Not gonna lie, but the coverage of the fight there was totally BS. We all went absolutely ballistic when Razer went out, but the show made us sound comparatively indifferent.
Goddamnit Razer. I had my bets on you. They really need to use the good old battle songs, and goddamnit get Craig Charles there already.
And tbh, I've been enjoying BattleBots more.
So pleased that we had time to watch Dave combing his waistcoat and learn about a drone in a pub, as opposed to The General getting tossed by Shunt, or the damage done to Bonk, or Razer chomping down on Nuts' minibot, or learning anything about the House Robots, or Dara introducing the show and talking about the arena hazards.
It can also be predicted with reasonable confidence that Thor will be eliminated in the first round next episode.
Pretty sure that wasn't a first round match if you're talking about that clip of Thor being thrown OOTA by Matilda.
Oh yeah, my bad. I thought there was a third robot on it's back that was also OotA. Turns out we only saw Thor and TR2.
That MAY have been an exhibition match, but if not, it's basically telling us that TR2 is in the final four, since they aren't in the same heat. Unless they do a round robin for the final also.
It can also be predicted with reasonable confidence that Thor will be eliminated in the first round next episode.
Pretty sure that wasn't a first round match if you're talking about that clip of Thor being thrown OOTA by Matilda.
Oh yeah, my bad. I thought there was a third robot on it's back that was also OotA. Turns out we only saw Thor and TR2.
That MAY have been an exhibition match, but if not, it's basically telling us that TR2 is in the final four, since they aren't in the same heat. Unless they do a round robin for the final also.
Actually, now that you mention it, there was a clip in the intro of Behemoth fighting Gabriel. But Behemoth didn't go through... Wildcard spoiler?
This episode was totally nuts!
Well... not really.
To be blunt, the editor needs to get fired. What the heck was that, you talk about Razer and Kill-E Crank-E but show us Nuts and Terrorhurtz instead? important moments like Nuts falling into the pit don't get properly shown mentioned until a replay happened, and those were spammed as well, why not directly show it and only for the most important parts instead of showing the wrong clip/view first, then go to replay and only just then notice it? Wastes a lot screen time, also think the view could've been more zoomed out to show us more. JP's mic sounded really low quality at certain points, what's up with that?
Edit: I forgot to mention the intro voice, while I can see where they're going with the robotic theme, I prefer the old one more.
First Round Melee
"You only attack me and now want to drop me down the pit? I'm going to take you and your sausage rolls with me" it was hillarious to see Razer go out like that, personally I would've hoped that they stay for a bit more. Terrorhurtz has a good front wedge but I wonder why the wheels are so small and exposed.
I was a bit disappointed to see that there's only one house robot for the first round, probably to reduce the number of robots(so there's less chaos or radio control intereference) and because of the small arena(which, to be honest, looks like a RA2 arena and isn't as spectacular as the old one).
Great last second thought from Kill-E Crank-E dragging Razer down like that(and possibly saving themselves if they were further away).
While I'm not a big fan of Razer, I do think they should've had at least another fight(that was before I knew how the fight system is for round 2)
Nuts is a nice "joke bot entry" I know some people will dislike it, as it's probably one of those bots that was picked instead of a better working machine for more uniqueness, but I think this one might be the next Diotoir.
Terrorhurtz lookin' good so far.
Again, why didn't they show the part with Razer picking up the minibots?
Hearing how it's cold(and this will mess up all Co2 robots such as flippers, axes) is bad, why didn't they do anything against that beforehand? It's been a issue in one of the Extreme Series and probably a reason why this was all recorded in summer before.
First Round Melee 2
Bonk looked like a nice robot with that good armor, however a Co2 issue happened and you know the rest...
Behemoth looks good so far, hoping they go far this time around. Why does everyone except JP and the Behemoth Boys mispronunciate Behemoth, or is that an alternative way of saying it?
Carbide, the robot that the RW team was apparently looking forward to, looked destructive and Behemoth clearly avoided it.
The General, looks like something that would fit into the first few seasons of Battlebots.
Second Rounds
Ok, I'm not a big fan of this format, mostly because it can really wear down robots and alternatively give others easy victories, just like Carbide did, I'm thinking if this would favor any robot type(namely flippers since they don't cause much damage to other bots) but those would have to worry about damage as well, so probably not.
At least we have two house robots now, would still like 4(so the competitors can pick which one they want to push their enemy into) but the arena is probably too small for that.
Terrorhurtz vs Carbide: How nice of the Terrorhurtz team to help them, at first I wasn't sure if they were waiting to get Carbide in a good position before firing the axe(so it wouldn't bounce up and the underside would be vunerable) or if it was broken. Sad to hear that but they managed to win the entire fight with only a wedge, showing how effective that can be.
Behemoth vs Nuts: Did anyone else see the green fur on one of the minibots in the preview but that one was never in the arena? Sad, would've been fun if Bash was there. I felt like the Behemoth team was wasting a bit of time, usually not bad if you win via judges decision, but here it's only 2 and not 3 points, and as a flipper you need to get them either in the pit or flip them out of the arena.
"No I did not wanna be there, no nono no" :laughing
Also looks like Nuts put little flails on their minibots, did they have them before?
Behemoth almost throwed them out of the Arena, great fun.
Ugh, Floor Flipper firing at random and causing bots to get stuck on the arena floor again...
Ouch, Behemoth getting hit by Matilda like that wasn't good, and the fact that there is a big dent in there shows that the side armor might in fact be a weakness(even if it was adapted for Razer, according to an interview) not sure if Matilda should really have the flywheel on front like in Extreme 2, think it would be better if she used if after a robot stayed in the CPZ for a bit.
We saw Terror Turtle in the background! The talk about the Drones and the Exoskeleton was fun.
Behemoth vs Terrorhurtz
Like the Behemoth Boys mentioned, they were a bit trigger happy with their flipper, which got me a bit worried as Terrorhurtz was easily controlling the match, however I can see that this was done as defense against the Axe, after they realized that it was flipping over and done. While I enjoyed Behemoth vs Terrorhurtz, it was a Series 3 type of match, robots fight, one gets flipped over and it's over. Series 3 was my favorite series but I feel like this won't be as well recieved by other viewers. Looks like the Terrorhurtz team had their fun, but it's sad seeing a serious team have such problems with their main weapon.
Carbide vs Nuts: Carbide really took them apart, Nuts should've had the flails on the chassis instead(but that would cause other issues), taking the wheel off was a little unneeded, especially since they want to go on, and didn't the carbide team say that they will only do the minimum to make sure their blade is working? But it was still fun to watch.
"Noooo Nooo, not the minibot" :laughing
Behemoth vs Carbide: I really hoped that Behemoth would hold together, but soon the drive was gone on one side(did the damage from Matilda cause trouble?) after that parts needed to control the Bucket were gone and that was it... ouch.
Terrorhurtz vs Nuts: Nice to see that they got it fixed again, both teams. Terrorhurtz had trouble with the Nuts parts, see I told ya it was Diotoir all over again :P
I was hoping for another Terrorhurtz vs Behemoth, not for them to be eliminated that easily, but oh well...
Carbide vs Behemoth, yet again: seeing how the first fight went, I expected Behemoth not to win this, it lost drive again, this time on the other side, Carbide then lost it's blade, but Behemoth's drive only working half of the time ended up driving it into the pit(or was there radio control interference), when is it going to be the year of Behemoth?
Then again, to be fair, the bot was built together in a week.
Overall I'd say it was an alright episode, "apparently they got even more annoying flashing lights than Battlebots" like a Reddit user would say, I wasn't annoyed by that, but by the lack of music and poor editing, the teams are what made this better than just a ok but it still could've been better.
The bigger issue I see is how this will be recieved, every bot that made it past round 1 had it's issues:
Behemoth: Getting stuff done instead of dragging out matches
Terrorhurtz: The axe
Carbide: The spinning blade
Nuts: Well it was a joke bot, also the way the wheels were done often made it so that only one wheel touched the ground.
I bet that a lot of US people will now be like "oh total junk, Battlebots is thousands of times better than this and the UK can't build robots", them and their cockyness of their Battlebots bots(talked to a Interia Labs member who claimed that no UK bot would survive Battlebots some days ago...)
For a show that's supposed to focus more on the technical aspects, I don't think they did too much about it, but at least they talked with the teams- until they cut off the Behemoth Boys words and going over to talk with Carbide instead :(
There's still the wildcard spot and maybe side events.
Nuts is boring and a waste of an entry? oh shut up Badger stop being such a git on a team who just want to have fun! (jeez I wonder if he will carry on pestering them on how there bots underweight lol).
Cool, go have fun at robotic events that aren't televised. You can't say the the bot is fun to watch, it's like they designed the bot in every way to prevent fun occurring. It does no damage, has no effect on other bots and is a pain in the ass to damage with anything but spinners, which rape everything anyway. Good on them for having a cool gimmick with the hats etc, but I think it was a mistake to give them a spot for the show.
I disagree, they allowed some less technical advanced entries to enter so we have more unique bots to watch. In a way they are the new Diotoir and the team itself was very funny, crowd definitely enjoyed it.
It can also be predicted with reasonable confidence that Thor will be eliminated in the first round next episode.
Pretty sure that wasn't a first round match if you're talking about that clip of Thor being thrown OOTA by Matilda.
Oh yeah, my bad. I thought there was a third robot on it's back that was also OotA. Turns out we only saw Thor and TR2.
That MAY have been an exhibition match, but if not, it's basically telling us that TR2 is in the final four, since they aren't in the same heat. Unless they do a round robin for the final also.
Actually, now that you mention it, there was a clip in the intro of Behemoth fighting Gabriel. But Behemoth didn't go through... Wildcard spoiler?
Yesssss, I saw that(I think it's somewhere on the website) as well, maybe just a side event or from the first "test episode"?
Well, even if Cobalt burns out next Thursday, Team Carbide still has something to be proud of. That blade is amazingly strong.
...and Razer is easily the BTSHDBBDDTBL of this season. K-E C-E really got lucky there (their wheel was touching the ground at pretty much exactly the right time to take Razer out with them). Also, I noticed Razer was having trouble piercing K-E C-E; was the beak not strong enough, or is K-E C-E just a slippery dastard?
Good to see Terrorhurtz and Behemoth in fine form after all these years, even if they didn't win the heat. Shame about Bonk, since the guys behind it also built Mute, which was pretty successful.
As for Nuts... they fought valiantly, but I think literally no one was surprised when Carbide obliterated them. Points to them for managing to get the bot together for Terrorhurtz though.
All in all, can't wait for Ep. 2!
EDIT: Whoa whoa whoa whoa it says on the site that Behemoth won Heat A when they didn't. What gives?
My goodness this show desperately needs Craig Charles badly!
Im sorry to say.. it feels like im watching a documentary.. Slow-mo filter is being abused and Dara O'Brian just isnt exciting or fun
Im hoping its just teething and having the presenters getting into the groove, that said im glad they have JP on board again for a head start.
Times change and we cant have everything the same but the new Battlebots is seriously a lot more of a solid, well rounded show, viewers and more invested and that makes it more exciting to watch at this point.
I dont want to be all doom and gloom because the fights themselves were a lot of fun still
The new format is actually great and fair.. Robots can have a bad fight or technical problems but still have an opportunity to bounce back so very well done.
Sad to see Razer drop out so early.. but at least it went out in good fun...
Behemoth.. I really want these guys to win something haha they have tried so hard for so long with good robots but always fall short
Carbides looking strong, having limited oota zones should help it go far with that weapon.
Also John Reid, Always such a great guy running around helping out other teams
Well that about covers everything.. hopefully Robot Wars can build on the first episode and start to find their groove at this stage they have a bit of ground to make up on battlebots
S H O C K B O Y S
Also, Foxic's strategy was rather poor. They said "screw it, attack the house robots, we aren't gonna win" after one fight. And it wasn't exactly entertaining fights that came from it.
I have a lot of respect for Craig Danby (and anyone that can build a heavyweight robot), but I expected a little better.
Editing was MUCH better this time around, it was similar to how it was for the later half of the battles in Episode 1 which was good.
Is Thor built from the same team?
Huge shock to see Tough as Nails out in Round 1, looks like they need a stronger drive and better grip now.
Thor did do a amazing job, credit to them for knocking them out that way.
Swap my Foxic thoughts with Shockwave.
Shockwave looked like it wouldn't be as well engineered and probably slower and less powerful and be knocked out for it's weaker top armor.
While the engineering part was true for the drive chain and for the bucket(the pipe bits were strong, the connectors however not) they were a really powerful robot and reminded me a lot of Robot the Bruce from Robot Wars. As a bonus they even lost chains like Rex' machines used to.
They did try to fix the bucket later on, while it wasn't much more stable it had a better shape for catching robots, being more ( instead of |.
Mr Speed Squared(odd name by the way) looked like a first time entry spinner would look like, a good thing about RW is that it still allows beginners to get easier into stuff.
Not having armor on that underside was critical and after the few starting battles their spinner was too damaged to really continue doing damage like it did in the first fight against Draven(who sadly got knocked out by that).
Gonna call it now, WHEELS! will be a new meme.
Foxic was sadly a bit dissappointing.
It was surprisingly small and probably built for the 100kg limit. I didn't know that their team was one of those teams(I didn't know them before at all), having built so many robots before I thought they would actually know what to build, and because of that said no weakness instead to show. Drive and traction problems were very annoying and they were barely able to move in their first battle.
Dara did do a comment on them having a fox robot and I think they will be remembered a bit like Season 1 Complete Control. Sad that he called it a flipper and not a lifter what it actually is. Wonder why they couldn't fit on the other lifter and what all that axe talk was about. Sure the axe head wouldn't hit and the metal bar would instead, but not like that would be cut off by Foxic's wedge.
It was getting under Shockwave quite well, you can see them pushing their normal scoop downwards in the hope to get under them. They sure had powerful drive pushing Dead Metal around, but it was also easier since Dead Metal's wheels were off ground. Technically they are the first robot to attack house robots. Once they were upside down it was clear it was over for them, wedge designs like that sadly don't work on the other side.
"That's it, I'm going after the House Robots" didn't like that at all, they could still fix their bot, defeat the other and then go after the house robots.
With that said F*** the judges decision on that battle against mr speed squared. Foxic went after the house robots after a bit(guess that gives no points) got some damage from Dead Metal(counts against it) then pushed and lifted up Mr Speed Squared(who the entire time did nothing). "This might be the worst fight I've seen in the whole of Robot Wars", seriously? Unless that was banter I heavily disagree, let me name one, Napalm vs Warhog(think it was Series 4 or 5) with neither bot moving. Want another? Delldog vs Dynamite from the UK vs Germany special.
Sure it didn't change anything but just as I was about to say that this is a new fresh uncorrupted or rigged start we get that. Another thing I don't like is how if it goes to a judge's decision the other team doesn't get 1 point, so it's only a total disadvantage for the winning bot.
At least Foxit was able to do a little more against Thor, but it sadly wasn't too much until they got drive problems again. Matilda got a late revenge for Death Metal which was nice.
I wonder what drive Thor had, not only could they easily outpush TAN but also Shockwave. Also really strong hammer. The wedgelets didn't look as strong but they did their job, so did the rather small spinner plate. After seeing how they could control Shockwave I expected them to win this, Shockwave however made them lose and won. I'm a big fan of Shockwave as well, but sadly I can't see both of them having a chance against Carbide unless Thor would instafinish it and Shockwave not using that Bucket.
Sadly they didn't do interviews with the losing teams of the first round.
Was I the only one that noticed the intro(which house robot gets into the arena) was missing for the first of the second rounds?
Also could they stop firing the fires every time? just keep them at full power.
Fights were mostly uninteresting IMO and foxic vs mr speed squared
Oh come on, don't tell me you're one of those destruction guys too. The machines this time were working much better, you wouldn't have Terrorhurtz without a working Axe or Carbide without a working spinner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rKsTBX7zVk&feature=youtu.be&t=3m10s
To explain M. R. Speed Squared's name, you have to look and see that there is a period after m and r, so it wasn't supposed to be Mr. Also, Mass*radius*speed^2 is the equation for the linear kinetic energy of a rotating body so it's basically the equation used to find how hard their disc will hit at the tip. I like that name a lot. Although the usual equation uses velocity rather than speed.
Thanks, I did notice it later when checking some Reddit threads.
So I was finally able to watch the show yesterday and man is this boring at some points!
There's a major lack of enthusiasm. Everyone there looks like they want this to be over asap. and yes having more than just 4 battles per episode is awesome (looking at you battlebots) I don't want to see the same 4 bots fighting over and over. and if you do so get the mood right god damit! The intros suck, the annoucning voice sucks and you never understand where the teams are from. you can only hear the names of the bots but that's becaus you've read them before.
I felt like they were simply neutral, doesn't have that feeling to me. Anything that isn't the stupid "fake drama, action, destruction" show that mentorn tried to pull since Extreme 1 is already better and enjoyable.
One advantage of this system(I'm not much of a fan of it either) is that you get to see a lot of battles and "what if X robot fought Y robot", it's not terrible.
I'm not fan of the intro voice as well but I can understand where they're from(no offense but it might be because I have more english knowledge?), there was some noise in episode 1(and seeing how they filmed a episode before this just to test out cameras and editing, episode 1 has no right to have so much poor editing) but episode 2 fixed it.
the robots... we had Tough A$$ Nails who was there. and then it was gone. We had Breaker Box and Ringmaster wich was cool! ... What? those were two s*tty versions of those bots? oh. well at least we had thor. That bot did great until it failed in the heat final (wich I told my friend who was watching with me would happen cause that sort of stuff always happens). And there is another flaw: why the hell would you fight a bot you have already beaten again and again? this setup sucks so much.
I was really happy when it was over. I will watch the other shows but I doubt there will be a second season.
If so there has to be a huge change in pretty much everything.
They got unlucky with the safety link and are going to use a different one for next time.
Breaker Box? You mean KaNuckle Buster http://robotica.wikia.com/wiki/KaNuckle_Buster (http://robotica.wikia.com/wiki/KaNuckle_Buster) just because something uses a similar mechanic or is a blade spinner(instead of ring spinner) doesn't mean it's a insta copy, or would you call all crushers a clone of Razer?
Yes, sadly you get to see a repeat but it allows the team to make up for a cheap loss that they had before(link going out) or to try something out with a different loadout.Shockwave vs Thor being a good example here.
I found it ok, definitely better than the last few Series of robot wars, and would like to have a second season even if it's the same as this, better to still have this going than have nothing at all. Battlebots seems to drift into the direction where Robot Wars Series 7 went(and ironically will be shown on Channel 5! in the UK, the channel where RW's last series was broadcasted before going down) wouldn't be surprised if whoever is the boss of that decided "oh it didn't get as many views as we wanted, lets cancel it instead of seeing where the problem was".
The teams(and robots) are what make the episode for me, and while this shows that the show needs a bit more work on their other things, it's also a good sign showing that they're focusing on the competitors(like they originally said they would) and that those are doing stuff well. Team Nuts commentary or Foxic pushing Dead Metal around the arena were highlights for me.
I get television ratings but why stack heat A with Razer, Terrorhurtz, Behemoth and Carbide and leave heat B scratching a little?
All in all this episode was surprisingly paced better then the first so some improvements in post production there,
Angela is starting to find her feet in the role and doing really well, Dara seems like a nice guy but he still just isnt exciting enough... Robot Wars need their own Faruq right before battles
Ive not mentioned this yet but I quite like the new arena, its nice and fresh and easier to see the action and little bits and pieces bounce off the robots
Seemingly turning up the crowd mic's for this one gets a big plus from me too
I love the new Matilda too.. looks so sleek and purposeful looking now.. I totally didnt realise the whole head bucks on this version
I have more confidence they are heading in the right direction, Battlebots is just hitting all the notes perfectly this year making it hard.
Heat A had the more popular returning teams(most of B were part of Robot Wars before, just not as popular or with a completely new bot) however the ones in Heat B at least worked better, not having Terrorhurtz without working Axe and Carbide without Spinner.
Well they did say that they want to focus more on the Robots and Roboteers, which they're doing.
Personally I liked the old Arena more since it felt bigger, but good that this new one is finally up to the security standards(Series 7 felt like it was held together with duct tape and chewing gum) I think the new Matilda is a bit too wide, but other than that good, it's still a bit hard to decide when to use the spinner(think best would be to only spin it up once a competitor reaches the CPZ and then move in for one big hit?)
Finally getting used to the new arena and the cameras now. I've shaken off the old nostalgia and I'm pretty pleased with the new series, although there are still a lot of kinks to iron out
Foxic was acting like a good fox should act. Not wanting to hurt anyone and just trying to nuzzle and cuddle them instead.
Could have done worse, mind you.
Darn, now I'm finding Foxic cute.
Edit: was I the only one who watched?
Dantomkia vs King B Remix vs Glitterbomb vs Overdozer
Like expected, the two veterans go on, JP's commentary however wasn't exactly accurate when he said that King B didn't do anything, he was the first one attacking Overdozer, knocking one wheel off and immobilizing them. Glitterbomb didn't seem to be that well engineered and had Co2 problems, resulting in it getting unable to self right. Overdozer was apparently only built together in five days, for that it's definitely good. Wood itself probably wouldn't be a terrible armor choice but their stuff just wasn't secured right so their armor "plates" started falling off.
I did like Dara's comment "You made a boat with a petrol engine which could burn down your boat", but hey the team had fun.
TR2 vs Big Nipper vs Supernova vs Orte
Orte was having trouble with the speed controller and Supernova had to replace their electronics, not being able to test them before the fight. Surprisingly Supernova worked rather well, but it wasn't as you'd expect, the veterans, Supernova and Orte(Bigger Brother) going on, Supernova got pushed a bit around at first and then hit Orte(for some reason JP saw that as hit from Big Nipper even if it clearly wasn't) knocking their safety link out. Big Nipper then had a direct front collision with them which bent their spinner and I think also ripped away the tooth from Supernova's disc.
TR2 had Co2 problems as well, with their flipper(which I'd say is alright) and their axe(ugh, stop already doing those double weapon setups with flippers, completely wasted weight). They did shove Supernova around who nearly fell into the pit and had to fight the gyroscopic forces. With no teeth on their disc they wouldn't hit the floor and fall on one of their side but instead spin almost sideways. Big Nipper almost drove into the pit but could save itself. Later on the same thing happened with Supernova except this time it lost the wheel protection and the disc dragged them forwards on the ground, right into the pit taking them out.
Some words before I go over to the matches:
The Dantomkia driver is a dick, all that's left of the original is the machine and I'd love to see Mike back, this new guy can take his recolor(which is most likely owned by another team) and go to back to Battlebots.
It really looks like they were having problems cutting down the time for the episode. This time the countdown already stars while JP still talks about both robots with the stats up and some JP clips sounded very edited, one time you would have him say and-instantly continuing with something else while other times it felt like there's a huge delay.
Dantomkia vs King B Remix
The DTK driver went for the OOTA but launched the flipper too early, resulting in King B getting stuck(what a garbage setup in the arena, you should make that robots don't get stuck like that) apparently King B now increased their power(guys, keep it at the working level before overclocking it) which completely snapped a chain.
TR2 vs Big Nipper(claw setup)
So Big Nipper went for the claws since their spinner was bent and probably needed more time to be ready again(the producers later said how they're unsure on which weapon to use which I found stupid but whatever) TR2 had no trouble getting underneath except for the claw on the front and tried to OOTA them but just didn't have the power.
Dead Metal got some use, Big Nipper again slided towards the pit but this time none of the wheels were touching the ground, giving TR2 a easy time to shove them into the pit.
Dantomkia vs TR2
I expected this as well in the heat final, with DTK winning because it's better engineered. TR2 didn't have much trouble getting under them and tried to OOTA them but just lacked the power. Dantomkia's flipper didn't have the power it usually has and later got stuck open, giving TR2 a easy time to flip them over and then come in with their axe which is now called a "bumaxe".
King B Remix vs Big Nipper(spinner)
King B was showing early aggression, someone hit the pit button(this happend a lot in this episode, the pit button randomly being hit, bad editing didn't show who did), Big Nipper later got the spinner running and hit the BACK side of King B, yes that's the back and not the front JP. King B has two safety links, one on top and the other one on the back, that one got knocked out. No idea why they were driving into them backwards, especially if they know the link's there.
King B Remix vs TR2
TR2 had a easier time getting under them. I gotta say the use of Killalot is good here, he picks up the robot, holds it over the flame pit and drops it down, no parading around like back in Extreme. Think Killalot hit their safety switch and King B went out.
Dantomkia vs Big Nipper(spinner)
Big Nipper got flipped over which stopped it's spinner(bad design, add something on top so all that energy doesn't go to waste), Killalot picked them up, then did the same thing again but then broke down?! Upon looking at it again I can see that his lance got stuck in the Arena. So Killalot was stuck there, Big Nipper escaped the corner and hit Dantomkia's flipper, probably ripping part of the front off.
The judges gave it to DTK, giving us the expected final. "Hot flipper on flipper action", hey it was their quote, not mine.
Dantomkia vs TR2
DTK again got flipped around easier until the floor flipper got it, DTK then got a flip in, both were near Matilda, Matilda got some hits on DTK and one on TR2. According to JP this battle was like a grand final. DTK vented some gas after that, looked like Matilda's hits(there was also a hit to the firing flipper) did knock out the flipper and the rear support, keeping down the front. TR2 tried to flip them and drove on to the floor flipper which flipped DTK into one of the corners. They were unable to self right and time just run out with TR2 pushing them around.
TR2 is a good team in my view, however their flipper is only ok and I see them going out to Carbide. If we don't get any challenge soon(don't think Shockwave's wedge is strong enough?) it will be a easy final for Carbide. Seriously, the mechanical fails in Episode 1 and 2 were ok, but here again? Some parts of JP's commentary were a bit off, all this leaves me wondering if this episode had less quality than the last one.
Well, that's 2 of my 5 to go through to the finals out of the runnings. Curse you, gyroscopes!
Last week was eh. Hoped that Supernova would get through, and I was someone disappointed with how DTK beat Big Nipper. I think the corner patrol zones are perhaps too big given how hard it was for Big Nipper to escape. If it wasn't repeatedly held there for long periods I think it would have beaten DTK.
Was anyone really, really,
annoyed with the new Dantomkia team? I mean I love the bot (as a lot of people do), but these guys were terrible drivers, the "captain" wailing on the bot with a hammer pretending to fix it (I know the military grade armour can withstand it, but still) and the fact that they performed so poorly.
In some of the early fights it was like they just discovered they could flip stuff. The constant "putting the tail up" so it couldn't get under TR2 in the final like at all, these guys really ruined the episode for me.
As a side note, I thought TR2 was a decent new comer (aside from the "axe") and the 15 year old doing the driving did really well and they did deserve to go through all in all, Dantomkia has just been ruined for me and my brother...
Anyone else agree?
Yeah I was as well, check my post.
Apparently its yet another show team and they're nice guys, with the original driver of Dantomkia saying that it's in good hands with that team.
Still unhappy about them hitting the bot.
As for the other things, many teams didn't get enough time so we see a lot of links getting knocked outs or mechanical problems.
TR2 did have the better ground clearance, and in the final, after the hits from Matilda their flipper as well as their tail didn't work right anymore so the robot couldn't keep itself down.
Guys: the flippers like TR2 were performing badly there because of the arena conditions. The extremely cold temperature means that some teams reported they had pneumatics problems - the temperature was also the source of some of Terrorhurtz's issues. It's something they really need to think about resolving for the second series - the robots will hopefully naturally be higher quality because people will have more than a couple of months at most to design and build.
I get the conditions weren't great, but TR2 performed fine... Dantomkia on the other hand... He has a back tail that the team must place "up" which keeps the front of the bot angled down in order for them to get under other bots. The team were seemingly unaware of this and kept raising and lowering it repeatedly. It was frustrating haha.
But yes, I did feel sorry for terrorhurtz and the the issue does need to be resolved.
Was anyone really, really,
annoyed with the new Dantomkia team? I mean I love the bot (as a lot of people do), but these guys were terrible drivers, the "captain" wailing on the bot with a hammer pretending to fix it (I know the military grade armour can withstand it, but still) and the fact that they performed so poorly.
In some of the early fights it was like they just discovered they could flip stuff. The constant "putting the tail up" so it couldn't get under TR2 in the final like at all, these guys really ruined the episode for me.
As a side note, I thought TR2 was a decent new comer (aside from the "axe") and the 15 year old doing the driving did really well and they did deserve to go through all in all, Dantomkia has just been ruined for me and my brother...
Anyone else agree?
Yeah I was as well, check my post.
Apparently its yet another show team and they're nice guys, with the original driver of Dantomkia saying that it's in good hands with that team.
Still unhappy about them hitting the bot.
As for the other things, many teams didn't get enough time so we see a lot of links getting knocked outs or mechanical problems.
TR2 did have the better ground clearance, and in the final, after the hits from Matilda their flipper as well as their tail didn't work right anymore so the robot couldn't keep itself down.
Just read your post. Pretty much agree with everything you said. Although I think TR2 would do alright against Carbide. The scoop on the front looks quite well armoured and should be able to take at least a couple hits, giving them time to throw carbide around a bit and hopefully put the blade out of commission. You're right though, they haven't got much competition at the moment, unless the wildcard is going to be Razor!
Wait R01 isn't skid steering what literally every robot except Killerhurtz used?
As far as I know that's tank steering what you mean(also a few other robots, Onslaught and Demolishor, think there were a few other smaller entries as well, used car steering.) Skid Steering basically allows a "what if the wheels on the back were 90 degree rotated" kind of situation.
Killerhurtz did have fans on their bot at one point which basically allowed it to move across walls. Terrorhurtz and Beta were supposed to have that at one point but in the end it didn't work out so that's why they got magnets, but that's a different story.
I'm not a roboteer or have looked much into that but the RW wiki mentions the following for Groundhog(Series 2 bot by Firestorm):
Each wheel was powered by a cordless drill motor, and driven by a gearbox from an angle grinder. The rear wheels were unique "omniwheels," tyres embedded with rubber rollers that allowed them to skid sideways. This type of wheel would later be used by Razer, and several others after Robot Wars ended.
I do know what omni wheels are and based on this screenshot, Razer had them ever since Series 3(but never used them that much until later in it's more successful series in Series 5 and 6):
(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/robotwars/images/3/30/Razer_malfuctions.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20150430105241)
I remember Razer using it well in some battles to the point where other bots couldn't do anything but drive up it's scoop. Don't have time to find all those battles but I did quickly create this gif:
(http://i.imgur.com/ZH5JYSV.gif)
you saw 2 of them in battle.
1. front hinged bar lifter (eg sewer snake vs storm 2)
2. 4-bar lifter (plenty of pictures)
3. the disc (in all the promo material but NEVER USED)
Oh so they still have the
Old Biohazad lifter, thought they replaced that with the front hinged lifter(which I personally compare to Firestorm). In the show the producer crew sometimes mention weapons wrong and I think the one time Storm 2 had the 4 bar lifter they didn't use it in the battle.
The Disc could be seen on the table when they were talking about some matches, like Rob Collins mentioned here.
Was it just me or did it feel like storm2 was much slower than in series 7? Felt like it was much more about control and not about slamming bots into walls harambe style. I think Eruption get **** over in their match vs storm too, looked to me like storm was immobile before the 10 second end of match counter. Even discounting that, I feel it was eruption's match. Storm had more control but did absolutely nothing with it at all.
Apollo was very impressive, as was PP3D who was the only bot that managed to damage Eruption or Storm, both of which seem to have thick frontal anti-spinner armour.
I can safely confirm that this episode doesn't have
which I really liked, there were other issues that I had with the show, the teams however were amazing, so let's get those out of the way first:
I've noticed that the intro has clips from the episode, they don't spoiler fights yet(unlike Series 5/6's) which doesn't make them an issue, I just hope they keep it that way.
In my view, this show seems to take more inspiration from the later Series(Series 5/6, as well as a bit of Extrme) of Robot Wars, personally I liked the Series 3/4 format the most and hope that they take a look at that. Series 5 and 6 had the better competitors and bots, that's for sure, but the show itself was best in those two Series, at least for me.
Some of the team talks reminded me of Series 7, how they would go to a robot and be like "what does it do" while it has a obvious spinner or flipper on it. It didn't come off as this way in this show, it sounded more like Series 3 where the teams got a quick introduction. I was happy that they understood the concept of the undercutter and were amazed by the crushing jaws.
I don't like some of JP's "oh this is bad" comments like the limited supply on flippers, you have that, yes, but unless it's really low it's not worth mentioning, spinners and all bots have only a limited supply of batteries as well, and while a wood inside frame is dated, it can still be used fine, it's not the same as having wood on the outside.
"Could they be flipped, yes they can"
Generic sound effects, why can't we just have the unedited sound and instead have those sound effects, which sound like they're from RA3 and were edited especially bad in this episde, put into it.
A lot of the talk feels like it's suddenly cut.
They really try to avoid mentioning anything of the old series, don't they?
I feel like they should add more stuff to the stats window similar to what Series 3/4 had so you can have a separate tab for armor and notes(instead of having it in defense and putting clusterbots in there)
Scrap the talk about "technology in other places", this time's was about gadgets and raspberry pi's, however the talk didn't really feel structured and they drifted over to the internet how you can talk with everyone over the world. It's not that I don't like this category, but it ends up cutting time for the fight interviews and other stuff, so it's time that could be used for better things. If you look at one episode you will also quickly see how much time is spent between the end of one fight and the next one, but at least it's used well for introducing the roboteers and talking after the fight with them.
It feels like it's way too easy to get the pit activated by accident, move the tyre a bit more outwards so it's like this: _|---|_
Battle 1:
Apollo vs Kan-Opener vs PP3D vs Sweeney Todd
I don't think this was the first robot to have 3d printed parts, didn't one of the Heat A or B bots already have that?
I didn't think that Sweeny Todd would be that light(didn't have time to read the robot pages before this episode) and those cutting discs didn't look like the powerful ones like Red Devil, so we have Series 3 weapons here... at least they have omniwheels but such low weight probably means weak drive as well...
Kan Opener opens the pit and Apollo has a bit of a clumsy start, driving over the floor flipper. I think it's a bit hard to see which corner has it, so adding something on top of it should most likely be done for season 2.
I thought it would be it for Apollo after I saw them lose that tyre, later on however they were driving perfectly again which made me wonder if that was really the wheel that they lost(turns out it was).
Kan Opener got a good grip on PP3D and I thought that would be it for them, they avoided the flip and then Apollo came in, kinda ruining their grab but they were still able to hold them until Apollo flipped them.¨
PP3d then tried to use the floor flipper to run on the right side but gyroscopic forces stopped that, I really don't know why the team didn't add a angled part so that they don't hit the floor with their spinner, something like this from side view LO\
Sweeny Todd then lost a disc to PP3d and Apollo once again annoyed Kan Opener, leading to them getting the link knocked out. Thought we would have another episode like that but it will be the only important link knockout(and only one of two) for this episode.
Sweeny Todd was still mobile so I was surprised that they didn't mention something about the judges decision(probably to save broadcasting time) but it was obvious who would go through, you could see how Apollo tried to OOTA them.
Don't think that a bot like kan opener could crush a bot like Dara imagines it working. They got unlucky because Apollo got into their way more than once.
Battle 2:
Eruption vs Sabretooth vs Storm 2 vs Terror Turtle
I totally forgot that Terror Turtle was in this heat already(thought it was one later), first time that we see the hatchling and I disagree with Dara that minibots are just for show, even simple ones like the ones from team nuts can get under other robots and wedge them for a bit. Is Fiberglass really that strong? They were talking it up a lot and from what I've seen I'd say it's weak in today's combat standards.
Seeing Sabretooth as a image of the show with them being in the first part of the show's intro and having that other interview, I expected them to do better, but once again something broke for them(anyone remember Series 5/6 "Philippa, what's up with that Motorbike?") I feel like the team member that described the bot didn't fully understand it (also spinned the drum in the wrong way)or was nervous being on TV, understandable. So they had a hypershock like drum, a arm to grapple and self right and a anti spinner wedge(which probably had some kind of lifting mechanism to it? Because they did mention a lifter somewhere.)
"Don't tell anyone" was funny :P
Storm 2, the new Mortis, now with a darker look. Love that they have such a detailed analysis but was unsure about the firestorm front hinged flipper first, it does allow them to self right, which helps with the wedges being rather useless when upside down.
Really friendly team and they worked together with the Eruption team to get a little bit of show going towards the end when the battle was already clear.
Dara already seems to question Storm 2 and this trend continues with JP later saying that it didn't do much in it's first battle(which I disagree with) can't we have powerful rammers and pushers now?
Eruption looks nice and like a veteran to the combat zone now, don't see the grabber being of use or really being able to grab a robot up there(getting it up there is one point, having a bot that's low enough to be grabbed is another) but the anti spinner armor is nice.
Eruption's second flip got Sabretooth over while Storm2 pushed Terrorturtle over the flamepit in the meantime. Nice flip from Eruption, but I feel like the angle made it look a lot better than it was.
Head to Head Battles:
Apollo vs PP3D
I'd much rather seen a fight from the other group instead of the same, felt a bit like a repeat. But I don't agree with JP at all, PP3d could attack since Apollo had their back to them and focused on another bot.
Apollo sure had a lot of hard repairs to do after that fight to get the wheel working again.
Apollo started driving nicely, did a rather large turn but kept that front turned, and then it happened, the powerful flip that took off a wheel. PP3d now would've needed melty brain to continue(even then it's disc was still touching the ground a bit) :P
Was worried for a second that they had drive problems because of JP's comment which was garbage again. Apollo probably would've won at this point but they went in for another flip when that disc was at full speed and knocked out the link(the back side of PP3D didn't seem to have armor?)
I like how Apollo has those side pannels, makes it easy for the link to be removeable but still be in a safe place.
Storm2 vs Eruption
It felt like Killalot got way too early in here, if a bot just touches the edge of a CPZ they shouldn't be like that, Dead Metal and Matilda(who didn't even spin up her disc until someone really entered her zone) did a better job at that and I respect how they did it.
Storm2 dominated that match, with Eruption only getting good towards the end where Storm 2 lost their link/broke down for some reason.
Again JP says "not a lot of action out of Storm2 late on" when they controled most of that match. I felt like the producers were trying to play the judges decision a bit up here, but you can see both teams agreeing on it, even going like "no they should've won it" by Storm2. I did like the feedback from the other judge.
Storm2 vs Apollo
Oh man this is the battle that we will all be talking about in years. Apollo apparently couldn't run their flipper at full power before, and they weren't just boasting about it, they did worry about getting under the well designed Storm 2.
At first it looked like Storm2 would lead this match, Apollo then got under them and flipped them, driving them on to the floor flipper. Just as Storm2 was about finished with self righting it got flipped over again. Mentioned it above but I liked how Dead Metal stayed in it's corner instead of moving to the edge of the CPZ.
They stopped Storm 2 from self righting but they finally managed to do it after that. Storm 2 seemed to get stuck on the pit(another problem of the old Series, especially 5 and 6, bots getting stuck on the flipper/pit) while Apollo missed a flip. They then flipped them but got stuck on the pit itself, Dead Metal did move to the corner this time as Storm 2 entered it.
Apollo lost the chain(yet was still able to somewhat drive) and with Storm 2 opening the pit I thought they would end it. They tried to drive away from Storm 2 and went through the CPZ, running into Dead Metal, no way they're going to... THEY DID, just like Gravity, the only bot to flip Dead Metal(they are a full body lenght flipper after all), now if we only could have Matilda as well, she's probably easy to flip minus the flywheel which is on the entire time.
Dead Metal was venting some Co2?
I wasn't sure if Matilda would try to get revenge/control that CPZ now, but I found it nice that they would try to flip Dead Metal over again, wonder why they never did that in the original series(then again most house robot kills happened at the end of the battle with little time left).
Apollo got another flip in on Storm 2 which had trouble self righting. Storm 2 ended up pushing it into Dead Metal's(now controlled by Matlida) CPZ and she started spinning up the flywheel(nice that it wasn't active all the time), Apollo missed the flip and I thought they would get a heavy hit in from Matilda now, they avoided her and then got in from another side, directly going under the flywheel and FLIPPING her as well. Great fun.
Ther flipper now got stuck and Storm 2 had them in the direct course to the pit, I thought they would go out now but realy hoped they would survive until the cease(which looked like it would last until a while). They barely avoided it, then had drive problems(meanwhile JP was talking garbage on how Storm 2 played dead but the match was too interesting) then it looked like the entire drive was gone and that Storm 2 would have it.
It then started turning again, trying to block Storm 2 from pushing it by getting the flipper on front, Storm 2 got around them and I thought this would be it, however they managed to avoid it by driving over them and the countdown started, I was really hoping that they survive it now. Their drive then worked again and they were able to drive away, letting the time run out.
What an amazing match, Apollo, the Chaos 2 of this series, except with the shape and reliability problems of Spawn Again(or maybe Chaos 2 from the later series?). Now here I thought that Storm 2 would have it or that it would be a split decision, instead everyone voted for Apollo(I think this and the Eruption vote should've been swapped)
The Gudge was wrong when he said he never saw anything like that before(I think he was also the one that was part of Robot Wars since the beginning?), Chaos 2 flipped 2 house robots, and I guess you can say "destroyed" them after winning Series 3 and a few house robot kills happened after that.
Remember how a lot of the team had to help righting Psycho when Firestorm flipped him? Now they have to do the same with all house robots because of how happy they are :P
Eruption vs PP3D
you really saw PP3D's power as both bots were flying after impacts, one removed Eruption's Spinner armor on one side and knocked the drive out, ironically said hit also knocked out the drive on one of PP3D's side, nothing really happened in the fight, JP and other production crew were talking on how boring it is but the audience didn't seem to mind.
Both bots were great here, it was an amazing heat with 4 good bots, so it was sad to see one of them go out with almost no points.
Both had their motors burnt out with PP3D having no spare and getting a motor from another team which promised to give the motor to another team as well?
Eruption vs Apollo
I did expect Apollo to lose a battle because of it's bad reliablity and it happened here, didn't matter for the results through. Chain gone, Flipper stuck, all gone wrong, just like the Team said it(I loved that the team talked about the issues they were having, was giving a great view into the battle and what went wrong). Was the link just lose? because after Eruption flipped them into Dead Metal's CPZ they were working again just fine. At least we had Eruption spinning on the tip of it's flipper which was good show.
Storm2 vs PP3D
It was nice hearing that Storm 2 still has the 4 bar lifter but they didn't use it(was it stuck?) the plan about flipping them and then not having to worry about the disc is nice, however their disc can hit the floor if they turn fast, so it's still a worry.
Storm 2 was taking the blows from PP3D well, not getting knocked around that much and trying to keep the blade from spinning up, PP3D then got bounced into Shunt and ruined the bucket there, the bottom now has a hole in it. PP3D's blade showed it's power when it damaged the side skirts of Storm 2. Sounds like one of the impacts then bent the disc.
storm 2 then got a huge impact from the disc which sent it spinning on to the spikes(who just lift a bot, that's nice, don't launch them up like the ones in Series 3). Storm 2 then pushed them right over the pit and PP3D lost drive on the other side, they then went for the pit button(and surprisignly didn't do it as quick as possible? and pitted them, putting Storm 2 through to the heat final.
Final:
I expected Apollo to lose here because of reliablity issues, they could still be a wildcard for their good performance.
The match started like the Series 3 Firestorm vs Chaos 2 matches, you rarely see those kinds of matches nowadays, both bots rotating sideways and trying to get the other one to charge in to get under them.
Storm 2 got under them(Apollo did get a bit under them before that) and pushed them into Shunt's CPZ, from the speed they were sent into it flying.(Apparently that was Strom 2's original plan, put the bots into the CPZ's, but I have a feeling that this point system is bad for bots like Tornado and Storm 2.) Apollo ended up in the corner, drove to the side, then back and Shunt expected them to do that again, turning to the side, and they got ANOTHER flip in, another house robot down. I really hoped that Killalot would be in the arena now so we could see them flip all 4 of the House Robots(sadly he's the double weight of other house robots, expected him to only be 100kg or so more) Matilda got to flip Shunt back on it's wheels.
Storm 2 activated the pit but Apollo tried to stay away from it. Apollo then was able to flip them once again. They then flipped them over into the CPZ wall, I thought this might be a bad idea since the wedges now work again and they could end up in the pit.
Matilda then attacked Storm 2(It seems like the House Robots really hate Storm2, just like they hated Stinger), Apollo wanted Matilda to get out of the way but the bots continued fighting on a different section of the Arena. Apollo got a good flip having Storm 2 against the arena wall, since their lifter was on the side that isn't on the wall I thought that they should let them be there and wait for them to be counted out, however they did another flip, sent Storm 2 spinning and OUT OF THE ARENA!Amazing.
Apollo was an amazing team, and Storm 2 seemed happy, even if they didn't win it.
Dara is talking them down once again for being a defensive robot and that they're lying about being flipped out not being painful. To be honest I'd rather be flipped out by a good machine after a good fight than simply lose the link, that's always the most disappointing way to exit. Dara in the end just basically said "eh whatever, it's still a loss, don't have more time to talk to you because limited show time".
Final Thoughts:
This was an amazing episode with 4 good robots, however it feels like you either have the "show bad guy" who ruins it or the producers who drag down the quality, the roboteers make the show for me and I honestly hope that the producers get their stuff fixed.
If you don't have "that guy" the producers just seem to cause some kind of drama and I HATE that.
If Apollo can work reliably then it will be a strong robot for the Final.
Still don't understand why Storm 2 have this bad rep. Brute force is something to be admired, especially the way they walloped Steel Avenger out of the arena completely.
For some reason they still believe that they have to act as if this is Series 7, you saw Dara and also JP mention it in this episode a few times. Honestly I'm disappointed at them by that(in general, this episode was great, but it's the competitors that made the episode while the producers only dragged it down for me) I rather wanted to see the opposite where they maybe apologize or say that Storm 2 were the true Series 7 winner.
You probably know what Mentorn did in Series 7, rigging battles to get Storm 2 out, check Storm2's wiki entry in the Robot Wars wiki for full info.
Still don't understand why Storm 2 have this bad rep. Brute force is something to be admired, especially the way they walloped Steel Avenger out of the arena completely.
I didn't think they did? Unless they talked about it on the show.. I was watching while doing something on Teamspeak, might have missed a few lines.
Great episode though. I expected a classic just from seeing Storm and PP3D (as the successor to Typhoon) as well as seeing Eruption for the first time, but there was plenty to get excited about all round.
The first OOTA by Eruption and first house robot flip(s) by Apollo, if I am not mistaken?
Dara and JP for a bit still sounded like it.
Didn't we have an OOTA before?
And yes that's true for the House Robot flips, however Foxic was the first bot to take on the House Robots.
Still don't understand why Storm 2 have this bad rep. Brute force is something to be admired, especially the way they walloped Steel Avenger out of the arena completely.
I didn't think they did? Unless they talked about it on the show.. I was watching while doing something on Teamspeak, might have missed a few lines.
Great episode though. I expected a classic just from seeing Storm and PP3D (as the successor to Typhoon) as well as seeing Eruption for the first time, but there was plenty to get excited about all round.
It seems to be lumped in the same category as Tornado as just "a box on wheels" amongst some fans. While I prefer Storm 2 to Tornado, I think both are unfair judgements, and that the brute power of the push is an amazing, and underappreciated ability.
I agree, however in my opinion they relied far too much on it's brute strength; they probably should've tried some other weapons, especially for their last fight with Apollo. If the front hinged lifter didn't work the first time, it wouldn't likely work the second time.
It's mostly there to self right the bot so that the wedges aren't useless, Storm 2's main attack is still it's strenght and it did push bots around well enough, no real rams into the arena but that happens when other bots have good drive. It still did do well in it's first fight against Apollo and the team seemed happy with it's performance.
Really cool episode
Was it just me or did it feel like storm2 was much slower than in series 7? Felt like it was much more about control and not about slamming bots into walls harambe style. I think Eruption get **** over in their match vs storm too, looked to me like storm was immobile before the 10 second end of match counter. Even discounting that, I feel it was eruption's match. Storm had more control but did absolutely nothing with it at all.
Apollo was very impressive, as was PP3D who was the only bot that managed to damage Eruption or Storm, both of which seem to have thick frontal anti-spinner armour.
It did look slower, much like Tornado in Series 7(but I guess would have better pushing power) I think it might have to do with them burning out the motors while testing so they probably didn't want to go max speed and ram. It did look immobile there but minus those flips, Storm 2 was in control of the match and pushed them everywhere, imo this match shouldn't have a split judges decision but the Apollo vs Storm 2 one(the first one) should.
Was it just me or did it feel like storm2 was much slower than in series 7? Felt like it was much more about control and not about slamming bots into walls harambe style. I think Eruption get **** over in their match vs storm too, looked to me like storm was immobile before the 10 second end of match counter. Even discounting that, I feel it was eruption's match. Storm had more control but did absolutely nothing with it at all.
Apollo was very impressive, as was PP3D who was the only bot that managed to damage Eruption or Storm, both of which seem to have thick frontal anti-spinner armour.
It did look slower, much like Tornado in Series 7(but I guess would have better pushing power) I think it might have to do with them burning out the motors while testing so they probably didn't want to go max speed and ram. It did look immobile there but minus those flips, Storm 2 was in control of the match and pushed them everywhere, imo this match shouldn't have a split judges decision but the Apollo vs Storm 2 one(the first one) should.
Nah Storm 2 is flat out slower now. It's not because of testing, or the real time stats, or even a change in gearing as some have suggested. It's driven by Magmotors instead of the far faster LEM's it used to have. Why the change? I don't know. Seems a bit odd to me but hey ho, I'm not Ed.
Didn't we have an OOTA before?
'Tildy was the only robot to score an OOTA thus far so Congrats to Eruption being the first competitor to do so.
Speaking off.. the ideas behind eruptions accessories seems cool but the claw seemed to hamper the performance.. it by far looked its most dominant in the last match without all the extra bits.
Storm 2 I expected to do well.. so far this year its been very rewarding to robots that can push the opposition around.. miss the ballistic "full body hammer" offence though
Apollo got super lucky in the rumble.. was technically the first rendered immobile
On another note.. why in the head to heads do they put the teams in the same pod? is their a reason?
I mainly ask because it hampers strategy calls between team members..
Robot Wars is officially back! its finally hitting its stride in both production and battles.. even JP's cheesy wheel jokes are back!
Didn't we have an OOTA before?
'Tildy was the only robot to score an OOTA thus far so Congrats to Eruption being the first competitor to do so.
Speaking off.. the ideas behind eruptions accessories seems cool but the claw seemed to hamper the performance.. it by far looked its most dominant in the last match without all the extra bits.
Storm 2 I expected to do well.. so far this year its been very rewarding to robots that can push the opposition around.. miss the ballistic "full body hammer" offence though
Apollo got super lucky in the rumble.. was technically the first rendered immobile
On another note.. why in the head to heads do they put the teams in the same pod? is their a reason?
I mainly ask because it hampers strategy calls between team members..
Apollo lost a wheel but was still mobile and was even driving in straight lines at the end of the match, no idea how that works but they did.
Matilda did an OOTA? I have to rewatch the episodes because I don't remember that, also didn't notice that Eruption didn't have their accessories on in the last match, wonder why.
I do know of a way to watch live but not how to watch it after it aired.
I hear Sir Killalot (http://sir-killalot.tumblr.com/) likes to provide people with robot combat entertainment, Joe.
Okay so I really don't want to go on about this right now too much but - this is my account. I plan to get them all up in a couple of hours after release and have been succeeding so far but starting from Episode 3 BBC have been uploading some really shoddy streams that are considerably slowing down the process. Ah well, here's hoping they don't throw too many more spanners in the works for the next two weeks
Anyway, on another topic, I find Eruption really fascinating. To me, Eruption is evidence of what the last ten years of having no considerable spinners on the scene have done to robot building.
I love Eruption, they were my favourites for the episode, but in their fight against PP3D it was clear their fundamental robot design was just not optimised for the spinner matchup in any way at all. The awkward angles all over the sides of their robot means spinners will always bounce straight off rather than slide onto the wedge, which can deal a lot of damage over time to Eruption - it's is a robot solely designed and optimised to fight other wedges, and the fact that the live shows have heavily resticted spinners for safety reasons meant it spent the last few years fighting just wedges. Whenever I've seen Eruption on the scene in the last few years it's excited me a ton. In that wedge vs wedge matchup it can be incredible. But it's a robot clearly made out of the roboteering scene around it at the time. No insult to the team, they've made a great robot.
If we get a few more years of Robot Wars, the robot metagame, I believe, is due to adjust considerably.
Fight One: Didn't see that coming.
Edit:
Chompalot and Pulsar: Didn't see that coming either. That's why the mini league system is BS.
That episode was much more confusing than it needed to be. I spent too much of that one screaming at my television.
Chompalot dying and Pulsar being drafted in was the only thing they did right. I have no idea why matches were allowed to go to completion when robots involved were clearly immobilised and had to retroactively be fixed. Apparently the judges were so busy talking about prosthetic limbs they weren't looking at those matches and forgot to call them. Those confusing messes marred what was a very good heat final, made better by the fact we hadn't already seen it.
Dare I say it, we need Refbot back.
Also legend has it the Jewish holiday Hanukkah is actually based on the 8 days Chompalot burned for.
Yeah, I wasn't particularly happy with how Ironside was revived by Sir K, and were seemingly allowed to continue right through when Pulsar started having problems, up until the double pit incident.. good it was made right, though. Would have saved me the frustration if they called it early, though.
Pearce still clueless as to what's actually happening in the arena, though. Didn't spot Gabriel's pickaxe getting stuck in the fire pit or Beast losing mobility half the time
Not as spectacular as episode 4, but it did the job.
**** GABRIEL, BUILDERS SHOULD BE BANNED FROM EVENTS FOR ENTERING THIS BORING ASS sh**E
OK, gonna have to stop you riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight there.
What about Gabriel is boring? Like, seriously? It's a really interesting counter to the average design you see on Robot Wars, the flipper. It's near impossible to effectively flip the thing, thus showing that not every UK bot needs to be a flipper to do well. And it's a massive robot that practically rolls off of every surface imaginable! How is something that mobile in a fight boring? It's not like it put on a wedge and went straight for the pit tyre...
I'm gonna assume that this is just you being unhappy that the spinners didn't take off many (or any) parts in this episode, and that the spinners hit Gabriel so much yet it stayed intact. If you want my personal opinion, it's a tad childish to call a robot boring and then stating that it somehow "offended you".
Anyways, episode; It felt good to see Pulsar rise from the ashes like that; went out in round 1 then reinstated with the odds against it (started out the league rounds with 1 loss already on the board) and then to come back and win the heat. Sadly, I don't see it doing too well in the final episode considering all of the drive issues it had in this episode.
Ironside 3 going out was rather unfortunate, but it certainly fought well. Shame it's srimech didn't quite bring it to it's wheels in time.
Also, nice controversy, judges. Way to bring back the feel of the old series's...s... (that doesn't sound right when describing multiple series... damnit) seasons, I guess?
If only they had some sort of HOUSE ROBOT THAT COULD'VE COUNTED IMMOBILE ROBOTS OUT then there would've been less controversy. However, we all know no such robot like that exists. At all. Ever.
**** GABRIEL, BUILDERS SHOULD BE BANNED FROM EVENTS FOR ENTERING THIS BORING ASS sh**E
OK, gonna have to stop you riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight there.
What about Gabriel is boring? Like, seriously? It's a really interesting counter to the average design you see on Robot Wars, the flipper. It's near impossible to effectively flip the thing, thus showing that not every UK bot needs to be a flipper to do well. And it's a massive robot that practically rolls off of every surface imaginable! How is something that mobile in a fight boring? It's not like it put on a wedge and went straight for the pit tyre...
I'm gonna assume that this is just you being unhappy that the spinners didn't take off many (or any) parts in this episode, and that the spinners hit Gabriel so much yet it stayed intact. If you want my personal opinion, it's a tad childish to call a robot boring and then stating that it somehow "offended you".
Anyways, episode; It felt good to see Pulsar rise from the ashes like that; went out in round 1 then reinstated with the odds against it (started out the league rounds with 1 loss already on the board) and then to come back and win the heat. Sadly, I don't see it doing too well in the final episode considering all of the drive issues it had in this episode.
Ironside 3 going out was rather unfortunate, but it certainly fought well. Shame it's srimech didn't quite bring it to it's wheels in time.
Also, nice controversy, judges. Way to bring back the feel of the old series's...s... (that doesn't sound right when describing multiple series... damnit) seasons, I guess?
If only they had some sort of HOUSE ROBOT THAT COULD'VE COUNTED IMMOBILE ROBOTS OUT then there would've been less controversy. However, we all know no such robot like that exists. At all. Ever.
Name 1 time it did damage to another bot
protip: you can't
Name 1 time it threw another bot into the air
protip: you can't
The bottype is a ****ing waste of time and space. It does no damage, it's nearly impossible to damage it without getting a big-ass HS to hit the wheels (And gabriel's wheels were made of bendy plastic so that's out too). It's literally there to be pushed around for 3 minutes and hope the other bot dies out of nowhere or because it drove into a CPZ or something. The bot has LITERALLY no way to make the fight interesting apart from being rekt by a HS, and it's even bad at that.
I'm not saying it's a bad bottype competitively, it does indeed "counter" flippers (tho not really, it can't do anything to them and it's incredibly hard to get an OOTA this year anyway). I'm saying it's basically impossible to have an interesting fight when its not vs a HS, and IMO it s a complete and utter dick move to enter one and a huge **** you to all the spectators and viewers.
The bot isn't not sh** just by virtue of not being a flipper. I could enter a ****ing shopping trolley and it would produce more interesting fights than that thing.
I don't see how you can claim flippers dominate RW when 3/5 bots in the grand final are not flippers, and 3/5 wildcard runners up aren't flippers either.
Finally, I'm actually a flipper fan more than a HS fan. I'm unhappy that the majority of match viewing time was a complete waste of time as may as well be skipped because it involved Gabriel.
The old series went 7 main series and 2 series of Extreme perfectly fine without a single segment on technology to be seen. I would argue that those segments are not what anyone came to watch and break the flow of the episode.
Robot Wars is a show on technology in the same way WWE is a show on fitness. We know that everyone in WWE is athletically fit, but they don't spend any amount of time talking about the latest advances in rowing machines or weight lifting.
My problem came with Beast vs Gabriel and Ironside vs Pulsar. To me, it was clear Beast was immobile and the Gabriel team thought the same thing as they said as much. In my eyes this was not a close match "Ooh it could go either way", this was see a robot not moving and count to ten. Beast was unable to show controlled movement throughout most of the match and that is something that did not need a review of the footage to see.
Ironside vs Pulsar had similar problems. Once again, there are criteria regarding being counted as immobile, if Ironside met these during the fight, why weren't they counted out? Are there not referees backstage who can count a robot out? Also Ironside pushed Pulsar in to the pit, they did not end up in the pit "at the same time", not sure what Dara was talking about there.
tl;dr Some dismal refereeing muddied the waters and marred what would have been an otherwise great episode.
That episode was much more confusing than it needed to be. I spent too much of that one screaming at my television.
Chompalot dying and Pulsar being drafted in was the only thing they did right. I have no idea why matches were allowed to go to completion when robots involved were clearly immobilised and had to retroactively be fixed. Apparently the judges were so busy talking about prosthetic limbs they weren't looking at those matches and forgot to call them. Those confusing messes marred what was a very good heat final, made better by the fact we hadn't already seen it.
Dare I say it, we need Refbot back.
Also legend has it the Jewish holiday Hanukkah is actually based on the 8 days Chompalot burned for.
This, it was odd to see them have no
replacement bots, and I think they also found Pulsar more interesting because of the "unique" weapon and Thermidor 2 being a flipper, but think that's ok, since Thermidor did go out early.
Bots suddenly starting again was a mess, wouldn't want to call Ironside vs Pulsar, because they did have a srimech but just got bothered by all kinds of other stuff, so it was hard to tell if it worked, Killalot then lifted them up and it was total chaos after that...
Yeah, I wasn't particularly happy with how Ironside was revived by Sir K, and were seemingly allowed to continue right through when Pulsar started having problems, up until the double pit incident.. good it was made right, though. Would have saved me the frustration if they called it early, though.
Pearce still clueless as to what's actually happening in the arena, though. Didn't spot Gabriel's pickaxe getting stuck in the fire pit or Beast losing mobility half the time
Not as spectacular as episode 4, but it did the job.
Can agree to it as well, especially the JP part.
I still don't get the countout system. That 10 second timer, is that a robot immobile countdown, or the end of the match? Because it's frustrating not knowing. On a few matches, robots have had their wheel stuck, spinning on one side, essentially making it look like they're "time wasting" when they're not, they're just stuck... SO COUNT THEM OUT, just in case they ARE time wasting, which they aren't. Hate this countout thing... if there IS one
End of the match, but it's a total chaos. I think this was the first episode where it was noticeable that the fights are definitely not 3 minutes(apparently they'll make a DVD with extra rumbles and full fights later on?). Because they can't manage stuff(and have one person like the judge in battlebots who tells you that your bot is getting counted out) we will need Refbot again...
I seriously wish that they would just drop this whole "drama show" aspect and return to the earlier series of Robot Wars, competitors weren't that great back then but the show was(while in the later, it was the competitors that were great but the show started being more and more garbage, nothing can top series 7 however), in the reboot, the competitors are what makes the show, while the show itself is only ok with annoyances that think they need to do the storm2 drama yet again. Getting the names pronounced right outside of JP would also be nice.
As for the wildcard, I can only see Thor and don't expect
Pulsar to go far, they're a nice team but their robot is unreliable.
Thor had a rather well run but got unlucky
DTK, Storm2 and Gabriel all had trouble with some fights.
The bots I really like most likley won't win because of reliability issues, giving Carbide as well as TR2(didn't they win like the heavyweight title recently? Yet the show talks about them as if they're just a first time built bot)
I'm fine with Gabriel as long as we don't see the same design for thwackbots spammed like in Series 3. Lol@Badger's post, would like to see you drive that thing. And now we need visual damage in order for a show to be entertaining and a weapon effective?
I wouldn't exactly say that all of the early series were "who can destroy the other bot first", maybe 5 and 6, but definitely not the very early ones.
Also, thanks @wakkydude for uploading those. I watch them live and later download the episode but this is great.
:frown: I feel so sad, I wanted Gabriel to be the wildcard to school the vet's.
A very well done to the Apollo team, they deserved the champion title after knocking out the house robots in its heat! :)
Carbide destroyed a lot of bots, and once you were destroyed by it you'd have a half working bot. Thor got destroyed, Apollo luckily lost the link earlier but I think was one of the only bots to hold up against it, and TR2 got some heavy damage in it's match(which was the last one for them) as well. The result of Thor vs Apollo was clear, even if they got a judges decision they would've gone to the finals, really the only chance for Thor to win would've been if Apollo stopped working for some reason.
Pulsar vs Thor vs TR2
Obvious result, Pulsar was a really nice team and it's sad that their bot didn't work properly, a bit of a funny start with only Thor moving to the middle. Also it was clear that Thor would get the wildcard, all of it's fights were great and it lost the heat final because of the link.
Carbide vs Shockwave vs Apollo
2 of my favorites against the strongest spinner, ugh this isn't going to go well, especially after how they talk about Shockwave having weak armor...
They did start well, Shockwave even keeping Carbide's blade up into the air, then the Arena side wall was gone... Series7 flashbacks, you can have strong armor plates but if only glue is holding them together you won't get far, hope they get that stuff fixed for Series 2.
At this point I felt that Shockwave got a bit robbed, they got stuck? or stopped because of what happened, took them a good bit to stop the match and Shockwave sadly got a sideways hit from Carbide. Looked like the drive would now have problems(still looked like it would work but some of the bent armor might be blocking the wheel) but after they took a closer look the damage was worse than expected. At least they gave the roboteers time to repair.
Carbide vs Thor
Thor's front anti spinner pannel always looked small, it worked for the first few hits, but because both robots would be launched across the arena there was no opportunity to hit with the hammer, a few hits later and the wheel guards got attacked, anti spinner pannel ripped off and just destroyed, similar to what Hypnodisc was able to do, minus sending bots across the arena. They did do one final hit to end it after Thor's drive link got lose or it's wheels weren't touching the ground anymore, but as far as I know they did say they were ok with it.
TR2 vs Apollo
While I'd like Apollo to go far(and together with TR2 they were the only ones that could really take on Carbide, at least I'd think so) I wasn't really too confident in their reliability, they did have a easier time to get under TR2 and almost got them out of the arena. TR2's flipper then got stuck(out of gas) and they were stuck on their back.
Carbide vs Apollo
Apollo started good but quickly lost the link, after that, the fight was over and Carbide got two cheap hits in, not too happy about those...
Thor vs TR2
I don't remember too much happening in this fight, TR2 flipped over Thor a lot and their Co2 system got locked up because of that, later on Carbide didn't seem to have enough power to flip
Carbide vs TR2
Carbide started strong, somehow knocking away a top pannel off of TR2 as well as doing a lot of damage to that wedge, suddenly it wasn't as strong as expected, they still kept on fighting and Carbide's reliability issues from Heat A returned, stopping the blade, TR2 didn't have much flipping power left(their Co2 sure went down fast) and couldn't OOTA Carbide, but pushed them against Shunt instead.
Apollo vs Thor
Thor didn't have much of a chance here, it was nice seeing Dara watch the battle together with TR2, but shouldn't they have been fixing their robot in that time? Apollo got a good flip in which made Thor lose it's back side, which is apparently where the safety link is.
Final: Apollo vs Carbide
I somewhat expected this one to happen as Thor getting a win seemed impossible(a judges decision would give Apollo enough points already, since they won the match against TR2 they would go through), Apollo started strong but also got some of it's pannels ripped off, the bottom one near the Co2 canister and the top one where the link would be, after Carbide's blade stopped I hoped that they wouldn't break down. This time the Blade most likely stopped from all the flipping it got from Apollo. The battle went on, Apollo sadly doesn't have that much Co2 gas because it uses up so much per flip and the flipper started to get stuck. They used Shunt to get it down again and then flip Carbide around more, Carbide did manage to push them a bit but it was still Apollo that did a lot. Funny enough, the flipper also got closed over Carbide at times, making it look like a Clampbot.
Apollo then won the judges decision which they definitely deserved, and I'm happy to see them win this and have the reliability issues fixed(apparently Apollo is a evolution of Kronic?), Carbide getting second place is good enough, would've found it a bit disappointing if we had Carbide slashing everything apart.
Carbide becomes the new Hypnodisc! feared finalist only to fall short
Heh, was going to mention that.
First having done so much destruction, with TR2 activating the pit I thought we might get Hypnodisc vs Bigger Brother again. For the Finale I wasn't sure if Apollo's switch would be knocked out again, but it was definitely nice, no Chaos 2 vs Hypnodisc or Pussycat vs Hypnodisc short match, but a good final battle.
Afraid to say that I really disliked the final. I don't think Thor was a great wildcard, and it went on to be just dead weight in the head-to-heads, only because Pulsar decided to break down straight away...
I like the new format as it offers more fights but with that it does come with its issues.
So you didn't like the final because the robot that performed the best out of the selection got the wild card and that pulsar got knocked out straight away to no ones shock with its reliability erm okay then o_O
Final was great, RIP Thor I thought that its armour was a lot better than what it was, got a feeling that the floor flipper didn't like it, hopefully means we will see a new version of Thor built, great show glad Apollo won it thought the best fight was Apollo vs TR2. Already pre ordered the blu-ray
Says that these robots failed to qualify just to name a few Iron awe 5 & 7, manta and maelstrom? wonder if it was due to the limited spaces or if they wanted more variety?
Not a spectacular episode overall as it showed the head to head format at its worst now. I'm glad Thor was chosen as a wildcard as I thought they did deserve it, but they just kept getting beaten to the point where it's now a byebot for the head to head battles. It really showed how anticlimactic each battle was after their bout against Carbide.
Also, the final battle, was probably one of, if not, the best finals in Robot Wars. Though that being said, there really wasn't much competition overall on that. I also liked both Carbide and Apollo from their heats, so that's a good start. While the battle had both bots their weapons, it was still finding ways to be interesting overall. Great to see Apollo win overall. Congrats to them.
Also, I pretty much agree with Thyrus to bring the old battle format back.
Just got around to watching this! Really enjoyed it!
I actually liked the head to head system. It tested bot's endurance more than the usual bracket style would, which I thought was cool. Sure it could use some tweaking - it was weird to start with 8, lose 4 immediately, then spend basically the rest of the episode with the remaining 4. Also some weirdness going on with the countouts in that one episode. Overall though, I enjoyed it, like I said.
The best part, though, was how impossibly salty Badger got over everything.