Flipping out of the Arena

[djburke]

I was looking at the robot wars extreme on the TV today and it strikes me that the arena side walls are way to low which gives an unfair advantage to flippers. I haven't been to a live event in a while, is it still the case the sides are low. Wrestling matches are not over just because one combatant is out of the ring so why does it work for robot fighting? Personally area side walls should be high or at least a flip out does not mean a win.
Just a thought

Dan

[john]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Roaming Robots inner wall is 0.5 meters and I can't see what Robots Live is but I think their's is lower.

[robotwars]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Hiya,

The current Roaming Robots arena has 500mm high walls, but is angled inwards to make OOTA's harder.

Last year we introduced cages to 3 sides of the arena to make the fights harder, which has worked a treat.

John
www.RoamingRobots.co.uk

[RogueTwoRobots]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Wrestling matches are not over just because one combatant is out of the ring so why does it work for robot fighting?

Err, because robots can't pick themselves up off the ground and climb back into the arena the same way as wrestlers can?
I know there are some smart people among us roboteers but even they haven't perfected humanoid combat robots....yet

[botmad]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

well the roaming robots crew put up a flip out zone when we also put in the cages and i don't know why we got rid off it because the way that worked was if you got flipped out the door will go down and you could drive back in but that would happen 1 more time and then if you got flipped out again you were out and you would only have 30 second to get back in .



team tilly
shane

[djburke]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

The whole point of fighting machines is to see which is best in combat. Best does not mean who can flip a machine out of the arena. In my opinion anyway.

I want to see exciting fights with machines fighting to the death. EG smashed or imobile not in a pit or out of the arena. To many battles end because one is flipped out or accidental trips to the pit. imagine razor accidentally falling in the pit whilst fighting a rubbish machine.Bad driving possibly but not very fair and not any indication as to which machine is best or exciting.

Dan

[death robotics]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Hey, just noticed this thread

I understand your OOTA problem. but a lot of robots get knocked out cold. Terrorhurtz vs Behemoth in 2005 for example
One hit took out the safety link. There are still knockout. but try getting through Hardox, not an easy thing to do.
(Unless your name is Tiberious.... cant spell it dont care )

Basically. It will be like this for a long time. Until we get an arena safe for spinners. (Starts drawing an arena)

[banana_man]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Surely the idea of best robot takes into account the success of the weapon, in the case of flippers, flipping the opponent, possibly out of the arena. A flipper is successful by flipping another robot out in the same way that a spinner is successful if it rips another to shreds.

[djburke]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Flippers are fun and effective but if you have a sealed arena (no flip out area )then flippers would not win so often meaning the current arena design favours flipping robots.

A win should mean a robot is smashed or immobile, throwing a machine out of the arena does not mean a win in my book.

[john]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Flippers are fun and effective but if you have a sealed arena (no flip out area )then flippers would not win so often meaning the current arena design favours flipping robots.

A win should mean a robot is smashed or immobile, throwing a machine out of the arena does not mean a win in my book.

Thats why jonno has put up three walls so there is only one side you can flip out

[lex]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Well, if it's in the rules and the arena design allows it, it's a legitimate tactic, simple as that. To stay in the fight a robot has to able to move- some rule sets define a particular minimum distance from the robots base radius- and remain on the 'playing surface' too. If the arena design allows you to remove your opponent from the defined arena surface, either OOTA or down a pit for example, that's a knockout unless they can get back into the arena and move about within a defined time period.

Some arenas, like the Battlebox, don't allow OOTAs as such, but robots can still get caught up on arena hazards or stuck against the wall.
Some kinds of arenas favour flippers, enclosed arenas probably favour spinners. It can also be argued that a non-flat surface is a good idea to discourage wedges and flippers, and some arenas do this. Some people think that this would make fights more interesting, some think it wouldn't because they like flippers and rambots. Tastes differ... Builders build to suit the conditions they fight under- in different arenas, different types of machine are more successful.

In the UK scene at the moment there are practical constraints imposed by the need for portable arenas and what Event Organisers consider to be a reasonable size (and therefore cost) to transport, which include not being able to safely run heavyweight spinners. In the absence of spinners, allowing some possibility of OOTAs is good for the audience, as it can be quite exciting and allow a decisive win. Axebots are still quite successful in the UK and there are more of these now that a couple of years back. There are other issues. If it was possible to run HW spinners, fewer events would probably happen each year because builders would be unable to sustain the cost of potentially rebuilding several times a year. Also, builders who have developed flippers for several years and who have a great deal of money put into the hardware are understandably reluctant (or unable) to build completely new machines when rules or arenas change.

All that said, look elsewhere on the forum for discussion on a possible new 'safe' class of heavyweight spinners proposed by Roaming Robots. In an ideal world most builders would like spinners at some events at least. The good news is that there is at least full combat for featherweights once a year, which is really where the cutting edge of the sport is in the UK now.

[robotwars]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Spot on post John, hit the nail on the head.

Nice to see you still bubbling in the background. :-)

[lex]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

Cheers John! Yes I'm still lurking about the place. I still intend to run Ka-Pow! again, but don't seem to be able to get the time set aside to finish the rebuild we started two or three years ago now that I'm teaching- and I always was slow getting robot stuff done. I really must get to a gig this year!

[Lord Bob]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

I totally agree
It is ok for a start, but when you have several fights in a row of fights lasting 5 seconds and they just OOtA, it is just boring. Especially as there are so many pneumatic flippers out there. Fights should be to the death.

I understand the argument of people with flippers, but if you can flip high and hard enough, even if they don't go out the arena, you can seriously damage the opponent from the impact.

[craig_colliass]

Re: Flipping out of the Arena

This is One of the situations I have been monitoring with the shows, at the last event on the Saturday there were 14 heavy weight robots and only 3 were not flippers.

The saint was ejected from the arena in one fight by the awesome Kronic, and It was just over the half way mark in the Robots Live arena, this means it was ejected over more than Half the distance of the arena suddenly in that show there is no safe place to fight.

I am normally against rule changes as I think the openness of the rule-set keeps innovation unimpeded.

so I believe it is down to the arena owners to keep changing (if they want to to) the environment the robots fight in, so it's as neutral as possible.

Again Jonno has done this and continues to investigate new innovations too,

I think in the end if the arenas don't change it will be a case of 14 heavy weight robots and all of them flippers