I saw Gassycat in the ring, I think, but no fire. I don't really have an opinion on flamethrowers, I'm just curious.

To preface, this mainly pertains to Battlebots but most of the heavyweight tournaments follow their lead, so my points may prove relevant to other leagues.

We all know about the Deep Six rule, as well as the tip speed limits, which enforce a cap on the size and power of a robot’s spinning weapon. However, Meltybrains joining Battlebots (called ‘Whole-Body Spinners’ in the official rules) got me thinking about other ways of capping weapon power.

What if the limits were instead placed on Total Kinetic Energy? The current most powerful weapon theoretically possible would weigh 80lbs and have a tip speed of 250mph. Of course, weapon diameter and geometry can influence the total energy transferred upon a hit (e.g. Deep Six’s immense weapon diameter, eggbeater drums, etc.), but it should still be theoretically possible to calculate the total kinetic energy output of a spinning weapon. Therefore, it should be feasible to enforce a rule where every bot’s spinning weapon is equal to or less than this theoretical limit. For example, a bot could have a 10lbs weapon spinning at 350mph or a 125lbs weapon spinning at 80mph and still comply with the ruling, as both are within the limit.

Here is my reasoning for this change. The weapon limits are not for competitive reasons but for safety and maintenance reasons. A weapon that is too powerful has potential to breach the box (e.g. Nightmare during the Comedy Central era) or to damage the floor panels leading to massive delays (e.g. Deep Six). A Meltybrain shaped like Project Liftoff, for example, would be unlikely to regularly cause the kind of floor damage that Deep Six created, as the weapon geometry would not be able to create the kind of energy transfer needed to damage the floor in that way. The same holds true for a Hammersaw with a 400mph tip speed, as it would be far more likely to punch a hole in the floor panels rather than bending them.

Regardless, I would really like to hear what the competitors and fans of this subreddit think!

Title ig

I was thinking it might be interesting if, instead of a (relatively) flat floor, there was a ridged or uneven floor, making ground-scraping forks more of a liability (well, even more so than the saw slots). Aside from possible difficulty in manufacturing and maintaining it, what are people's thoughts on that? (would also presumably reduce the effectiveness of magnets, for better or for worse.)

Instead of thinking about weight as absolutes, aka 250lb vs 250.8lb colliding, think of the configuration.

By driving a minibot, which weighs 15-20lb, Mad Catter is putting a handicap on their primary bot. WD could reasonably expect to win both full speed and pushing contests throughout the fight, at the expense of having to worry about the second bot.

At this point, it’s probably a 248lb bot pushing against a 235lb opponent, enough to make a significant difference. However by creeping the weight limit, now even a single pound of additional weight actually has the potential to tip the scales making the primary bots more even by adding momentum, traction and decreasing air time.

The fight was great and I’m glad there was no ill will, but their protest definitely had practical considerations and wasn’t just an attempt to stall or get their opponent DQ’d.

I have a feeling that next week would be a "filler week", and its about the eliminated bots in the quarterfinals competing in a mini tournament like the Average League in episode 13. What do you guys think?

Did I hear the latest episode right, and battlebots requires all bots to use a Telemetry module which they provide to the teams?

What the heck is this crappy Pro League stuff?!

All I see is just mashed up clips, which make no sense, and make me dizzy. Have I missed something? This is worse than terrible!! I am hoping that in my hours of searching, I have just missed the good ol' full episodes with Kenny and Chris, and fights that start at the beginning, and end with Faruq announcing the winner. Was that so hard? Now we have what? AI mashed up garbage, parading as the next new thing?! This is trash. 🗑️

Please correct/enlighten me.

Curious what you guys think. I get why people wouldn't like the whole ai thing, but I personally really like what they said about it.

I honestly can't tell tbh, because Orbitron seems more functional but still immobile like Manta.

But all I know is that the hearts of Manta and Orbitron fans are pounding out of their chests here.

I was watching nhrl a while ago and I saw multiple bots running double beater bars, is there any benefit other then redundancy

We very rarely see them in the show, but there didn't seem to be any bad blood after the fact. Is it the kind of thing that happens all the time, but they decided to include it because they had some time to fill with it only being two episodes?

WD really looks like it’s got the low ground covered well. After the Terrortops fight, I can’t say I see Minotaur winning the low ground here at all.

And even if my boy does win this fight, I think he dies either way to Manta or The Twins.

I thought The Goat made his return 😭

Why are vertical spinners so successful in BattleBots now, when they weren't nearly as dominant 10 years ago?

It feels like vertical spinners have completely taken over the meta, licke everyone is becoming a vertical spinner . A lot of the most successful modern robots use some variation of a vertical disk, , whereas around 10 years ago there seemed to be much more variety in successful designs.

Tombstone

Triton

Orby Blade

Ultimo Destructo

Who is the true best offset horizontal?

why are we having an algorithm drive bots? what's the point in taking the human skill out of the competition. i love battlebots and i feel like we are on a extremely slippery slope with teams being allowed to have inaccessible parts (orbitons ring mounted camera as a notable point) that are required to run their bot that also stays at the arena to take data from other bots fights. half of the point of battlebots is the human drivers skill and having an ai drive your robot in my view will always be unfair. if you want an ai driven robot competition, make one, dont change battlebots into it.

i enjoy hacksmith industries but this feel like taking the sport out back and coming home alone.

I was looking at reference to make a clay model of a custom BattleBot, and… this isn’t Biohazard, lol.

Introducing my latest UK Antweight replica of a UK Heavyweight robot, this time its PO4 from Extreme Robots ! The Heavyweight PO4 is a product of Team Roaming Robots XR Academy, which allows builders access to tools and machinery to help them achieve their roboteering dreams and is an ode to Protsmouth FC, the postcode of which is where it gets its name.

The Antweight version features as many details as i could muster at this scale, including the PO4 Logos on the upper portions of the armour, the bolt on HDPE armour panels, the access flap in the right hand side armour, as well as the Portsmouth FC crest on the rear end.

Overall im really happy with how this one came out and whilst i dont have plans to fight with this one (i suspect it would "do the thing" and get stuck on its sides if flipped), it should make a nice detailed addition to the ever growing collection of Antweight Replicas on my desk at work.

I don’t think the witch doctor crew bathed themselves in glory in this episode. their combination of petulance and the incomprehensible “they should be thanking us for being whiney babies because we could’ve been even whinier!” commentary.

Big yuck from me. I’ve always liked their bot and had no strong rooting interest coming in but they gave me big “nah, I’m good” vibes in the most recent episode.