Control scores equally to damage in our system. If you choose to make a bot that cannot inflict any damage thats your call. If you can repeatedly keep them wedged against the wall or in the air, they're not likely to inflict much damage on you anyway.

In my opinion most flippers and wedges are relatively boring anyway. Aerobatics and Bumper Cars are only exciting if they are *exceptional*. Very high powered flippers and wedges are fine, but most are not.

Everyone would laugh at a spinner that didnt even dint a bot, so why should a low powered wedge or a flipper get credit for doing something that didnt hurt the other bot ? If your wedge or flipper can *disable* the other bot by stacking them against the wall or inverting a non invertible bot, then fine, but if you cant hurt them, you dont get damage points.

quote:

---

If I have a wedge and am constantly controlling my opponent by keeping him out of the center of the arena and against the walls [...] or use a flipper to roll him over and thus keeping his wheels off the ground and control him that way it is all classed as "minimal" to no damage.

---

quote:

---

But if my opponent puts so much as a scratch on my robot then it is argued that he has done all the damage

---

quote:

---

since the emphasis is placed on damage and not dominating your opponent then the wedges and flippers will always lose.

---

quote:

---

The dominate robot should win whether it causes damage or not.

---

Judge this one then. Compare your gut feeling to the points awarded by the judges. And listen to the audience at the end.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2yBBlMxJHo

quote:

---

Everyone would laugh at a spinner that didnt even dint a bot

---

That is a television show with arena hazards and house robots that distort the match and where judging often seemed to be based on who they wanted in the later episodes rather than who won the match.

Even so..

Damage - tie - no significant damage to either that I could see
Control - Clearly Panic Attack, pushing mortis around and lifting it so it couldnt drive
Aggression - very Close, Mortis's axe looked aggressive, but was ineffective, both robots spent about the same amount of time attacking each other when they could, but PA's lift/control prevented Mortis from attacking as often as PA did.
Style - about equal. Both visually appealing with active weapons

I'd give it to PA based on Control since the others were all about equal. - my Gut Feeling agrees with the crowd and my interpretation of the DCSA system, The Robot Wars judges swung the other way, but thats their opinion, not a bias in the judging system as far as I can tell.

and yes, I stopped the video and made my decision before hearing the judges/crowd - no temporal reverse engineering here..

How does this match illustrate a weakness in the system ?
_________________
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

reboot V elanore
I gave it to elanore.
reboots damage was minor, and elanore seemed to be more aggressive.
"agile mobile and hostile" ;->

To me scratches don't count. When you get to the gouge level then it starts to matter.
Damage to me is related to the effect it has on the bot. A few small dints in a thin shell are nothing much. Bolts coming out , Torn metal is getting serious. Chunks falling off is bad (if they aren't meant to come off). Something that actually directly hinders the opponent is the best you can do short of a KO. IE bending his armor such that his wheels don't touch the ground anymore (or just barely so). Provided the bot being bent is well built then the attacker gets lots of points for that.
_________________
Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

I thought the strategy of a launcher was to cause damage by causing the opponent to fall from the sky from a great height and sustain damage during a violent change in velocity as it encounters the arena floor.

If no damage is done why should damage points be awarded above and beyond what the present rules allow for.

The style point is a more appropriate way for a judge to reward a particularly outstanding flips in my opinion.

Control and aggression points might also reflect a good flipper’s maneuvers as he controllers and attacks his opponent but damage points just for air time?
_________________
Satisfaction is proportional to effort and results.

quote:

---

Originally posted by decalkins:
I know this post and my previous will start a lot of arguements...

On strategy: It's rarely used after the first 3 seconds. Sure, the top 10% think about getting the other robot to do turn a certain way, so that they in turn can take advantage of it...

But for the most part, most matches I've seen are High School Playground Boxing Matches. Two people go out at it til one of them stops.

I dream* of the day when all drivers are so good that strategy is actually used in the average match. But from my POV, the use of a clearly defined and properly executed strategy it's the exception, not the rule.

---

control if its actually controling the other bot.
IE you have to be more than a different style of vertical spinner.

If you are "controlling" then the other bot is unable to act aggressively towards you due to your continued actions.

IE if you keep the other bot just "rolling over" then you are in control.
If you flip him into the sky 4 times during a match that isnt control.

If cobra picks you up and hits you into a wall over and over then thats control and if he breaks you in the process thats damage, and because its glen i has style for free. (or for $400 in pants either way.)
_________________
Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. But it’s still a good idea to have one.
_________________
Satisfaction is proportional to effort and results.

I were clearly more aggressive with ReBoot, Eleanor was for the greater part a stationary ramp.

I did do cosmetic damage, Eleanor slammed me on the wall twice and flipped me both times, though the other times I flipped was self inflicted and shouldn’t be counted, upside down or not I was still functioning and inflicting cosmetic damage.

Id call control even
While i were flipped and a little unsteady without my reverse function i still pulled of successful attacks, id say fairly adequate for Eleanor and reboot in that fight.

In my opinion ReBoot should be granted style point,
what would you grant more stylish the jump or Evil knievel getting air?

Can we please not get into that style thing again . . . It got nowhere last time and nothings going to change a second time round.
_________________
Jeff Ferrara
fb@ffej.net

ffej.net

I agree, Jeff, its going nowhere on the slow train.

One technicality I'd like to ask about though: If a bot (any type) charges a wedge and drives up 'n over it, how does that get scored? The bot driving over the wedge is showing agression, but the wedge is deflecting it and potentially inflicting some shock damage when the oppenent gets some air time and lands hard. Would the agression score? Would the deflection cancel out the agression? Would the deflection score since the aggressor made a stupid and innefective move?
_________________
Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

Who bought style up ?

@valen- I take it you mean that you would give the win to Elanor on gut-feeling rather than the actual DCSA rules ?

@assasin - waiting for the last 30 seconds is not a good idea unless you are likely to score a knockout - the judges are supposed to consider the entire match, not just a last minute frenzy by one bot. In practice a strong finish may sway the judges a bit, but its not supposed to.

after we decided to have the judges keep their actual points secret and just award "higher damage" to Bot A or Bot B, the amount of actual damage became irrelevant, it is simply a matter of who did *more* damage than the other. If its scratches vs none, then scratches win the damage point.

@nick - IMO, the charging bot gets the aggression point, deflection earns you nothing unless it causes apparent damage. "possible" shock damage isnt actual damage so doesnt count. Stupidity or Effectiveness isnt aggression, nor does it cancel it out -

To quote the judging guide - "Attacks do not have to be successful to count for aggression points, but a distinction will be made between chasing a fleeing opponent and randomly crashing around the arena"

also

"sitting still and waiting for your opponent to drive into your weapon does not count for aggression points" - this would seem to apply to a stationary wedge to me, since the wedge is the weapon, so even if the attacker is merely launching off the wedge, it is still considered aggression.

note that my comments are based upon our *current* judging guides, since they were in effect for the matches under discussion -

You might also like to note that if a robot is of such a design that it cannot be attacked without coming within reach of a spinner perimeter, then any intentional driving into the spinners reach is automatically considered aggression, so unless a FBS is actually moving towards the other robot, it does not get aggression points.
_________________
Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

To clear something up for Gary, when I talk about a "flipper" I am not refering to a "launcher" such as Devastator. I am refering to how a robot like Hellcat or Stealth can repeatedly roll another robot across the floor. ANd for those who think that a full pressure flipper doesn't need strategy I suggest you try and get a wedged front end sufficently under an opponent while remembering such factors as how the opponent will spin, recoil of the flipper arm, difficulties in getting the arm to retract and pressure drops due to excessive use of gas. And since the next post will be along the lines of "if you have troubles build a different robot" remember that all designs have thier difficulties that should remembered when judging control.
_________________
Get Some!!!

Secretary of the Queensland Robotics Sports Club inc.

Bots without weapons disadvantaged by Robowars rules. Well yes that is the idea.
Problem is if you have a weapon and it isn’t working at the end of the fight that counts as major damage.

The weaponless brick or wedge doesn’t run that risk.

Combine that with the Judges tendency of rewarding a doormat for getting under its opponent and I think weaponless bots do better than they deserve.

As far as flippers we did all right with Ballistic, we never expected big damage points just from a flip.
_________________
Satisfaction is proportional to effort and results.