[spoiler]Icewave again proves that horizontal spinners are pretty OP. Maybe if the flame was a bit more powerful?
Well, Warhead was up against the same type of bot it lost to the first time. Pretty predictable result.
How did Ghost Raptor not come prepared with an extra spinner? Did they just not test it on anything substantial when they made it or what? Still a disappointing end for Warrior Clan.
What was wrong with Plan X’s spinner? If it was actually working the might have stood a chance against Bronco.[/spoiler]
Love this show. Butt, I recall past seasons devoling into boring ram/wedge tank bots that had zero way of doing damage and only won by decisions through their ramming. These were EXTREMELY effective but also EXTREMELY boring.
Solething seems to be going on to either make these illiegal or just disallow them from competing. Without full rules, who knows? Maybe they just said, your bot had to do something or your not getting in the tourney. I pray the show doesnt devolve into what it once was.
What season are you talking about? Almost all the best bots in the later seasons combined ramming with weapons - flippers, hammers, saws, etc.
Even if it was just ramming - dunno how seeing a bot being thrown across the arena is “boring”. Its battlebots, not battlesaws.
Season 5.0 Finalists:
SuperHeavyweight Vladiator (battering ram/spike) vs Diesector (hammers, claws, jaws)
Heavyweight Biohazard (flipper) vs Voltronic (wedge with flipping arm)
Midweight T-Minus (flipper) vs Hazard (wedge with horizontal spinner/blade)
Lightweight Dr Inferno Jr (wedge with saws) vs Wedge of Doom (wedge with flipping arm)
Yeah, it’s really boring watching wedge bots do almost nothing to each other throughout the match. A better arena design could help. Some small bumps on the floor would prevent wedges from just scraping by at the floor level. Or least putting better hazards at the edges of the arena, so we see more interesting things happen to the bots. Episode 3, several bots were flipped onto that line of saws on the edge, and every time the saws stopped, I’m guessing because the motor on them isn’t very strong. And that Sledgehammer thing does almost nothing to the bots either, it needs more power, or more weight.
I don’t recall flamethrowers being legal before, so that’s cool. And the net was a cool idea as well. I’d like to see more interesting designs. Oil slicks, napalm, projectiles, sticky gel, flying drones, etc. I recall one series gave bonus weight considerations to non-wheeled/tracked vehicles, don’t know if they still do. They could do something similar to non-wedgies.
EDIT: I didn’t realize the net counted as against the ‘unwritten’ rules. That’s stupid, seemed like a sound tactic to me.
In the first season or so, the old battlebots was definitely dominated by the simple wedge-bot design, which was basically invulnerable, simple, an could flip bots easily.
However, this design eventually got countered by more offensive bots with heavy spinner designs, which would tear apart enemies.
This season, the spinner bots (Ice Wave and Tombstone) are most certainly favorites to win. But I can’t help but think that Stinger could put up a serious fight. It’s likely we’ll see Stinger go up against Tombstone in the semi-finals, and I think it’s one of the few bots which could actually beat Tombstone. He has a very versatile wedge/flipper design that seems designed to act as a shield while simultaneously allowing him to drive under the opponent. We saw this a lot against Warhead.
In theory, this could potentially negate Tombstone’s immense strength. The flip side is that Tombstone really only needs ONE solid hit to just ruin an opponent. Stinger’s wheels seem to be his weak-point, and if Tombstone manages to land a hit on his side instead of his shield, it’ll likely wreck Stinger.
Either way, it should be fun to watch, if Stinger can make it past Bronco. I think he can, because even though Bronco is so solid, flipping Stinger isn’t gonna actually impact his ability to fight.
Sticking with last weeks prediction. The left side bracket matches were the best of the series - literal rings of fire, sparks flying, truly exciting. There is only one bot on the right side with a shot, and I think it’ll be a shoe-in for the final. Barring some brainstorm modifications in the pit though, I still see the semi-final winner from the left side winning.
And…the simple wedgie wins. Admittedly, it was a retrofitted ram specifically to counter Tombstone’s lethal spinner, and it was an epic match. Bite Force giving up its namesake weapon was probably the right move against Tombstone, and even then it got chewed up pretty good. It really came down to driving skill, and Wedge Force was the better driven. Good to see metal mayhem again, and hope it’s back again for another season.
And whereas the whole announcing team seems to trying a little too hard, I do love the interview woman with the classic profile.
I am shocked by the outcome. I think really that last cheap shot in the semi’s is what blew Tombstone’s chances of winning. That, and neglecting to put a secondary weapon on (imagine how well Tombstone would have done with a rear wedge “just in case”).
I’ll add that I think Bite Force was undersold in this tournament - that revelation in the end - that they were waiting for this matchup and were prepared… wow. Huge upset , and a well deserved win.
Tombstone is an all-or-nothing design. Everything is designed around it’s main offense and defense - that lethal blade. The manuveurability is compromised, the armor is compromised, even the weapon itself is compromised, because it can only do so many big hits before it damages itself internally enough that the weapon goes non-functional. That’s always been the problem with bots designed around spinning mechanisms - its often a crapshoot that they stay together through a whole match simply based on the damage they did to the other bot. Nor are they really modular. Put on a rear wedge, and that weight pretty much comes out of the blade - it becomes smaller and lighter and whole lot less lethal.
The only thing I disliked about the show was, and I know it’s just me, it was literally 12 minutes of actual battle out of an hour show. I had a few recorded and when I fast forwarded through the commercials and the talking head hype, I timed it to almost exactly 12 minutes. You could watch a whole season that way in an hour or so. Otherwise the battles were great fun.
I didn’t want to make a new thread, and this seems it fits here.
A Japanese and an American “giant robot” companies are going to put their robots into a duel. The American company is making a KS to improve their machine.
The “fight” between the US and Japan with robots is guaranteed to be a huge disappointment, since having humans inside the robots is going to prohibit any real combat (since they presumably do not want to risk dying).
That’s why Battlebots is awesome. It’s awesomely brutal, while not really hurting anyone.
They did a “qualifying round” last night. Not sure who thought it would be a good idea to have 5 mini-bots try to charge a freaking full-speed helicopter blade.
