Messages

161

DSL TC Showcases / Re: Naryar's DSL showcase - The manliest, most baguette showcase of all

« on: January 01, 2020, 03:17:08 PM »

hey old timer
i mean whatever you do it's gonna beat the snot out of any current bot but darnit im still gonna give feedback

i still encourage you to try PvP through parsec because it makes a lot of bot types more viable and gives a lot of room to innovate without the shackles of AI. i think a flipper/juggler hybrid is a great candidate for this kind of thing

i'm a little concerned with it being underweaponed and a lot concerned with only having a single spinner, i feel like two would make it a lot more stable and easier to juggle but i could be wrong. the flippers are probably a little superfluous but if you use it in pvp you can strategically flip to keep opponents off balance which could be very useful. you might as well make the flipper skirts the angled ones to get a bit larger surface area, you have the weight.

EDIT: consarn it you added another one when i was typing. but its not a true phil clone unless you use exclusively overkill tires/gigantic treads with insane servo weapons!

i kind of fail to see the point of the JX. it's solid, not much else to say. if you ditch the jx you can get away with lighter extenders than tite and add some armor panels by the wheels or something. i guess if you got rid of the back skirt and swapped the jx to move the upper spikes it could self right lmao


glad you're still building chief. i might throw together that sns/flipper myself that i was suggesting a few pages back. if you ever want to try parsec pvp sometime hit me up.cross-atlantic lag might be a little rough but trust me it is waaaay better than hamachi or gameranger.

162

DSL TC Showcases / Re: RedAce's DSL Showcase

« on: December 29, 2019, 05:28:47 PM »

can't really give advice on an irl bot but looks pretty good man. bit sad no internals though. fun artbot

163

Ironforge TC Showcases / Re: The Mighty Reier's "legal monopoly on this meta" Ironforge extravaganza

« on: December 28, 2019, 10:52:38 PM »

hey reier. this is a badass showcase.

keep on trucking and keeping ironforge alive

Obviously Reier is carrying not just IF but most of DSL-S on his shoulders, one look at Reier AI and the amount of detail in the robots is painful. There are a few other good builders but not many people post DSL-S style bots nowadays at all really.

thanks buds. gets pretty depressing when i'm the only one posting combat effective bots anymore. it's just sad that people only build artbots now (and this is coming from someone who is an actual artist irl). I miss the engineering. irl bots can't fight and that's kind of the goal of building in my mind so i feel myself building less and less since no one cares.

maybe i'm a relic of a bygone age but i hate that building hasn't really evolved in any meaningful ways in like 5 years. just hard to build now when i'm the only one left and no one else even bothers to post. it's like why am i even trying. I really do feel like the last builder left whether that's true or not. At least for the engineering aspect of the game. I do appreciate your comments though, means a lot.

take care champ

164

Discussion / Re: signature bot facts

« on: December 28, 2019, 10:13:09 PM »

yall know if youd just post bots where theyre supposed to be (the showcase) then we would actually have a reference

165

Existing Games / Re: ROBOT RAGE

« on: December 25, 2019, 01:31:33 AM »

what is this?

You never seen this, bud? This game was on Miniclip once upon a time- where all the cool kids use to go for their Club Penguins and Metal Slug rip-offs.

he is ten years younger than us

166

Off-Topic Discussion / Re: RA2 Awards 2019

« on: December 14, 2019, 07:18:58 PM »

Just an update: on top of the current hall of fame vote, we'll be having having a second 'legacy' hall of fame for a handful of members who were monumental to the development of ra2. said HOF will be decided on by staff, and in no way will it affect the current/modern hall of fame vote

Voting closes on the 20th btw

thank you.

167

Off-Topic Discussion / Re: Damn, there are still people posting here?

« on: December 11, 2019, 12:21:45 PM »

discord doesnt keep a record of posts. it's hardly a replacement

168

Existing Games / Re: Pokemon Thread

« on: December 11, 2019, 12:19:53 PM »

that reminds me
i did an art trade with someone who wanted me to draw that wrestling cat starter

fried chicken tonight

169

Creativity Showcase / Re: reier makes pictures

« on: November 30, 2019, 09:50:01 PM »

dakka

170

Off-Topic Discussion / Re: for archiving purposes

« on: November 08, 2019, 01:20:25 AM »

who are any of these people

171

Creativity Showcase / Re: reier makes pictures

« on: November 04, 2019, 07:58:46 PM »

another dungeon of the endless char

172

Creativity Showcase / Re: reier makes pictures

« on: November 02, 2019, 01:45:45 PM »

dungeon of the endless



check it out its a rad game

173

Off-Topic Discussion / Re: real facts

« on: October 31, 2019, 08:55:14 PM »

its almost like cheating is good

174

DSL TC Showcases / Re: Badger's Bots (DSL Showcase)

« on: October 29, 2019, 02:39:52 PM »

what the is that 6 HWORF BLADES

he could probably scrounge the weight to stick on like 3 more

175

Contests / Re: Changes to BOTM

« on: October 24, 2019, 02:17:25 AM »

at the very least post a thread every month showing the participants after the vote so we actually have a record to look at in the future instead of it just getting destroyed immediately like in the discord

176

Ironforge TC Showcases / Re: The Mighty Reier's "legal monopoly on this meta" Ironforge extravaganza

« on: October 23, 2019, 05:00:18 PM »

This is pretty badass man

thanks stud so are you

177

Discussion / Re: Moldy Sponge 2: a glimpse into the PVP meta

« on: October 16, 2019, 03:05:24 AM »

i like how most of the posters eother havent watched the matches or have a bad case of the retroactive predictions

178

Creativity Showcase / Re: Hoppin's Robots that are CAD

« on: October 12, 2019, 06:48:36 PM »

good look to it but i hope that thing on top is a srimech or it would be toast

179

Discussion / Re: Moldy Sponge 2: a glimpse into the PVP meta

« on: October 12, 2019, 03:09:29 PM »

Epic sh**post

1v1 moldy sponge and lose noob

180

Discussion / Moldy Sponge 2: a glimpse into the PVP meta

« on: October 12, 2019, 02:44:57 PM »

(I wrote this right after we finished filming CENTAURI 3 while it was still fresh in my mind but didn't post it till now to avoid spoiling the matches)
TCRR: I might riff on this bot a bit but I mean no ill will. I really am glad you entered and I honestly learned a lot from the experience.

okay, so Code Red has kind of blown my mind. I like to think i know a thing or two about ra2 but I didn't see this coming at all.

So I just finished hosting CENTAURI 3, an 8-player pvp tournament using parsec. Code was one of the players that entered, with this... unique design... and, with all due respect, I actually was really close to rejecting it initially because I thought the build was too sloppy. It fishtails and is hard to drive, it's not invertible, has tinfoil armor, and the weapon looks like a joke. my thoughts were it was going to guaranteed die and eat up a slot that a more polished design could fill. especially because the last tournament of mine he entered a bot that was... well. special.

But boy was I wrong and I'm so glad I was. As I talked about in my topic about how pvp will save RA2, I predicted pvp would bring about the rise of a whole new meta and era of innovation if people just gave it a chance. In any AI tournament, this robot would lose 2-0 in both of its matches and be immediately removed from the competition. MS2 got a very neck-and-neck runner-up to a very solid wedgy VS. It consistently won matches, and against bots I thought would trounce it (including mine ).



There's a couple reasons why I think it did so well and why I think it matters:

We were all building like we would for an AI tournament. status quo stuff. 2wd wedgy VS, damaging weapons, etc. All of our weapons were front-facing and most of our bots had minimal side protection. You don't need much side protection in AI and most of us just thoughtlessly built around that mindset out of habit. MS2 hard countered a lot of our designs by eating wheels and motors left and right. Call us shortsighted for not putting wheelguards on but that's exactly my point - you have to build differently for pvp and I think that's a very good thing.

There was no way to see it coming. with an AI you can pretty easily predict what the fight is going to be like most of the time, but due to having a human driver, the bot was able to adapt as the fights went along. Code would change up his approach when something didn't work and most of the time it was effective. He'd switch from the plow to the spinner constantly. He didn't overly rely on one over the other, he would swap between pushing into hazards and going on the offense with his spinner and it worked very well.

Also: this. goofy. weapon. my goodness this thing. I swear it ripped some vital component off of every single competitor consistently every round of every fight. In my experience I thought both DSL bars and iron spikes on spinners were subpar. I never build weapons like this. But something about the position of these weapons allowed it to amputate some important part of his opponent like every round. It's kind of amazing and I personally want to look at it more. Without a human at the controls I feel it would do much worse, but that is hardly a negative.

Driving matters. Code is a much better driver than I thought he would be, especially considering how hard MS2 is to drive (its wicked hard). I feel this design would not work if you drive poorly. AI has no such concept.

In all, this isn't your everyday Razor Guy or Insult to Injury V - bots that were pretty bad but had a huge streak of wins or luck - MS2 is a different beast. In a lot of ways it's ahead of the curve. It looks subpar but it's innovative and very solid. Stuff like this is why I feel I can't go back to AI tournaments. you never see upsets like this in AI, at most you feel like it's a fluke. MS2 was no fluke. It may not have set the bot building world ablaze but I think it's a glimpse of how the pvp meta will evolve and that always makes me happy to see. I have never been so happy to lose a match in my life.