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Knightrous
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Jun 2004
Posts: 8511
Location: NSW
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I built a boring well armoured wedge simply because they are damned reliable. I had ore fun at this robo wars because I was relaxed, I had very little work to do on my robot between battles and I managed to enjoy more of the event, instead of stressing out when 2 months of work on something with a weapon just got destroyed by someone with a rotating lump of steel. (Yes, I use to be one of those people).
My wedge was having a few teething problems, the drive wasn't working quite the way planned, just like a lot of other robots, but hey, shit happens. I'm here to compete, not worry about the crowd pulling out $50 notes and chasing me down like a hooker because my bot spectacularly lost. This boring wedge also taught me a lot of new things about combat and design, and I'll be employing this new knowledge to me new robot, with an active weapon.
Some people build boring bots for test beds (Plan G) and others build them because they are not well enough funded to keep repeated having their more out there designs broken by spinners (Andrew build Offset because it wasn't worth his time bring VL or Sproing to get broken by a boring spinner... And it fit in the suit case a lot easier )
So if your hating on boring bots, take a step back, and just accept that there will always be boring bots, and maybe your the cause of it. _________________ https://www.halfdonethings.com/
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Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:04 pm |
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Spockie-Tech
Site Admin
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 3160
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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I understand the wedge builders sentiments about resisting damage, its part of the reason we kept KE levels low in our bots in the past. We didnt want to encourage the spinner vs brick/wedge trend.
Smashing your opponent into little bits maybe entertaining for spectators, but you probably wont be seeing them again for another battle for a while, and when they do return, chances are they will have decided to armour up and weapon down in response. We dont have so many builders in Australia that we can afford to lose many. Damage is good, but not *too* much or the show will be over quick.
Destruction above reliability is good to watch, but bad for the builders. Reliability above interesting is good for the builders, but boring to watch. Striking the balance between the two is the hard part.
If you're going to build a wedge, build a *good* wedge, and that means fast and controllable. Inspector General is hardly a high budget robot, yet its just about as exciting without a weapon as with one. Eleanor was a good wedge, although I think a little more effort on visual appearance would have improved it.
Sounds like we're back to the sport vs show argument again. Wedges are undoubtably easier on the builder and probably more likely to survive the entire event and require less repairs, but if everyone works on that principle, we will have an extremely boring show. Fine if you want to compete without an Audience in your back yard. If you want big public productions, you either need to pay big $ entry fees to pay to play, or put on a good enough show that the public is willing to pay to watch it. Your choice.
Anyway, I'm not suggesting that we ban wedges, hate them or anything nasty.. just passing on some of the negative feedback from our viewers (there has been plenty of good feedback as well as I have mentioned in the RoboWars Thread) and hinting that experienced builders should make an effort to have their bot do something combative except drive around slowly. _________________ Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people
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Fri Jan 19, 2007 12:14 am |
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