Merrick's Stockbots A.K.A "I have no idea what I'm doing."

[Merrick]

I was told I should make one of these threads.

However, I am terrible at this.

I mean, really terrible.

Considering I go for realism when I design 'bots, and these were made during my first day of playing the game.

Alright, so here's the first one. It's all I have time to upload right now. Critical Reaction (yes, I know, it's a shoddy name) has an axe. And a wedge. And some spikes. And not much else. Fairly competent fighter mind, although I expect it would get destroyed by other user's stock bots.







The green outline is strange. I don't think RA2 likes me using Steam to take screenshots.

[NFX]

The green outline shows the collision mesh of the component. Some components have a different collision mesh than you'd expect, such as the Mace. That's why some components won't attach, even though it doesn't look like they're intersecting.

In general, you should always try to build to the weight limit of the class you're building in. A Middleweight can be up to 399.0kg. You could also turn off Snap to Grid for some fine tuning, to shave off vital extra chassis kg, that could be used on weaponry. Another nice little trick is to ignore the armour tab completely, and you receive armour which is the same weight as aluminium, but stronger than steel (Double Strength Aluminium, or DSA). Also Pink batteries are generally not used in anything heavier than LW, a Supervolt should be enough for this.
 
Irons are a good weapon choice, though, because most weapons have something called Normals, which means they only deal damage with a specific part of the component. For instance, if you hit someone with the side of the ice pick, rather than the point, no damage will be dealt. Iron spikes don't have these, and the same goes for Maces and Razor tips, which means they can deal damage no matter what part of them strikes the opponent. That's what makes them the preferred weaponry in much of Stock building.

[Pwnator]

Yeah, Steam's F12 interferes with the game's system command (it shows the meshes of all the components). Just take a second screenie and it should be fine. :P

This should help you build better stuff: http://beetlebros.gametechmods.com/ra2techs.htm

But yeah, welcome to the site and all. :D

[Philippa]

Welcome to the site. 

Not too terrible for a first bot, but have a few tips.

 - Never use pinks on anything but LW and under.
 - Never use square extenders. They are just as strong as the round ones but just heavier.
 - Always build to the weight limit.
 - Battery power is also important. Always try to get as close as possible to the right amount.
    - Pinks give out 10 amps.
    - The tall orange ones give 40.
    - The black ones give 80.
    - All motors need 10 amps.
    - Snappers need 50.
    - DDTs need 70.
    - Servo motors don't need anything to run.
 - Use HP Z-teks.
 - Always use shiny wheels, which you have done there.

Any other tips then ask someone with a coloured name.

[NFX]

    - Servo motors don't need anything to run.
 - Always use shiny wheels, which you have done there.

These two are a little bit misleading, in my view. Servos WILL operate perfectly well with no battery power, but they will drain a battery if you have to attach one.
 
As for Shiny Wheels, they are easily the best wheel choice on most LW's, largely due to their comparatively low weight. However, Rubber Wheels on HPZ motors give the lowest ground clearance of any combination in the game, which is very useful if you are building popups, for example. Slipperbottom wheels (also known as Grannies) are very useful on some Horizontal Spinners, because they are able to offer invertibility better than other wheels.

[Mr. AS]

A Middleweight can be up to 399.0kg.

398.9

excepted the 'rare' occasions when you make a 399 mw

now excuse me while i disect some bad advice

Welcome to the site. 

Not too terrible WTF for a first bot, but have a few tips.

 - Never use pinks on anything but LW and under. no, 2wd rammers can run off of 2-3 pinks
 - Never use square extenders. They are just as strong as the round ones but just heavier.
 - Always build to the weight limit.
 - Battery power is also important. Always try to get as close as possible to the right amount.
    - Pinks give out 10 amps. yes
    - The tall orange they're red but whatever ones give 40.
    - The black ones give 80. yes
    - All spin motors need 10 amps.
    - green Snappers need 50. *30
    - DDTs need 70. no, thats bullsh**, they need 50
    - Servo motors don't need anything to run. see nfx's post
 - Use HP Z-teks. not always
 - Always use shiny wheels, which you have done there. rubbers and grannies (on occasions) are fine

Any other tips then ask someone with a coloured name.

the collision mesh shows if you hit f12, which you may be using to screenshot on steam, but i dont have steam so idk
ignore the armor tab to get DSA which is more powerful than steel but weighs less
and if you ever dont know what the we're talking about just go to https://gametechmods.com/RA2wiki/index.php?title=Jargon

[Mecha]

Welcome to the forums! Merrick!


Advice:
you already got it right with the wheels, so that's good. √
instead of pink battery packs, you should use one nifty for this bot.
instead of normal Z-Teks, you should use the HPZ-Teks for drive motors.
DDTs are the way to go when it comes to MW-HW hammers. √
there is a glitch called "DSA" you will have to restart you bot, but it's easy:
all you have to do is when you starting you bot, and you usually click the armor tab, just skip it.
this glitch amour is as strong as steel, and weighs the same as aluminium. im not lying! really! :P
i thought that square extenders were stronger back in the day, but there not.
all they do is weigh more then the other extenders and are just as strong. so don't uses them.

[Philippa]

Welcome to the forums! Merrick!

I should have just said that. XD

[Badger]

Hey, nice to see that we have a new stock builder! Welcome!

If you haven't already, you may want to look around some of the more experienced builder's showcases. Try looking at Clickbeetle, Sage, Geice, Nightcracker or NFX.

Try cropping your images in Paint or (Preferably) Paint.net (A free program that you can get here.) A cropped image doesn't have any of the botlab in it, see the spoiler below for an example.

Also, after you've finished improving this bot, I would advise that you try making a popup. Stock is more based around building bots that kill as quickly as possible, as opposed to realism. If you're more into realism, the DSL mod would probably suit you more. I'm sure the more experienced members can tell you more.

Finally, could you tell us how you found/became interested in the game? There's usually an interesting story there.

[Naryar]

Heh. Not too bad for a first bot. Stop using small battery packs, first.

Also, after you've finished improving this bot, I would advise that you try making a popup. Stock is more based around building bots that kill as quickly as possible, as opposed to realism. If you're more into realism, the DSL mod would probably suit you more. I'm sure the more experienced members can tell you more.

Yes actually... just let him build whatever he desires and do not attempt to shoehorn him into a building role.

[Merrick]

Woah. Ok. That's a lot to digest. Cheers for the feedback, guys. 

I will try and take all the advice on board, but I must admit it's a of a lot to take on for somebody who doesn't know the game all that well. A lot of technical mumbo-jumbo.

I'll post a couple more of my first stock attempts now, but from here on out I expect I'll be experimenting with DSL 2.1 and seeing how that turns out. We'll see.

Alright then, here's a couple more of my Day 1 attempts. Reading some of the feedback I can probably point out a lot of my own mistakes myself, but here they are nonetheless. The spinner is called Harlequin and the flipper is called Genesis.

[Mr. AS]

you dont need any co2 for the second one

you only need air for pistons, servo pistons, and linear actuators
you also dont need that much batteries

http://beetlebros.gametechmods.com/ra2stats.htm <--- READ
http://beetlebros.gametechmods.com/ra2techs.htm <--- READ

you do look like you'd be good at building "irl" style bots in dsl

[Merrick]

I sort of thought C02 might help a flipper. Instead it's just needlessly made it a Heavyweight. Where it struggles to flip anything. Hmm.

Any other mods people would recommend other than DSL 2.1?

[Jack Daniels]

The first rule is:

"Have fun"

Everything else comes second. 

[cephalopod]

The first rule is:

"Have fun"

Everything else comes second.

This. Just remember if all these people trying to make your stuff 'more efficient' is annoying you, ignore it. Build the way you want to. Hell, this will be a surprise to many, but I still play Stock, I just don't build efficiently, I build more 'IRL' designs as you do.


The game mechanics are strange when it comes to flippers and such. Burst motors don't exist in real life, but the equivalent would need CO2, however the makers didn't think of this so burst motors only suck up electric power.


Other mods? DSL and Stock are the only 2 real 'versions', everything else is built off them, like harder AI packs for Stock (Starcore etc) and DSL (Nar AI).

[Mr. AS]

I sort of thought C02 might help a flipper. Instead it's just needlessly made it a Heavyweight. Where it struggles to flip anything. Hmm.

Any other mods people would recommend other than DSL 2.1?

nope, airtanks dont help burst motors fired any faster

and you cant flip anything because you're trying to flip hws (399.0/399.1 kg - 800 kg) with only one ddt, you need at least 2 ddt in order to even flip a lw (175.1 - 248.9)

[Merrick]

Which is why Emergency is such a  to fight then.

[Jonzu95]

2 Blacks & 2 DDTs, and you can Throw EMERGENCY out from the arena.

[Gauche Suede]

Which is why Emergency is such a  to fight then.

hah, Emergency is like nothing, when you managed to climb your way to BBEANS AI(or Starcore V4 Alpha), you'll feel that all of the robots in the stock AI are like noobs

[Merrick]

I have no idea what any of those things are.