.

Any major things I missed? Suggestions are welcome. I want to try to make this work as painlessly as possible.
Post if you're from the US and interested just so I can see who is willing to give it a shot. I may or may not enter. I may lower the tourney size if not many people can make it, but 8 will be the max.

31
Discussion / the lazy susan CHALLENGE
« on: June 19, 2018, 02:12:31 PM »
ok so for whatever reason putting your drive like this actually works with no problems in ra2.

 
coolrobotdrive.png


basically its like the game calculates how the robot will move based on the initial placement of the drive motors and wheels, and is extremely determined to keep it that way even if logic and physics dictate otherwise. basically, you can move in directions independent of the wheels as long as the wheels start in the "normal" position.



I've used a modified version of this drive on a few other bots to see what I could get away with while still being effective.


HOWEVER
I have a challenge though. I want to see someone make an effective robot with the ridiculous drive system I posted on the first pic. you can use an axle or a servo, and the mod is irrelevant. I feel like no one has really experimented with silly drive like this and I want to see how far we can take it.

gogogogogo

32
Discussion / Stock Soundtack vs DSL Soundtrack
« on: April 08, 2018, 02:17:47 AM »
im curious. which one do you like better?


33
Real Robotics Discussion / King of Bots
« on: October 13, 2017, 04:39:23 PM »
im not sure if you know about this (you probably do) but I stumbled upon basically chinese battlebots and they've got some big names on board like Ray Billings and John Reid et al

https://www.facebook.com/KOBCHINA/   <has some videos
http://kobchina.com/

34
Discussion / IMPORTANT: this will save RA2
« on: January 05, 2017, 04:20:00 PM »
I'm busting out the decent grammar so you know this is a big deal. I've been thinking about this for a long time now.

    Havok. Ro7 (formerly). AGOD. These all suck. But there is one tragedy of ra2 that is more tragic than all the others.
Online play. Without it, half of the game is locked. I'm not exaggerating.
I feel like most people don't even drive their robots anymore, and I understand why. AI tournaments are the only way we can really compete, so why bother testing them in a way that is irrelevant? This, i think, is the most unfortunate part of the game currently. Driving your own robot is just as much of a part of the game as building it, and is very undervalued because people aren't used to it. It's almost a lost art. I really think if online ra2 is fixed that it could almost single-handedly extend the life of the game for years. Hear me out.

    Being able to drive your robot opens up new worlds in RA2 that I think most people don't even consider. Suddenly useless bot types become viable. Rammers and Pushers can be incredibly lethal in the hands of a good driver who knows how and when to pin and uses arena hazards to his advantage (yes, hazards). Powerful bot types become weaker in the absence of ai. HS and SnS are easily avoided - simply wait them out until an ideal opportunity, ai has to move forward but you don't! Spikeballs against an opponent who does not brainlessly rush to them are not scary at all. Wedges would becomes considerably less common when the human ability to flank opponents becomes the norm.
    Bigger still, new building techniques on a scale never seen before would be opened up. No longer do you have to only protect the front of your robot. You can add a separate system on the back and switch between them at will. Adaptive weapon systems using servos and linear actuators (think Seism 13's wedges, ) can be just as viable if there is a human controlling them. Mecanum-like drive systems allowing your robot to strafe are easily driven by a human with a bit of practice. it's mind blowing how much the game opens up creatively once you remove ai limitations.
    Another huge deal though is the variety in arenas that would be available to use (or create). This has huge implications on all the other points above. Fight in the octagon or the compressor or heck even the obstacle course arenas with no trouble. Certain bot types that are normally obscenely powerful become weak in the right arena. SnS ruining your day? Pit him. Push him under a hammer! Use your brain! People don't even think of these things since they haven't had to for so long. New crazy arenas that take immense driving skill that ai would destroy themselves on can become crazy fun to play on and watch. One person can build and hand the robot off to a person who is amazing at driving! There are so many possibilities.
    However possibly the biggest benefit though is it would make tournaments a total blast. Like, seriously. Seeing a robot driven by people as opposed to AIed is night and day. You can use flair! You can use strategy. you can make fun of sage cause he cant drive And most of all, it is much more fun to watch. I guarantee tournaments will take off if you can see videos of human opponents. Half the people don't even watch tournament videos anymore and just read synopses. Online play will add some much needed entertainment value.

This is just the beginning.
There are so many possibilities that most people don't even think of because they are so used to building around ai limitations and thinking in that limited mindset.


I beg, I IMPLORE the community to try and find a fix for this. This is the BIGGEST issue in RA2 right now bar none.
We used to play RA2 on 'lan' severs hosted on Hamachi, which was unplayable. We currently use Gameranger, which is slightly less unplayable, but still abysmal (ie 10+ second lag at times). I know for a fact that RA2 works like a dream when played on an actual local network. There is no input delay whatsoever. I've tried with college buddies and its the most fun I think i've ever had in the game. THIS is how RA2 was meant to be played. I'm trying to find solutions but I'm not the best at netcode or modding and am only one man. But I guarantee that if online becomes a reality, this will save the game.

Is it possible to host a dedicated ra2 server? From what I've heard when gamespy was up the lag was not necessarily bad, but i'm not sure if it's possible to host a personal one at all, let alone with good results. That might be a good first step if anyone has a server they would be willing to test with. apanx and i messed around a little with another client but its a bit too early to see how good this is.

Please discuss, we need to find some sort of fix for this. Any ideas would help.







Possible solutions / Issues

Hamachi / incredible latency issues for the non-host, upwards of 10+ seconds of lag.
Gameranger / similar to hamachi, though generally slightly better performance. still bad.

Alternative such as Tunngle? / TBD
Dedicated server / TBD, may not be possible
Gaminganywhere VM client /apanx is testing this a bit and seems to have a bit of luck so far, still seems to be fairly laggy without a way to mess with RA2 coding
NVIDIA Gamestream (thanks Mattiator) / Requires both parties to have NVIDIA cards, and both parties to have a copy of the robot. other issues TBD, but seems to currently be the most promising option
Parsec Gaming / client similar to NVIDIA Gamestream, but without the NVIDIA card requirement. Initial testing shows promise.



bring up any ideas and I'll add useful ones to this post. And please, just because the possible solutions may have issues doesn't mean it's out of the park. please test on them if you can. Anything helps.

35
Off-Topic Discussion / idiot trying to hack my site
« on: December 27, 2016, 10:12:42 PM »
so i have this website that i registered a domain and hosting for etc over thanksgiving which isn't finished or ready to show to the public yet, but is live. i'm going to use it to host my webcomic. haven't had time to work on it much yet but i've installed security plugins and such to hopefully make it a pain to have unscrupulous individuals take it over.

it's working so far. over christmas i got a ton of emails saying there was this nerd trying to login to my site repeatedly under administrator usernames and such. my security plugin auto-bans IPs for failed attemps like these, but he keeps going at it by switching IPs every time. Either he is the world's best drag racer and hacker combo dream, or his constant switching of IPs around russia and brazil tell me he's got some auto-program trying to crack this thing. that and he's been going it for days on end which tells me the only other alternative is for him to be a terminator. except terminators i think were good with computers.
the thing is, he's picked probably the single worst way to try to take over the site. he's trying to login via 'admin', which for one I'm not sure actually exists by that name on my site, and two, my plugin auto-kicks anyone who even tries to login by that username. even if he did get the pass right it wouldn't let him on, lmao

so, nearly three days later and he's still going at it, with a failed attempt being emailed to me on average every 7 minutes. i have a couple hundred of these emails so far, and i'm less worried about having the website compromised as i am in my beloved pet's state of well-being. i've named my hacker Jean-Pierre. In my mind he is a 34-year old unemployed french man who lives in his mother's basement and eats potato chips off his chest all day. he just took a hacking course on wiki-answers.com and has his hacking program 'Hack-EZ' he downloaded off CNet in the background trying to take over my site and the US air force's on his 2002 Dell Inspiron while he plays COD. In frustration, he notices that yet another of his Xbox controllers has stopped working, no doubt due to the half pound mass of potato chip dust wedged inside. He thinks about going to the local gamestop to get another but realizes that means he will have to get up and he was close to breaking a new personal record in lethargy. without thinking much at all, he lies there idly and eventually goes to sleep to the glow of his tv. another day well spent.


so yeah idk i thought this experience was funny but wow i am getting sick of all these emails

36
Discussion / so are we okay with making the weightclasses even numbers
« on: December 24, 2016, 12:39:17 AM »
was wondering about this. are we okay with having LW be up to 250 and MW 400 (or 249.9 or 399.9 idk)? unofficial weighclasses we make are always on the even numbers [125, 175, 600], and Ironforge does its own version. nobody complains about those.
i know it might be a bit confusing for new players but i doubt its any more confusing than how skitzo the weightclasses are anyway, especially if sometimes 399 can read as MW or HW  :dumb)

i've never had too much of an opinion on this and wanted to see where people stand. i dont think ive seen a discussion on it before either which surprises me a bit

37
Site News and Feedback / chat box?
« on: October 06, 2016, 12:31:44 AM »
the front page one
whered it go again?

38
Challenge Board / Reier vs Gauche Suede (Reier Wins)
« on: April 03, 2016, 06:55:15 PM »
IF bo3 in ring arena, HW blah blah BASICALLY THIS
https://gametechmods.com/forums/index.php?topic=18808.0
but this time hopefully GS will enter a bot that has isn't made out of antimatter.

LEZZZZZGO

39
Creativity Showcase / The Belugaman Archive
« on: March 31, 2016, 05:50:16 PM »
since many newbies don't know of the LEGEND that is belugaman and since the old comics are also buried deep in the artwork thread
behold










now this thread can sit here for another 7 years or so until I do another comic.

40
Challenge Board / Reier vs Gauche Suede (Reier Wins)
« on: March 30, 2016, 01:05:38 PM »
IF HW bo3 in ring arena
no SnS or U shaped chassisese.

redace wants to be the first to get an autograph from the champion

will send our bots shortly

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