How could I Improve pt 2

[corsair_lightning]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

Okay, it's time for me to do something nobody in fanfic is brave(or stupid) enough to do... Partially clone one of Timothy James Sillery's robots...

Counter
Weight: 100kg
Shape: A semicircle attached to a scoop. The semicircle is the back of the robot.
Colour: Just the color of titanium.
Dimensions: 70cm x 90cm x 25cm
Drive: 4 S28-400 Magmotors, powered by 6x NiCad Battlepacks
Locomotion: 4 aluminum boron carbide wheels with Vulkanized rubber tyres.
Armour: 6.5mm titanium/vanadium alloy
Speed: 20mph
Ground Clearance: 0mm at front due to solid titanium/vanadium alloy scoop. 5mm at sides and rear.
Turning Circle: 0m
Weapons: It can ram you quite hard.
Srimech: It is invertible
Strengths: Good pushing power, designed to kill Uberspinners(Including Mass Disctruction Ultimate 4.1)
Weaknesses: No active weapon, can be banned from tournies that do not allow passive weaponry.
Bio: Simply: welcome to Grand Theft Robot. TJS's horribly twisted robot Counter was seriously revised by me to become what TJS had tried to make it, but had not succeeded with: An Uberspinner-killer.

[joey_picus]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

There's a good reason nobody tried to clone one of Tim's robots before Mark...

I'm disappointed in you Mark. You evidently have some talent in you, as evidenced by the fact that you can come up with lots of interesting ideas (usually of the illegal and/or impractical manner but there are a few good ones) and adapt the same basic drivetrain to lots of different concepts, so I ask you this...and I want you to answer me, not fob me off with another set of stats:

Why do you choose to take other peoples' designs without their permission and improve them, instead of coming up with your own?

It doesn't matter if the designs in question are old, retired, or belong to people who have left the forum or been banned. If the design isn't yours, and you do not have specific permission from the person who originally gave it you to use it, under no circumstances are you to take them to massacr-sorry, adapt in whatever way you choose. It's intellectual property theft and there's no reason for it at all (if you have a reason that isn't nonsensical and is somehow connected to the topic, I'd very much like to hear it)

It's okay to copy a design feature as used in another robot (if it wasn't, there would be next to no new vapourbots around) but taking the name, the very specific overall design, the unique weaponry or the spirit of another machine without asking permission first is not tolerable. I welcomed you back with the hope that you had changed; it has become very clear to me that you haven't at all, and I shall be forced to lobby for your rebanning at the next available opportunity unless you shape up quick. You've been given good advice, which you choose to disregard, on this issue before...now, if it's not too difficult, could I have an answer to my question please?

[corsair_lightning]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

I will answer the question as carefully as I can.

The reason is: because I'm afraid.

I know this sounds very weird, but it shouldn't. I am afraid. Afraid that my bots will do suckishly in any tournies I enter them into. Afraid that I can't try an untested design without it being frowned upon by everyone. Afraid that if I make one robot even partially reminiscent of somebody else's(Eg: Wishbone), that I will be banned, crushed via the banhammer, and have my remains swept up into a dustbin.

So that's why. For me, it just feels safer to make a copy of a robot that won 1 fight and lost everything else, instead of trying a brand new and possibly crazy design which might go out in the first round.

I hope this make sense, and if it doesn't, I understand. But you need to realize that I'm afraid of my old/new designs coming back and haunting me with a massive amount of losses.

Example:

Look at Cyrilium! Lost against Your very own No Objections in Liam's Challenge Belt, was given invertibility, then lost again in the same competition against Nitro-Gene 4.0, was revised as Cyrilium 2, lost to Liar 2 in Robot SMASH!!!, lost to Infusion in AJWars: Another Era, was revised as Cyrilium Mach 2, was the first one out in the first EOTR Annihilator, lost to Wedge Devo in the EOTR Challenge Belt, was revised again as Cyrilium Mach 3, never saw combat, was permanently retired, then rebuilt in Cyrilium 2 format as American Oil.

Out of all the robots here, it has the worst Win/Loss ratio in the entire FanFic community!

So does that (hopefully) answer your question?

[joey_picus]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

If I'm reading that correctly, you're scared of being banned if you copy other people's robots...so...you copy other people's robots?

[corsair_lightning]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

Let me look at what I typed for a moment...

*Reads post*

You're right! I would try and fix it, but the editing time is up.

Allow me to explain. (And hopefully not counteract myself... )

Say I want to build a powerful spinning robot with twin vertical discs, like Heavy Metal Noise, but I'm afraid that it'll go out in the first round of... Let's randomly say PTT7. So what do I do? I look for a tried and true design, and make a copy of... Let's say Wedginator(It had 2 spinning discs). I know that Wedginator 1.0 won only one fight, but I go ahead and make a copy of it since my idea(The twin vertical spinning blades) could do no better. But then again, it could do no worse also... And therefore I should go for my idea, and if it doesn't work, refine it, enter it in another tourney, scrap it, replace it...

You know what? You're totally right! I have no right at all to copy other people's designs! And I should come up with my own designs!!!

Admittedly, I have screwed up in this area(copying other people's bots without permission, although I don't think you could with permission) way more then TJS, but I just realized that, on my own, I could probably build something even better! Thanks, Joey!

[Navaha]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

A citizen of the frozen nation of Canada is displeased with you, Elam...

...And no, not the one who pointed out my unibrow on Dailybooth.

[knightrous]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

I think people need to get over the whole copying of bots. If you think your design is original, your 99% mistaken. It has probably been done in some shape and form previous.

MDU (A mutant clone of Gyrobot itself) had a bunch of clones after it's first successful win, including clones King Cholera, Crankshafted, Angel of the Abyse and a direct clone AJ made up I think it's rather petty of people complaining of this and it always just ends in a bunch of people posting 5 threads worth of name calling :|

IMHO, I consider it flattery to have someone clone my design.

[andrewj]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

a direct clone AJ made up

I don't remember that one...

Unless you mean PsycloniZer?

[corsair_lightning]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

A citizen of the frozen nation of Canada is displeased with you, Elam...

...And no, not the one who pointed out my unibrow on Dailybooth.

And who would that be?

Oh, and Aaron? I understand how it's flattery, since the person copying the robot clearly thinks the design has major/some potential.

[kodster]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

I think people need to get over the whole copying of bots. If you think your design is original, your 99% mistaken. It has probably been done in some shape and form previous.

MDU (A mutant clone of Gyrobot itself) had a bunch of clones after it's first successful win, including clones King Cholera, Crankshafted, Angel of the Abyse and a direct clone AJ made up I think it's rather petty of people complaining of this and it always just ends in a bunch of people posting 5 threads worth of name calling :|

IMHO, I consider it flattery to have someone clone my design.

If it's accidental, or an inside joke with the original creator, then I'm not too bothered with it, Aaron, but Mark here is just cloning bots to intentionally pi$$ people off, or at least that's what it's looking like to me.

[corsair_lightning]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

*Manages to stay calm*

Listen. Why do I create a partial copy of another person' robot? Because I think it actually had/has some promise in it. Also because several of the designs I borrowed ideas from never fought.

In your case, and throughout Team Gore/Zlayerz history, when

Ivy, Killothwack Beta, Laertes, Laertes the 2nd, The Sickness, The Grand Illusion, Curse of Dread, Troubloon: Twice the Trouble, Dysfunction, Destructophobic Mach II, Seung Mina, Killobite Recharged, Killobite Rebooted, Macduff, Wedginator rEVILution, Wedginator Reborn, Super Gore GTI, Super Gore: Artificial Intelligence, Super Gore Revo, and Intriguing

were retired, they never fought a battle, and I feel that these robots have a right to fight at least once, since they were never used in combat.

I know I'm probably making a pointless argument, but I just want you to look back, and realize: Hey! Maybe I should've used them at least once.

I understand what I did wrong, and won't do it again, but seriously, look back, and remember...

EDIT: And no, I don't intend to P!$$ people off when I (partially) copy their designs. I want them to see me enter the design in a tourney, and then, depending on whether I lose my first match, make the heat final, make the quarter-finals, make the semis, or make the grand final/3rd place playoff, They can say: Wow. I'm glad I never entered that robot, or I can't believe I didn't enter that robot in a competition!!! It did great! or Crap... That guy won a tourney using a partial copy of my outdated machine? What the h*ll!

So do you at least partially understand(I hope)?

[kodster]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

Mark, that still doesn't give you the right to rip-off mine and other people's bots; you're stealing credit for our designs. And as for your you should think about bringing back retired bots...well, have you ever considered that maybe we don't want to bring our bots back from the dead? And why on earth are you deliberately cloning a TIM bot? His designs were utter bullocks themselves, and...god that just doesn't make any sense...

I also disagree with Aaron's whole I-don't-give-a-damn-about-being-copied-from thing for myself, as I like my designs in my own hands and not someone else's, but I guess the whole thing has different points of view with different people. Aaron may have been flattered about people cloning MDU1, but quite frankly if I come up with something relatively original, and it gets cloned right from under my nose, that's quite an insult. Cloning successful wedges...that's been going on for ages; same thing with FBSs. However say someone cloned Mornington Crescent, a very decent double-ring spinner, which to me seems quite original (unless I've missed something), and is one of Steve-o's latest brainwaves. Wouldn't Steve be, at the very least, a little bit indignant at the person who did it? I'd say so. I'm not going to try and change Aaron's mind or anyone else's, I'm just speaking what I think of this issue. By the way, look at what happened with Dan's PTT5 bot, Quake. See the utter crap that resulted from that?

With the current robotic physics going on right now, though, there is only a finite amount of originality until something new is discovered and is usable for our style of robot combat, so there will be some indirect cloning, but it pains me to see Mark intentionally clone some original designs and claim them as his own.

[corsair_lightning]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

With the current robotic physics going on right now, though, there is only a finite amount of originality until something new is discovered and is usable for our style of robot combat, so there will be some indirect cloning, but it pains me to see Mark intentionally clone some original designs and claim them as his own.

I'm just wondering, are you suggesting that I ask somebody if I can clone their design before I do it I'm a bit confused there...

Interesting... A robot with a shaking mechanism to cause damage... it didn't work out, according to this:

From PTT5:

ARCHANGEL OF THE ABYSS & ROO CUBED won their battle after StratosFear OOTAed Quake, before the No.27 seed was bashed up by the spinners

[joey_picus]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

I'm just wondering, are you suggesting that I ask somebody if I can clone their design before I do it I'm a bit confused there...

...yes?

That's part of the point I've been attempting to get through to you.

[kodster]

Re: How could I Improve pt 2

I know I said originality right now has a finite amount, Mark, but do you not have any originality on tap that you have to find some way to clone other robots, anyway? Jeez...

And just because Quake lost its first fight doesn't mean it was a failure, just that Dan didn't want to keep using it after that. His decision.