Current Events > BattleBots 2018 discussion topic *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

This'll be a general discussion topic for the whole season, now with a spoiler tag in the topic title for easier posting inside.

@Orthopox12
@El_Mexicano_Texano
@KFHEWUI
@DevsBro
@DuranOfForcena

The new episode is starting right now on the Discovery Channel. IT'S ROBOT FIGHTIN' TIME!


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Ill follow but im still only on season 2 of the old ones (rewatching) have a lot to catch up on.
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That was a great (and close!) fight between Warrior Dragon and Rotator, Duck took a wicked beating and shrugged it off like it was nothing, and Hypershock is back and stronger than ever! Blacksmith vs. Witch Doctor is up next.

Orthopox12 posted...

Ill follow but im still only on season 2 of the old ones (rewatching) have a lot to catch up on.

Cool, enjoy it. Also, can you PM me info on where you're watching those old episodes?
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Blacksmith made that fight reeeeeeeeeeeally dramatic, way more so than I expected. That was awesome.
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I'll check it out later got some family business to attend too.
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Tagtagtag
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DuranOfForcena posted...

man, that was a great episode. the main event was pretty underwhelming, but Duck pulling off that defensive attrition strategy so well was great to watch, and those rollercoaster final moments of the Witch Doctor/Blacksmith match were crazy! oh and even though i really wanted to see that bacon wedge spinner on Battle Royale work and deliver one good hit, and was disappointed to still not get to see that, i have to admit that watching Hypershock smash it open was pretty satisfying too.

Yeah, this episode had a great undercard. We had one really close fight, and three that weren't really close (except for Witch Doctor ending up on the screws in the last 20 seconds) but were still exciting to watch. Plus, Bronco still gave us some great flips (which I'm trying to find gifs of, I'll report back when I find/make them) despite the technical difficulties in the main event. I haven't seen a heavyweight bot flipped that high since Wheely Big Cheese sent Axe Awe into orbit, waaaaaaaay back in the original UK Robot Wars.
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Think between all of us we could make our own battlebot? I always wanted to.
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Orthopox12 posted...

Think between all of us we could make our own battlebot? I always wanted to.

Not a very good one, but we might be able to piece together a bot decent enough to be proud of it when Tombstone breaks it into a million tiny pieces.
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I probably could. I never took a robotics class but I did a project on motor controllers.
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The funny thing about bot ideas is that the simplest ones can be champs. Look at Tombstone. It's essentially a crash bar in the front, swinging a metal axe blade around, with some simple, boxed components in the back.

At the opposite end you have over-engineered bots like Chomp, featuring an automated attack mechanism. But for all those components the weapon was a vertical hammer, limiting the strike zone to a pinpoint. That and people discovered the thing being top heavy meant it was easily toppled to comedic effect.

At least they stopped doing the aerial drone nonsense after one was literally smashed out of the air with a garden variety plastic rake. That was entertaining to watch.
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^ Remember Obwalden Overlord? Bot looked great but Warhead toasted the bot.

Anyone got a .gif of Icewave's fatality of Vanquish? There is no video of it on youtube.
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KFHEWUI posted...

Anyone got a .gif of Icewave's fatality of Vanquish?

I'm still working on trying to get gifs from yesterday's episode.
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I think HUGE will go far.

Faruq Tauheed is cringy as hell.
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Is this the one with Mick Foley, or the one with Grant Imahara?

unclekoolaid73 posted...

I think HUGE will go far.

Agreed.

DuranOfForcena posted...

unclekoolaid73 posted...

Faruq Tauheed is cringy as hell.

i think he's kinda hit or miss, but when he hits, it's hilarious

When he resorts to puns, they're more miss than hit, but he has plenty of really good references mixed in.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Is this the one with Mick Foley, or the one with Grant Imahara?

Foley hosted Robot Wars Extreme Warriors, which was a US spin-off of the original Robot Wars, a show/company based in the UK and totally separate from BattleBots. Imahara was on the original BattleBots as a competitor and returned on the newest season of the revived BattleBots as a fight judge.
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Calwings posted...

KFHEWUI posted...

Anyone got a .gif of Icewave's fatality of Vanquish?

That is beautiful!

Thanks!
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Old fight gif to keep this topic from purging before the next episode:


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Yeah. Bronco might not be a champion, but it's a legit flipper-bot and worth watching. The knockoff copycat alongside Bronco in this season was no where near that level of performance.
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DuranOfForcena posted...

you wouldn't happen to have the one of Hypershock swatting the drone with a rake would you? lol, since it was brought up.

Yep, I've got gifs of The Rakening too.




Keep in mind that I need to have enough gifs to keep bumping this for the rest of the season, so I can't empty them all too early. You'll see some good ones in my anti-purge bump posts, but you'll have to be patient from here on out.
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I trying to remember one of the fights from the either first or second season of the new Battlebots where one of bots decapitated their opponent. Anyone remember this fight?
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Well, I remember the word decapitation being used when Warhead lost its spinner. Despite the loss of a primary weapon the team kept fighting.
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Yeah, that is it!

The Warhead vs Minotaur battle!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBxDpnsKZX0" data-time="
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Real bummer that Lockjaw vs Bronco was a almost literal dud. I don't think Lockjaw was going to win but a fight of that pedigree deserves better.

I'm getting a bit tired of horizontal spinners and full body spinners not being able to stay operational. Like I understand that the forces have a tendency to break themselves, and if it was easy everyone would be Tombstone or Icewave, but watching two weaponless boys ran each other just isn't overly fun.
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Gheb posted...

Real bummer that Lockjaw vs Bronco was a almost literal dud. I don't think Lockjaw was going to win but a fight of that pedigree deserves better.

I read that there may have possibly been radio interference affecting both of them. It seems too coincidental for both bots to suffer such bad technical difficulties at the same time but for different reasons. I agree that it's a shame that battle went so badly because of it.

Gheb posted...

I'm getting a bit tired of horizontal spinners and full body spinners not being able to stay operational. Like I understand that the forces have a tendency to break themselves, and if it was easy everyone would be Tombstone or Icewave, but watching two weaponless boys ran each other just isn't overly fun.

That's the nature of the beast, unfortunately. A powerful weapon like that has some recoil when it lands a hit, and some bots simply can't handle it for too many hits. If they can't knock out their opponent before they knock out their own weapon or themselves... that sucks, but that's how it goes.
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Gheb posted...

I'm getting a bit tired of horizontal spinners and full body spinners not being able to stay operational. Like I understand that the forces have a tendency to break themselves, and if it was easy everyone would be Tombstone or Icewave, but watching two weaponless boys ran each other just isn't overly fun.

Personally I'm of the opinion that full body spinners are a junk design. They're inherently harder to control because you lack the visual cues of orientation that other bots get. It's also harder to distribute the force of impact in a way that prevents damage to the bot. Lastly, most of them end up on the loser pile if you flip them over.
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DuneMan posted...

Personally I'm of the opinion that full body spinners are a junk design. They're inherently harder to control because you lack the visual cues of orientation that other bots get. It's also harder to distribute the force of impact in a way that prevents damage to the bot. Lastly, most of them end up on the loser pile if you flip them over.

I agree with that too. Full-body spinners are generally overrated. Most of them are too prone to recoil damage like Shrederator, too unreliable like Battle Royale w/ Cheese, or too easy to flip over like Son Of Whyachi. They seem way too hard to get working at 100% without problems or weaknesses, but to be fair... in the rare times they work 100%, they really work. Icewave is the only one that hasn't shown any of those problems this season of BattleBots, and they're dominating everyone they face.

Then I remember Typhoon 2 tearing through a season of UK Robot Wars like its namesake. Now that thing was an absolute monster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir_UiGc9Y4Y" data-time="
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Calwings posted...

Battle Royale w/ Cheese

Now THAT is a comedic relief bot and nothing more. IIRC a statistic was cited saying that it lost 52 out of 54 fights before this season. It's a very believable statistic.
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It won't be an effective bot, ever. Look at the design. The entire upper deck of bent metal sheeting is just asking to be torn out of position, very likely blocking the spinner in the process.

As for the record, it's for other leagues. Many bots compete in other places before a Battlebots debut.
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Gheb posted...

Real bummer that Lockjaw vs Bronco was a almost literal dud. I don't think Lockjaw was going to win but a fight of that pedigree deserves better.

Yeah, I'm not sure if they were using similar frequencies and effectively jamming each other or what, but that wasn't the predatory smashfest it deserved to be. Oddly enough as a result the Witch Doctor and Blacksmith fight had more drama, despite Blacksmith also having some technical difficulties.
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DuneMan posted...

Gheb posted...

Real bummer that Lockjaw vs Bronco was a almost literal dud. I don't think Lockjaw was going to win but a fight of that pedigree deserves better.

Yeah, I'm not sure if they were using similar frequencies and effectively jamming each other or what, but that wasn't the predatory smashfest it deserved to be. Oddly enough as a result the Witch Doctor and Blacksmith fight had more drama, despite Blacksmith also having some technical difficulties.

I guess Lockjaw's issue was mechanical and Bronco's was a signal related.
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DuranOfForcena posted...

bump

Thanks for the save. And for reminding me to post this gif:



That flip really was insane. Bronco is stupidly powerful.
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We're only a little over an hour away from this week's ROBOT FIGHTIN' TIME! Here's how the card stacks up for this week:



Warhawk vs. Brutus and Bombshell vs. Yeti will probably be interesting and brutal fights, and so would Petunia vs. Captain Shrederator if reliability issues don't cripple Shrederator like they did in its past two fights. I don't see Chomp being able to do anything of note against HUGE, and I don't see Skorpios leaving the arena in one piece.

Then again, I've been wrong before. We'll just have to wait and see.
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Huge rekd chomp.

Brutal...just brutal.
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unclekoolaid73 posted...

Huge rekd chomp.

Brutal...just brutal.

Like I said, Chomp was helpless. I don't know what bots in the competition could even hit HUGE's central body and do enough damage to knock it out or disable the weapon. If Nightmare were still around, it could do the job. But I don't think any vertical spinner this season is both big enough and strong enough.

Brutus vs. Warhawk next, a battle of two vertical spinners. Who will survive?
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Damn, that was a massive (and gif-worthy) first hit. Brutus got knocked back and flipped, but Warhawk lost part of its drive at the same time. Once Brutus recovered and flipped itself back over, it came back and got the knockout. Definitely not a pretty win, but a win is a win.
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Calwings posted...

if reliability issues don't cripple Shrederator like they did in its past two fights.

https://streamable.com/9tqjy
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