Rule 12.2.1 (Entanglement)

[fluppet]

Not that youre at all (deservedly) smug. :-)

It should be said that the Battlebox (as far as I can tell as a viewer - Arfur obviously has more direct experience) is pretty flat where its not active - being metal, probably more so than the wooden UK floors. Interesting designs such as Code:Black would just dig in to a UK wooden floor. Similarly Id expect Biohazards frontal skirts (missing from Panic Attack for, I suspect, this reason) would dig in to a wooden floor, rather than skimming the surface.

There have also been cases of robots fouling on the kill saws (Diesector, famously, although that particular case wasnt fouling as such), and they got rid of the powered ramps because they caused too much trouble (IIRC). So I wouldnt argue that what they have is a non-flat floor, as an improvement over the UK ones.

What they *do* have is controllable hazards - its far safer to deliver a robot to the killsaws or the big hammer thingy than it is to drive over to a house robot and hope it doesnt hit you. I wouldnt mind seeing such things in the UK, although theres no doubt that theyd make the arenas more expensive and harder to cart about.

Youre probably right about the diversity of designs, but a number of battlebots arent particularly better suited to a non-planar surface than UK bots (Biohazard and Voltronic spring to mind in particular, for some reason.) And I could facetiously mention the fact that a fight which only runs for three minutes is more likely to run its full length than one scheduled for five... :-)


If a rough-terrain competition does get run, Id love to see Mortis in it. Such a competition would probably bring tracks back into popularity, too (and somewhat reduce the effectiveness of strange rubber compounds).

I might suggest that it would be better to start this on heavyweights only, though - partly because diluting the waters for all the other categories would be very confusing for everyone, and partly because anything smaller than a heavyweight would be a bit hard to see if combat really took place out of doors!

If anyone is sufficiently taken by this idea to build for it, Ill have to start planning (not that years of planning has got me a normal robot yet, but at least I can be forewarned!)

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Fluppet

[babeth]

How about a ramp ? It would be lovely to have the chance to drive your robot up the ramp and then land upon your opponent (armoured bottom is needed though).

Judging from the speed some robots are capable of turning their wheels in a box with gravel might just be a tad too dangerous - pebbles being launched and such.

Anyone other ideas ? Or should we start a new topic on this ?