Author Topic: Naryar's extender work tutorial  (Read 3374 times)

Offline Naryar

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Naryar's extender work tutorial
« on: June 04, 2013, 04:35:59 PM »
HOW TO BUILD PROPER EXTENDER WORK

Disclaimer :These techniques are valid and important for ALL mods and ALL forms of building in RA2. This is not just a DSL-S thing.

First,

WHAT IS EXTENDER WORK ?

Extender work is well, the skeleton of your bot, in a way. The things that link your weapon (or drive) motors to the chassis, your armor to the chassis, your stabilizers to the chassis, etc.

-WHY IMPROVE MY EXTENDER WORK ?

The issue with extender work in a bot is that it serves no other purpose than holding components. It's just weight doing that. It doesn't make your bot deadlier, nor faster, nor more protected, nor does it make it better in any other way.

Besides, it also creates weak points in your bot that can cripple your design in combat.

However, it is necessary. 99% of bots have extender work and the ones that haven't are boring pusher boxes.

So yes, you must use weight for extenders. However, you need to use that weight properly.

SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ?

Simple enough... in theory. There are three things to keep in mind when building proper extender work.

-Make it lighter: Because extender work wastes weight best used somewhere else (armor, drive, weapons, etc).
-Make it stronger: Because you don't want a crippling weakness in your robot.
-Make it less exposed : Because it will fall off less often. Also sometimes you'd rather have a chassis hit rather than a hit to extender work that is critically important to your robot..

There is a balance to strike between those three points, and the good builder will manage to do that.

In case the extender work is not exposed to the enemy, extender HP is mostly irrelevant.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN IN PRACTICE ? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO IMPROVE MY EXTENDER WORK IN THE BOTLAB ?

This can be done with three steps.

First of all simplify your extender work in overall. The more complex it is, the heavier it is, and the more it wastes up weight.



This is poor extender work. Why ? Your baseplates are not mounted for minimum extender length, you therefore waste around 2-3 kg. Not much, sure, but think of the uses you could have with that weight. and that is only 2 attachments. What of four ? Six ? 10kgs wasted, that's an additional weapon. Or battery. Or something else

Better extender work for that design is :



See, saved a bit of KG's and no loss of functionality. It may not be a lot of kg's saved, but the more extender work you clean up in a bot, the most weight you free, and that might be the weight you need to win.

Simplifying extender work also is a matter of having a minimum of connections.



In that exemple, the extender work on the top is better because it is lighter. The weight saved can be taken for better uses. If you want some distance between the motor and the battleaxe, just add an extender unto the former one.

However, it doesn't work like this for all examples. In the latter case, of the two examples, which is the better extender work ?



The one with the 3 baseplates IS better. Because it uses far less weight, around 6kg, and it also removes weakpoints. Without weakpoints you will have less risk to be hit to the enemy and lose your 2 piglets and iron spike.

Another point is : if you can attach a component directly to one who is attached to the baseplate, DO IT. This is a good part of simplification either. It's a free anchor that costs 0 kg.

Second of all, use the best extender you can for HP purposes. as an example, in DSL 2.1, all the old Stock extenders are bad because they have 100HP/kg. The DSL round extenders are pretty bad considering the existence of DSL bars and metal sheets - but those have handy attachment points. In stock, only use round extenders (excepted for the ultralight long square extender in stock 1.4). Square extenders only have aesthetic benefits and are much heavier.

Know your extenders, know your HP, and use the best.

Third and last of all, do not create unneccessary weak points in your extender work. Like using old stock extenders (angled extenders, t-extenders, y-extenders) in DSL 2.1.

as an example :



I have highlighted the weakpoints for you. See, that's a 100cm aluminium, a 20cm poly on a 80cm alu and a steel angle on a 10cm steel on a 80cm alu.

The 20cm poly, 10cm steel and steel angle all have far inferior HP to the 100cm alu. Therefore, if you get a hit on the smaller components of the one in the middle and the right one, you will have more chance to lose your motor earlier.

NOTE : In stock, all extenders have the same HP, regardless of weight and length. Therefore, use several small extenders instead of just one, as it will strengthen your extender work overall. A large hit will still break your extender work, but several small hits will not if they hit different components.

However, you can afford a weak point if it is sufficiently protected. Sufficiently protected means inside the chassis (therefore cannot be hit), sandwiched between two armor plates (where it will not be hit before quite a bit of time), if the component held protects the extender itself enough (so if the component is lost and the extender cannot be reached by the enemy's weapons when the component is on, you won't mind losing a now-useless extender), or in cases where you are quite certain the extender will not be hit before your bot is ruined.

YOU KEEP SPEAKING ABOUT GOOD OR BAD EXTENDERS, CAN I HAVE A LIST ?

sure you can.

Stock: Round extenders and the 5kg ultralong square extender are good. T-connectors, discs (the smaller the better), and tribars are average. The rest is bad.

DSL:
Very Good: Multiextenders (only use them if they are attached to the chassis however), DSL discs (limited use), hexes (limited use), flippermakers, small metal/polycarbonate sheets (limited use)
Good: Drums (limited use), carbon fiber extenders, beater bars (actually a very bad extender, but a good weapon and very good to make weapon racks: don't use it where it can't do damage !)
Average: Black discs, metal/polycarbonate extenders, DSL shell panels (limited use), medium metal/poly sheets (limited use), spiked clubs (actually an extender and a weapon)
Bad: The rest


-Naryar




« Last Edit: August 01, 2020, 09:16:53 AM by Naryar »

Offline MassimoV

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Re: Naryar's extender work tutorial
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2013, 04:41:53 PM »
Really good tutorial. Hopefully this will get rid of some new builder's problems.

Offline Naryar

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Re: Naryar's extender work tutorial
« Reply #2 on: June 04, 2013, 04:45:41 PM »
I shall improve it during the week.

Offline Mr. AS

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Re: Naryar's extender work tutorial
« Reply #3 on: June 04, 2013, 04:46:47 PM »
i think a section about exostacks is in order, case in point:



in this example from the tutorial im fairly certain that you can just exostack the ba with the spike club here and save a few kg.

besides ba exostacks in dsl 3 are amazingly easy anyway :dumb)
How you make Alarm Clock Pizza is:
Step 1: You buy an alarm clock from the store, and then you have to break it and put it in the sauce.
Step 2: Fold the sauce in 5 slices and put it in the dough.
Step 3: Paint the eggs with a pitcher of a clock showing what time you want to wake up and eat pizza for breakfast.
Step 4: Put the eggs in the dough.
Step 5: Make it flat into a round shape and draw the time you want on it.
Step 6: Put some old steel to prevent other peple from stealing it.
Step 7: Make it flat and cut into 60 slices 1 for each minute in 1 our.
Step 8: Put in the oven set the timer to 30048813.2884 seconds and put the temperature on 'Volcano' setting.
Step 9: If you think it is take to long, then get yor alarm clock and set it to now so that it will ring and you can take it out.
Step 10: Take it out uv the uvin wen it is redy and go to bed. In the morning eat pizza and also eat yor hands bi mistake.

Offline Naryar

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Re: Naryar's extender work tutorial
« Reply #4 on: June 04, 2013, 04:49:12 PM »
Yes, you can, but this image assumes you must angle the spiked club for whatever reason.

Besides, exostacking is a skill you get after getting good extender work. No need to get it more complicated that it already is.

Offline martymidget

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Re: Naryar's extender work tutorial
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2013, 05:54:45 PM »
Functionality then form, as it should be in all bot sub-types.

Cheeky rep up incoming.

Offline Naryar

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Re: Naryar's extender work tutorial
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2015, 12:09:05 PM »
Improved it a bit. Also included a list of extender work, as to say what extenders are in fact good and what extenders you should not use.

Offline playzooki

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Re: Naryar's extender work tutorial
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2015, 02:44:21 PM »
Quote
but you have usually more extenders than that in a bot, and therefore you save less kg's.

wat