Current Events > BattleBots: Fight Night week 2 discussion topic *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

That was a shame.
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Shouldn't have gotten greedy with that last hit, he had that
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MJOLNRVII posted...

"I am extremely confused and don't know what happened."

At least he's honest.
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Main event time! Two of the final four from last season, Minotaur vs. Whiplash!
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Not as much robo-gore tonight as there was last week's episode. I honestly expected Mammoth to fall to pieces.
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Yeah, that last bout was kinda disappointing.
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Kind of an anticlimactic main event there. Minotaur didn't look like it was at full power, and neither bot could get a solid hit in to impress the judges based on damage, so Whiplash easily won it based on control and aggression. We still had some great moments this episode, like Mammoth YEETing Axe Backwards out of the arena and both Black Dragon and Witch Doctor continuing to battle bravely while engulfed in flames.

See you all next week for some more bot-busting action!
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I'm going to root for Mammoth even if it will eventually get chopped up.
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I wasn't actively posting here, because physical reasons and being lazy, so figured I'd just watch and wait.

Disappointed in Shatter's weapon motor burning out or having issues. Seemed to be having power issues and then smoked up before stopping completely(not to mention broke). On the other hand the omni drive and armor was at least impressive and I wasn't lied to about them having em.

Mammoth is as hilarious as I expected when I first saw an image of it, so I'm glad it worked out. Part of the joy to see something dumb/goofy/new is when it actually does something or wins if even only for just 1 match. I'm sure it'll be total fodder for a proper spinner as it's literally just tube scaffolding and exposed components.

Final fight was very disappointing to say the least...

Anyways, I don't know if everyone gets the same commercials as each other, since there's different cable/tv providers. However, when it did the flamethrower testing for Black Dragon it was immediately followed up by that commercial with the lady calling about how someone finally went and burned down her she shed. I found that to be a very fitting match.

Off topic, but that jetsuit is fucking awesome.
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PiOverlord posted...

I'm going to root for Mammoth even if it will eventually get chopped up.

Same, I have a soft spot for "lethal joke characters" like Mammoth and HUGE. Nuts 2 over in Robot Wars was another one I enjoyed a lot.

Purple_Cheetah posted...

Anyways, I don't know if everyone gets the same commercials as each other, since there's different cable/tv providers. However, when it did the flamethrower testing for Black Dragon it was immediately followed up by that commercial with the lady calling about how someone finally went and burned down her she shed. I found that to be a very fitting match.

That happened on my feed too, and my dad pointed out the very same irony that you did.
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That was a bummer in the main event
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powerman1426 posted...

Shouldn't have gotten greedy with that last hit, he had that

Yeah. Ray Billings and Tombstone lost the chance to win a season based on that same behavior.

Alteres posted...

Off topic, but that jetsuit is fucking awesome.

Yeah. Like they said though, 5 to 9 minutes between refueling is a bit steep. Still, the main operator was able to fly in a darn bulletproof Ironman costume with no training.

My money for sci-fi futures is more geared towards larger exo-suits that are almost like one-person vehicles. Something like Exosquad. The goal is to be small enough to enter human-sized areas, but strong and durable enough to require a lot of firepower to take down. It's the perfect compliment to an aerial drone force.
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Power sources and reaction mass are the real problems with anything relatively human size, especially in a gravity well.

Without using aerodynamics to give lift you are constantly needing far too much energy to remain airborne.

We could make some pretty awesome stuff in zero g even with our current tech.
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Calwings posted...

Purple_Cheetah posted...

Also shatter, if I heard/remembered right they have universial drivetrain, which could be very interesting if so. Means they can strafe or go in any direction(cept up on their own). If that's true, then I'm very curious to see how it works out, because that's one of the issues with thwack bots... aiming from steering.

When I hear "thwackbot" and "can move in any direction", my mind instantly goes to Nuts 2 from Robot Wars, and that always puts a smile on my face.

When I hear "thwackbot" I think "whackbot"; the fan-given nickname in Marvel vs Capcom. Also go duck! lol
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Can we all agree that the shows really don't need to be TWO FUCKING HOURS long?
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LostForest posted...

Can we all agree that the shows really don't need to be TWO FUCKING HOURS long?

Nope. More battles means more fun. Plus, the extra time allows for extra informative/fun stuff from the pits.
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You think it's bad at 2 hours?

Doing the math, including the unyet aired episode on science that's 33 bots. out of 67... only half have fought once so far. They all have to fight at least 4 times each. Then there's the final 16, not to mention whatever else they throw in.

Ignoring any fight that gets cut we're looking at potentially 16 episodes plus 2ish for the 16, so 18 episodes times 2 hours each. They do have a fair bit of filler, but it's usually to showcase or look at a bot unlike last season. They might also change their format at some point to trim out the terrible fights like they have in the past. The next one will definitely be 2 hours though.

If you think 18 episodes is insane, it was 20 last year. Granted it was 1 hour a pop, but it dragged on... from the start of june into the first week of october. I'd rather have 2 hour episodes instead of this dragging into next year. Also they take a 2 week break for shark week iirc.

Cool, Battlebots discussion!

Huge screwed up by changing their wheels. Same as Sawblaze by changing the dustbin. I wonder if the organizers made them change it up because they were overpowered defensively?

Captain Shrederator deserves credit for continuing to show up and entertain despite being 90% glass and 10% cannon ever year

Black Dragon got jobbed by the judges, they won that fight easy.

Mammoth is awesome, it's either gonna launch bots or become a bunch of broken scaffolding. That's prime Battlebots.

The main event was top level stuff. That was like a pitching battle in baseball, parts going flying is sexy but good driving is the true game and that's what that was. There's a reason why everybody loves Tombstone, it's one of the few bots that usually causes destruction even against top level bots. Otherwise it's about defense.

Also shoutout to the dude who mention Beta. I miss those Brits, too. Bummed they're not back, they were the best hammer bot.
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MasterGakke posted...

Huge screwed up by changing their wheels. Same as Sawblaze by changing the dustbin. I wonder if the organizers made them change it up because they were overpowered defensively?

Doubtful. Sawblaze kept getting the prongs bend upwards so it couldn't use them very well and there's at least 1-2 fights in 2018 where it actually cuts itself due to this. The redesign make it a more solid shove and pin type that doesn't bend or snag on the killsaws.

Huge was using the shorter bar and smaller wheels against SoW, they were trying their anti-spinner wheels because they learned once ICEwave cut through them it became pretty useless with the spokes. So the other design has a middle ring in the spokes to improve durability. Even with these they got destroyed because SoW is such a powerhouse when functioning. It's actually got a stronger weapon than tombstone, as that bar is roughly 70(ts) pounds vs 120(sow) iirc. The main trade off is the invertability of TS. This is why I've been curious to see a SoW/TS match, the kinetic energy would be intense. However, if Deep Six sorted their gyroscopic issue out, that thing is a monster as well... 100 pound bar upper cut.

DIdn't Witch Doctor have the same issue of catching on fire last year?
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MasterGakke posted...

Black Dragon got jobbed by the judges, they won that fight easy.

We already discussed this earlier. My logic was that two of the judges gave Texas Twister the points for aggression in addition to damage. Obviously Black Dragon won the points for control, and there's no justification for Black Dragon winning the points for damage because they lost their primary weapon much earlier in the fight and they were on fucking fire. Plus, aggression via shoving/pushing (even if it's your only option because your primary weapon is gone) is counted for less than aggression using your primary weapon, so that's why two of the judges gave those points to Texas Twister.

I personally would have given Black Dragon aggression and the decision too, but I understand the logic of giving it to Texas Twister instead.

MasterGakke posted...

Also shoutout to the dude who mention Beta. I miss those Brits, too. Bummed they're not back, they were the best hammer bot.

I was always a Terrorhurtz mark when it came to Robot Wars, so when I heard that Team Hurtz had a hammer bot coming to BattleBots, I was hyped for them and they didn't disappoint. Sadly, they haven't competed in the last two seasons because, both of those times, the taping of BattleBots conflicted with a prior commitment they had to competing in a tournament in China with their recently made flipper bot, Tnsh.

KFHEWUI posted...

Didn't Witch Doctor have the same issue of catching on fire last year?

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Calwings posted...

LostForest posted...

Can we all agree that the shows really don't need to be TWO FUCKING HOURS long?

Nope. More battles means more fun. Plus, the extra time allows for extra informative/fun stuff from the pits.

I like more fights but didn't they do the same number of fights last year in 1-hour episodes?
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I'm honestly surprised this show still running...
I remember seeing it back then on Nickelodeon, and buying a physical copy of battle bots on the GBA...
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IIRC they've gone through iterations over the years. This might be the 3.0 version?
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LostForest posted...

I like more fights but didn't they do the same number of fights last year in 1-hour episodes?

Excluding any Science Channel bonus fights, the 1-hour episodes in last year's season had 5 fights apiece, while this season's 2-hour episodes have (so far) each had 7 fights apiece. So yes, we are getting less fights per hour on average than last year, but I really like that the extra hour gives more time for extra behind-the-scenes stuff. For people who only come for the carnage and don't care about the extra fluff, I can understand why the extra downtime could make episodes feel like they drag on a bit.

Darkrobotisback posted...

I'm honestly surprised this show still running...
I remember seeing it back then on Nickelodeon, and buying a physical copy of battle bots on the GBA...

DuneMan posted...

IIRC they've gone through iterations over the years. This might be the 3.0 version?

The original BattleBots series aired in the early 2000's on Comedy Central and was cancelled after 5 seasons. It was revived in 2015 and had 2 seasons on ABC, then took a year off, and now this is the 2nd season in its current Discovery/Science Channel home. The ABC/Discovery/Science reboot is considered all one new series. If you're remembering any robot combat show airing on Nickelodeon, that was actually a US-made spinoff of the UK Robot Wars series, not a version of BattleBots.
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Robot Fighting as a TV show is a very old thing, I've been watching it forever. Ever since the latest ABC iteration it's been better than ever. Back in the day it was like 1 really exciting fight for every 4-5 barely functioning wedge bots with malfunctioning weapons pushing each other around while the commentators desperately snort coke to stay excited. That's basically reversed now, where almost every fight is destructive goodness and only rarely is it shoving matches. That said, I kinda miss the more hazard-strewn arenas that these shows had and Robot Wars still has. I can see why the modern Battlebots gets rid of them because it reduces randomness and there are 10s of bots that could legitimately win without bs getting in the way, but it's still funny to watch some driver forget about the pit and tumble in. Plus it never gets old seeing the stage crew desperately winch a ring out'd 250 pound robot out of the trench around the Robot Wars arena in the background while they interview the winner.

In this vein, somebody mentioned the Beta/Hertz guys aren't in these Battlebots because they're in China doing another tourney. Is there any way to watch this? I know how to internet so watching Robot Wars as an American is easy, but Chinese TV is a mystery to me.
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MasterGakke posted...

I kinda miss the more hazard-strewn arenas that these shows had and Robot Wars still has. I can see why the modern Battlebots gets rid of them because it reduces randomness and there are 10s of bots that could legitimately win without bs getting in the way, but it's still funny to watch some driver forget about the pit and tumble in. Plus it never gets old seeing the stage crew desperately winch a ring out'd 250 pound robot out of the trench around the Robot Wars arena in the background while they interview the winner.

I liked the Robot Wars arena better because the hazards (including the Pit and the house bots) were ways for a bot with a weaker weapon/armor to overcome that gap with skilled driving. Battles in Robot Wars always felt way more tactical to me than the ones in BattleBots.

MasterGakke posted...

In this vein, somebody mentioned the Beta/Hertz guys aren't in these Battlebots because they're in China doing another tourney. Is there any way to watch this? I know how to internet so watching Robot Wars as an American is easy, but Chinese TV is a mystery to me.

I would guess there isn't any legal way to watch it here, and even if there was, you probably can't understand the Chinese commentary anyways. If you search for "King Of Bots" either on Google or on the r/BattleBots subreddit, you might find a way to watch some of the fights/episodes. There have been two seasons (though one of them is called a 1.5 for some reason) with another airing later this year.
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The best thing about the house bots is when the contender robots go after them. I forget it's name but when the NASA-engineer built white flipper bot from Robot Wars a few years ago started attacking house robots it was so awesome.

Thanks for your help on that Chinese show, I didn't know anything so the name is a great start. I don't care about legal and can deal with foreign commentary if it means getting to see Beta bop some bots again.

Apollo was the bot.
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MasterGakke posted...

The best thing about the house bots is when the contender robots go after them. I forget it's name but when the NASA-engineer built white flipper bot from Robot Wars a few years ago started attacking house robots it was so awesome.

Yep, that was Apollo.




Of course, it did end up paying for those sins eventually.


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MasterGakke posted...

I don't care about legal and can deal with foreign commentary if it means getting to see Beta bop some bots again.

Team Hurtz isn't using (and can't use) Beta in King Of Bots though, due to copyright issues. I mentioned earlier that it's using a flipper bot called Tnsh.
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