It's Robot Fighting Time! Battlebots Season 6 January 2022!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > It's Robot Fighting Time! Battlebots Season 6 January 2022!

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Control bots, particularly at the BB level are tough to pull off well. You're essentially signing up to throw your bot into a meat grinder in every fight because there's an abundance of nasty spinning things to fight and you're bringing something different. I do think one thing some teams bringing control bots miss is that if you're going the control route, you also need to be designed, built, and driven to dominate the aggression side of things. You're not gonna 4-1 or 5-0 damage in most fights, 3-2 is your typical damage ceiling, so you'd better take charge in aggression and control in every fight. The nice thing there is if you do that, the fight should be entertaining, and a good control bot can make a fight entertaining even if the opponent is having issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVd0sVnzlqs

# ¿ Mar 7, 2022 16:56

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 12:41

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

For some context, I was both heavily involved in writing the current judging criteria and have been involved in a lot of discussions with BB surrounding rules going into last season and continuing through now.

On the Minotaur/Witch Doctor fight, most of the issues come from the unstick coming faster than expected and ref miscommunication after the fight restarted. Neither team should get the blame here. I'd expect significant changes to both the unstick and mobility rules for next season.

With Hydra/Tantrum, based on the judging criteria the judges got the match correct. Damage is about as objective as is practical for a combat event, and while Hydra got in a bunch of flips, they didn't do any noticeable damage. From what I was told, Tantrum showed weapon function after the fight was concluded so the only non-cosmetic damage was the front portion of Hydra's flipper being broken off. By the rules, that's a 3-2 on damage. On control, by the criteria you'd likely rate Hydra at "significant" and Tantrum at "moderate", so that's 2-1 for Hydra.

Aggression seems to be the main point of debate, and for that I'll go with some quotes right from the judges guide:

quote:

Aggression Definitions
Minimal: A Bot waits for its opponent to come to it, or else actively avoids contact with the
opponent (except when resetting or spinning up its active weapon).
Moderate: Bot occasionally demonstrates boldness and/or intent by utilizing its active weapon or
ramming to attack the opponent.
Significant: Bot shows frequent demonstrations of boldness and/or intent by utilizing its active
weapon and/or ramming to attack its opponent.

Hydra spent a great deal of the fight effectively pivoting in place waiting for Tantrum to make a move.

Similarly

quote:

Aggression Factors

Use all of the following factors together to get an overall impression of a BattleBot�s Aggression:

Frequency: The number of attempted attacks during the Match. If the opponent Bot moves to avoid an
attack, that should still count as an attempt.

Severity: The intensity or forcefulness of each attack. Is the Bot being used with full effectiveness
against its opponent, or just making love-taps?

Boldness: What is the apparent intent of the Bot? Is it intentionally attacking in such a way that it risks
damage to itself (such as using a weapon that could be damaged) or is it simply hitting the other Bot with
an armored wedge that�s far less likely to be damaged?

Tantrum's repeated attempts to attack a nearly stationary Hydra in spite of Hydra winning the ground war and sending Tantrum flying hits the "boldness" category.

In my opinion, if Hydra had spent more time chasing down Tantrum instead of letting Tantrum dictate the pace of the fight they'd have won, however with the fight that happened, it's easy to score aggression 2-1 for Tantrum.

In general, the current judging criteria is designed to reward a robot being on the attack. If the fight goes to the judges, you want to be the robot that spent the fight going for hits.

MikeNCR fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Apr 9, 2022

# ¿ Apr 9, 2022 19:42

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Tunicate posted:

I think practically speaking, if they'd tried chasing tantrum Hydra would have done a lot worse, given their drivetrain and super low ground clearance

Yep, Hydra bet on being able to play defense and the flips breaking their opponent, Tantrum didn't break and that made the difference. It's a strategy call that had been working for them, but didn't this time.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2022 19:57

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Gromit posted:

Yeah, it's quite surprising. You'd think that for every bot you'd test if you can rest it on any surface that stops it from driving. If you can, weld a nub there so it rolls over.

From what I remember when talking with a member of the team part of the issue was because they ended up over weight and in getting the bot back under weight at the event (once you're at filming there's not much time for testing since you're vying for the same two test boxes with the other ~60 teams) they unintentionally hindered their ability to get back on to their wheels from that position. If I'm remembering correctly it would also fall back onto its wheels when the weapon wasn't spinning, but the spin down time was long enough (and the thought to turn it off takes a moment) that they didn't get to the point where it'd reliably drop back on to its wheels.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2022 01:22

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Gromit posted:

You don't need a safe space to test to see if a bot rests stably on its rear. Make it not do that ever, no matter if the weapon is spinning or not.

The problem is there are very few locations where you can safely test whether or not a bot will get back on to its wheels with the weapon spun up because you both need a safe enclosure to do the testing in (not many exist) and you need a way to put the bot into those positions, while spinning, which means you can't just have someone set it into position.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2022 22:33

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Gromit posted:

In the replay it looks like the CO2 blast is doing it, rather than an actual hit.

But you can always turn the weapon off during a fight, so test it like that. You can't always turn it on, after all.

Absolutely true, however many teams running heavy spinning weapons are pushing near the 60 second maximum spindown time, so if you're already spun up and can't get back on to your wheels with the weapon at a decent speed there's a good chance you'll be counted out before it slows down enough to matter. The reason most teams try to get close to that limit is that electrically/mechanically forcing your weapon to spin down can be very hard on your parts, so taking as long as you're allowed to do so minimizes damage as whatever system you use has to absorb the energy stored in the weapon and a sudden stop is an extreme shock load to most components.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2022 17:15

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

PostNouveau posted:

Big Dill pretty much as expected. lol at demolishing the minibot right at the buzzer.

I thought Blacksmith/Deadlift would be closer than that, but Blacksmith did some good work. Really good driving.

Maybe should have just recapped this Lucky-Switchback fight.

Hell of a fight with Blade and Kraken. Felt like we finally saw a bit of what all the hype was about with Blade going into the big tourney.

I'm surprised the Kraken team doesn't want to keep going with the design. It seems like they kept getting better and better, but not really at the same pace as the rest of the field.

Orby continues to have poo poo just jar loose inside Blade like nearly every other fight. Delivers 1 or 2 big hits, then shuts down.

Switchback-Blacksmih was all about driving. Rookie driver vs. Al Kindle and Switchback got rocked even though they probably had the better weapon.

Wooooooooo boy, the finals was a slobberknocker. Don't envy the judges there.

I just don't think Bloodsport has the resilience to beat Skorpios. It spins up very slowly, can only deliver one hit at a time where the most successful spinners are able to push through the first hit and keep shredding. Skorpios is basically Blacksmith but much better, and Blacksmith almost beat Bloodsport. Skorpios are great drivers on top of that.

Oh, Skorpios' weapon is hosed up. I think they're still on track to win though. Bloodsport will get the damage but lose control and aggro. The plan to take out Bloodsport is pretty simple just stay on top of them and Skorpios did that.

On the scoring:
It's always down to how that damage category gets scored. Skorpios pushed Bloodsport around the whole fight, but the only real damage in the fight was Bloodsport bending their weapon (it was already hosed up before that too). Does Bloodsport deserve 5-0 points for doing the only damage in the fight?

On the damage comment here's the current criteria:

Some general notes (haven't watched the fight yet, spoilering just to be safe)

The current damage criteria was written to make it much easier to know what a damage score should be, both for the judges and for the teams. This is also meant to solidify that a 5-0 on damage, with damage as the highest point category, should be a challenge to achieve. People will argue both sides of this, but the objective criteria actively helps non-KE bots in the sense that if they are able to survive a KE weaponed opponent with all their bits still working they're at worst losing damage 3-2, where in the past you would have people argue the fight should be a 3-2, 4-1, and a 5-0 all in the same comment chain for a vast array of reasons.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2022 23:37

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

Railing Kill posted:

Has anyone ITT been to a NHRL event live? I'm seriously considering making the trek from Maine to their event in December. It seems like a good time: 12+ hours of robot combat, demo boxes for kids to pilot bots, flexible seating to watch bouts, pit tours, and food truck all for per person. Anyone have any firsthand experience with their events?

I've heard good things, and the December event is the finals, so it'll be the best of the best turning up to fight. If I were going planning to go to watch (instead of compete) that's the one I'd go with.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2022 23:09

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 12:41

MikeNCR: Oct 11, 2003

SLICK GOKU BABY posted:

Cool that Mike Jeffrey's (of Bombshell) got brought on to be the match steward and be the middleman between the builders and judges / production.

The new job is/was fun, if exhausting. Already said yes to next year.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2022 01:35

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > It's Robot Fighting Time! Battlebots Season 6 January 2022!