clarification on rules

[Mouldy]

Agree with Alans post. Enter with 1 wheel working and you have 10 seconds to win...

At the same time the "enter the arena to get a point" system falls down here... You could put your robot in the arena without the link in... start the fight and instantly tap out.... you get your point without ever having to move...but that complicates this conversation further.

Id like to consider it similar to the clusterbot rule... if one machines dead... there both dead as its a 50/50 split... surely if one wheels dead... the entire robot should be counted dead and the fight stopped after the count down?

[Garfie489]

Id like to consider it similar to the clusterbot rule... if one machines dead... there both dead as its a 50/50 split... surely if one wheels dead... the entire robot should be counted dead and the fight stopped after the count down?

Again though, its not as simple as that. A 4WD robot can still work perfectly with only 2 wheels working (50% immobile), assuming they are on opposite sides of the robot. Ricochet could even work with only 33% drive.

[Mouldy]

One complete drive side then... use common sense to word it how you like... you know what i meant.

[cliveb]

I actually had this discussion at the NEC. My suggestion was to make it fair on all machines going through, after each fight all robots go into park ferme ( unless a safety issue arises) and is only released after the final fight of that round. It is then returned to park ferme before the next round starts or if it not there in time is disqualified. This means everybody has an equal amount of time to repair and recharge their machine.

I also believe that the judges should be split and sit on 3 sides of the arena and not at 1 table ( like in boxing) resulting in 3 separate views and opinons on the battle.

[maddox10]

A finetuned controleable bunker can win fights.
5 km/h, minimal battery, the brain from a modern quadcopter in well shockmounted 10mm hardox box. Wanna bet it's perfectly controlable and almost invurnable.

If perfect control is such a big issue suddenly, then is my question, who gains anything with it?

[Flag Captured]

I'm fairly sure the Americans use a system whereby if the machine is still 'mobile' it's still in - the number of times I've seen last rites swinging about and moving (albeit slowly) to the other machine is quite a fair few now. Not sure whether that's just selective decision making by the judges to make things a better watch for the audience, but as long as the machine can still actively be aggressive, it seems like they're left in.

[daveimi]

I don't know how it falls within the rules 'technical speak' lol but I personally see a robot as immobile if it has no way of getting over to another opponent to attack. Whether that's because of parts failure, it's stuck on something, it can't self right, the battery is flat etc., if it can demonstrate the ability to travel towards a target to launch an attack then technically it's mobile.

[Garfie489]

if it can demonstrate the ability to travel towards a target to launch an attack then technically it's mobile.

Id agree with this definition. If one robot backs off, then the other needs to prove its capable of being offensive.

[Ellis]

Again I think that would potentially knockout a huge portion of competitors. A rule like that can't be written clearly for all situations and is still wide open for interpretation unless further defined. Good drivers with broken machines could be allowed whilst dodgy drivers with functional drive would get weeded out, which is silly. Also, it'd have to be applied mid-fight every time a robot seems to not have fine control, which by nature would cause disputes however honest the judges' decisions. Too subjective.

Kind of off topic from the OP but yeah. Stopping the moment there's fire just seems like a good idea, and I'm fine with the concept of proving movement after a fight, just think the figure 8 is OTT.

[Flag Captured]

Within reason, of course... if your machine is moving but so slowly that it might as well be immobile, it should be counted out. I'd use 720 as an example here - it lost drive to one side, so was in theory immobile however could use the drum to move towards opponents, so it still should be able to fight. Of course, it's always going to count against in a close judges decision (losing drive is damage overall) but perhaps it should be given less of a focus if you can still move, even if it is just by utilising centrifugal effects like 720, or spinning round and using the bar to nudge forwards like Last Rites does...