Clickbeetle's bots

[playzooki]

This is awesome

[infiniteinertia]

*wankwank* yeah hot damn............. good to see that yer still doin ya thing Click

[Clickbeetle]

Someone had to build a popup for Mystic's Back to the Roots tourney with all the restrictions.  Otherwise he might as well have just banned popups outright.  Might as well be me.



Some people might be comfortable entering modern-era bots that just happen to fit the rules, but I thought I should make an effort to make something truly in the "back to the roots" spirit.  Obviously this is a homage to Death Port.  Y-connectors?  Check.  Interesting chassis shape?  Check.  Nice-looking hi-res skin?  Check.

The chassis shape is an attempt to get under bots without using burst wedges.  I didn't really expect it to work very well, but it's actually decent!  Those pointy bits are good at getting around small wedges and the ballast magic makes it wedgy in its own right.  In testing, it was able to get under any bot at least occasionally.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it has trouble self-righting and it has some extra weight I don't know what to do with.

[Mecha]

Love it click, specifically the chassis shape and skin.
Reminds me i have to make something soon.

[DaSnowingSteak]

Like the wedge design asthetically.

[Naryar]

Looks good !

[Fracture]

That decal-chassis synergy! Does a great job of throwing back to the old days, I really like that all the components are internal and am pleasantly surprised by the wedginess. With the extra weight, maybe upgrade to irons to prevent getting deweaponed? The motors can surely handle it since it would weigh as much as the typical three-razor setup, and your damage would be lower but I think with the nerfs to HS you are bound to destroy anything you get under anyway. Otherwise...upgrade ballasts or add a pink?

I can kind of get an idea but what were the original bot's insides like?

[Mystic2000]

Pretty amazed that dear Click of all people took the risk to enter this tourney, but as soon as i saw you entered, i KNEW it would be something cool or creative, and damn was i right, nice one Click, it may actually do not too badly

[Clickbeetle]

Here is Black Box, the bot I made for JoeBlo's See No Evil hax mode tourney that never got started.  I put off posting it juuust in case JoeBlo ever restarted the tournament, but I doubt that will ever happen now.



It's REALLY GOOD, and it has 4.6 kgs of extra weight, so I keep thinking it should be possible to build without hax mode if I use the extra weight for a bigger chassis.  This is the origin of the "Child's Play clone with Z-tek drive" challenge that's been going around.

I didn't succeed in the challenge (I am not convinced it's possible with DSA and Havok stability), but I got the next best thing.


(Yes the plow anchor is exostacked.  Took me forever to get that.)

Black Box 2 has DSA and is very stable but only has Redbird drive.  However, this isn't entirely bad.  The wide wheel base and the proximity of the wheels to the weapons makes it possible to fight as an SnS in addition to a standard Child's Play type bot.  SnS mode is a much more reliable way to beat popups and VS.  For HS, it's about as good as you might expect for this kind of bot: beats most HS, just not 100% of the time.

And because Black Box is kinda generic, here's my entry for the Weirdest Chassis Layout on a Competitive Bot award.



I started building this thing for Back to the Roots but quickly realized that I needed 140cm extenders and eFFe glitching to make it good.

And yeah, it actually is pretty good (much better than the original Downfall), and contrary to popular belief, quite stable too.  It's stable enough to do the initial box-rush without flipping over maybe 75% of the time, which is not bad for a wedgeless hammer.  Two layers of plows make it fairly simple to pin HS and start wailing away with the hammer.

[RedAce]

See No Evil allowed Hax Mode?  Didn't know that.

But yeah, Both Black Box 2 and Downfall 2 look great.  Does D2's hammer get knocked off often?

Edit:  Oh yeah, Kill Port looks awesome as well.  It gives off a nice 2004-2005 vibe and I like that.

[Virus Bomb]

downfall 2 looks sick af

[Clickbeetle]

Does D2's hammer get knocked off often?

Not super often but it does happen more often than I'd like.  If I fire the hammer too early on an HS, it gets caught between the tribars and then it's about 50/50 whether the hammer breaks or the HS weapon extenders.

Making the hammer longer helps with that but also makes it less stable.

[Thrackerzod]

DFOAWLNL 2 looks awesome.  I love seeing interesting designs for chassises.

But hey, this is Clickbeetle's showcase.  Of course it's going to be cool.

[Squirrel_Monkey]

That hammer is so sexy. I know I'm entered into "weirdest chassis on a competitive not" but has there been anyone else?

[Naryar]

full body hammer <3

[kill343gs]

As long as you keep building, I'll keep poking around.

[Clickbeetle]

Saw there was exactly one stock tournament open for signups among a flood of DSL IRL.  (That's Lightning S.'s Revolution 3 in case you couldn't tell.)  Had to build something for it.

 

Here I have a perfect opportunity to arbitrarily switch to Roman numerals and call this "Drumblebee X"... but I'm taking the high road and sticking with 10.  I did decide to change the traditional paint scheme though.  The diagonal warning stripes were getting old.  Bonus points if you know what bumble bee species the skin is based on.

Drumblebee 9 is OK, but it's kind of lacking in speed, and I always wanted to get 4WD on it.  But how to make weight?  I've tried 4WD Drumblebees in the past and they always turn out too fragile.

The answer turns out to be LESS RAZORZ.  Drumblebee does not really need, and has never needed, 36 razors.  The weapon motors always break before all the razors do.  24 is enough.  With some caster optimization too, I fit in those extra 2 wheels AND an extra battery, which keeps it running at full power for the whole match and also helps with self-righting.  The chassis is slightly more vulnerable with less caster coverage, but the extra speed makes it harder to hit, so it sort of balances out.

The drum is wider for better motor protection.  At first I had the traditional 2 extenders in a row with more razors per extender, but that was too fragile.  Even though this has less total razors than Drumblebee 9, it's overall more resilient.

Wedges are actually pretty good for once, so long as the weapon isn't spinning.  Can out-wedge NWB and Hot Wheels head-on.  (But not Backyard Gut-Ripper, the wedgiest bot I ever built.)

[Badger]

I'm a sucker for drums. It's a lovely build, shame it's gonna be stomped by the generic HS everyone is gonna enter.

[Sage]

didn't realize other drumblebees only had 2WD - would think 4WD is mandatory. Does it perform better?
Also, why red extenders??

[Clickbeetle]

shame it's gonna be stomped by the generic HS everyone is gonna enter.

In the DSL blade arena?  HS can be tossed OOTA in that arena, so I'm expecting more of a popup-heavy field.  Would have entered Cold Front 3 if I expected a lot of HS.

...but since when have my tournament predictions ever been accurate?  Dang, now it's definitely going to be filled with HS. 

didn't realize other drumblebees only had 2WD - would think 4WD is mandatory. Does it perform better?
Also, why red extenders??

Definitely performs better... not a TON better, but noticeable.  Much harder to flank, and the wedges are better.  Easier to get bots up the wedge and in contact with the drum.

Red extenders are because I thought a red drum would look cool and different.  Used tastefully (=not on tribars), I think red can look good.