Dominance of pushers at AWS46

[Rapidrory]

Don't worry Dave, my list of crazy upcoming new designs isn't about to run out any time soon.. Maybe one of them'll even be competitive I guess the problem for most people is that if you're putting time and effort into a robot, it's tempting to keep it safe and stick with what works.. I just hope some of my designs expands the list of designs that work.. One day it might happen

But yeah, anything that can be done to reduce the proportion of luck in the 'luck-robot-driving skill' equation for winning fights is gonna be good; nothing more frustrating than loosing a fight due to bad luck..

[Shakey]

I dunno, we've had 90 degree corners in the arena before and it wasn't a huge problem; it's only pushers which particularly struggle, but even then you seemed to have little trouble Stanley-ing people with the walls in
Adding 45 degree corners can bring problems of their own if they're too low.

I wouldn't write off low walls just yet Scott; I think they have good and bad points and can help balance arenas if used appropriately. But the plan sounds good. 30 cm seems a decent size; better to start wider and then can be made narrower if need be.

90 degree corners are fine if one of them is low. It's a tall 90 degree corner that is an issue. Last time we had an arena with one of those quite a few fights ended up with one hiding in the corner and the other unable to turf it out. Just something like in the corner of my test arena would be good.

[MikeNCR]

There's another aspect which no-one as of yet has commented on which is that all three of the arenas Mike linked appear to have thick "barriers" running around the outside of the arena surface. I suppose these serve a similar purpose to the spike strips on the outside of the BattleBots arena; so that robots are able to immobilise their opponents by propping them up against it or on top of it. I'd be interested to know from Mike if these are an intentional design choice or are just there for mechanical strength, and what effect they have on battles.

The motivation's a bit simpler than that. The main purpose of the barriers at the bottom is to keep most of the spinner to wall impacts off the lexan without hurting the visibility too much. A few inches of bumper is usually enough to take care of 95% of the hits that'd otherwise be wearing out the most expensive part of the arena.

[Hogi]

that might become necissarry for us if we're gonna be seeing more spinners like bad idea.

if we're gonna be changing the arena, an issue that might be worth raising is judging guidelines. limiting drop off to a 20-30cm pit will almost certainly lead to more fights going the full
three minutes. i have been told that at the moment the judging is literally based on “who won?” but what constitutes a winning performance? could non damaging but controlled aggression out do damage causing spinner hits? does good driving win you points? if more matches are going to be decided by a judges decision it might be better to have a set of solid guidelines to decide the winner as oppose to just a general “who won?” just a thought.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

Its always been the 4 Robot Wars criteria (damage, aggression, style and control) with damage as the overriding factor. So if one robot wins 3 of the 4 criteria, they win. If its 2 - 2, then the one who wins damage wins. If there is no damage to either, then its whoever wins 2 of the other 3. That's always been my understanding anyway. Damage is the overriding factor because that is kinda the point of the sport! But if you lose damage and still win aggression, style and control, you can still win a decision.
Having said all that I'm not sure we'll see a huge increase in 3min fights. Though I'd still be an advocate of making the fights a maximum of 2mins.

[Hogi]

thanks Dave.

[petec]

Just read this thread from cold - somewhat meandering...

Dominance of pushers - this is always going to be a thing because its what most people do first and can do easiest. We could just ban 4WD (maximum 2 driven wheels) which would reduce grip and power in many pushers and give others a chance.

Length of bouts - look back over the videos and you will see that a lot of spinner fights were over in seconds, even faster than pushers. Would you say that a single blow from a spinner was boring?

Arena design. As someone who has been traipsing arenas about from the very beginning (including the original concrete pad with low walls, rough terrain and no drop off or pit) I can confirm that unless you have a van, the main arena surface needs to be not much bigger than 1m sq. This therefore limits what you can reasonably do regarding pits (need to be big enough to actually drop the robot sufficiently to prevent recovery...unless you want recovery to be a valid option?) and removes the option of multiple levels - something I tried several times to achieve but the ramps end up being too big or steep. The only 'true' equaliser is a single surface, fully enclosed with no drop offs at all. A box, some might say. Pushers can still stack/squash, spinners can do their thing, flippers can repeatedly throw around and axe bots can still cause trouble with wiring and vulnerable spots on the opponent.

Rough terrain, as mentioned earlier, can cause a few upsets and prevents the high grip pushers getting too much advantage. You could use coloured zones that a robot cannot remain in for longer than x seconds, to prevent hiding. You can have automated environment changes that use a random period to kick in, preventing safe prediction.

The point is though, what problem are we actually trying to solve? This is a bit like F1 playing with the formula to make it more entertaining. There is a danger it ends up so convoluted that it detracts from the competition.

Here's a suggestion - fully enclosed, zero dropoff arena but rules governing maximum battery capacity so you know you have to fight to survive, but if your battery runs out before the other guy.....too artificial?

[Hogi]

a fully enclosed arena with no drop offs would make it difficult for any design except maybe a spinner to decisively win a battle and consequently almost every battle would go the full time limit. with the current number of people competing, this would be unpheasable even if we implemented both the two minute time limit and the three robot entry limit. the ban on 4WD might help a bit with the dominance of pushers situation but i've come 2nd in the AWS with a 2WD pusher by driving well to eliminate my opponents. i think the most balanced arena design is Scott's arena how it was at AWS44 and 45. low walls for flippers, lots of fighting room for spinners and limited but useable drop off gaps for robots such as pushers and grabbers that rely on dropping opponents out of the arena. something for everyone.

[Remote-Controlled Dave]

I quite like the idea of 'zones', though I'd hate to try and police someone staying in them too long.

However, if we have an arena with a boxed in end and people are worried about their opponent hiding in the corner, maybe something like the old grills on Robot Wars or a sand pit...something not impossible to escape from but undesirable, without being a drop off.

Or just stick a spinning saw in each corner...

[Shakey]

On the banning of 4WD or more than 2 powered wheels this makes me sad. Multiple wheels don't add to the amount of push you can give a robot that you couldn't achieve over 2, their benefit is increased controllability and keeping contact with the ground. Plus many interesting designs use more than 2 powered wheels, Hexa-Chopper would be banned under this rule.

I feel a little guilty over this whole topic to be honest but oh well