Bot-O-Rama 2016 - Discussion

[Cha0sFerret]

So I have a 3-0, an 0-3, and an undecided so far, with 2/3 guaranteed playoff spots and one guaranteed out. Definitely better than my showing in Ruination.

[Badnik96]

3-0 and two 2-1s is a very solid result. Looking forward to seeing how my machines do in the playoffs.

[That Kode Guy]

...

Yeah...

No way I'm beating Rebellious Activity.

REALLY need to think of a redesign for Hikage that actually is badass, instead of looking badass and failing to execute said badassness. <__>

[Hooray For Lexan]

All right, everybody&#33; After six weeks of awesome battles, the Group Stage is finally over&#33;

The Following Robots are advancing the the playoffs:

Hobbyweights:
Sirocco and Pro from Group A, Buzzkill and Caldera from Group B, Do Not Open and Bonk&#33; from group C, and Annoying Wasp and Panda as wildcards.

Featherweights:
Oh Geeze and Feathergo from Group A, Redneck Alimony Payment and Bolt Thrower from Group B, Rebellious Activity and Vorpal Bunny from Group C, and Hikage and Database as wildcards.

Sportsman:
Loud Love and Sling Shot from Group A, Neon and Tormentor from Group B, Nurse Killjoy and Wyvern from Group C, and Ahlspiess and The Horney One as wildcards.

<hr />

Here are the playoff brackets:

Hobbyweight Playoffs

Featherweight Playoffs

Sportsman Playoffs

Brackets are also available in the first post of the brackets and fight cards thread.

<hr />

I'd also like to give out a couple special awards.

First, the Undefeated Award, for all robots that went 3-0 in the Group Stage, goes to:

Cha0sFerret, with Do Not Open&#33;
The_Angry_Goat, with Oh Geeze&#33;
Toxic, with Redneck Alimony Payment&#33;
Badnik96, with Rebellious Activity&#33;
KodeBreaker, with Loud Love&#33;
And finally, Cha0sFerret again, with Neon&#33;

Next, the "Made the playoffs in every weight class" award goes to:
Badnik96, KodeBreaker, The_Angry_Goat, NoiseyGiraffe, and HotDealsInTexas&#33;

The "Most stupidly overpowered weapon" award goes to Kodebreaker with Caldera, HotDealsInTexas with Vorpal Bunny, and playzooki with Tormentor&#33;

The "Best Multibot" award goes to Cha0sFerret with Neon&#33;

The "Best non-participant" award goes to Britespark&#33;

And finally "Biggest disappointment" award goes to BrianTheAmerican, who would probably be in the playoffs if he showed up for his matches&#33;

<hr />

Anyway, let's check out how things look for the quarterfinals:

In the hobbyweights, the two wildcards Annoying Wasp and Panda will be taking on each other. With Annoying Wasp's weak weapon, this could be an easy win for the fast wedgebot. Pro will face off against Buzzkill. This could be interesting: Buzzkill's unusual weapon placement caused it problems against Panda, which we might see again here, but unlike Panda Pro will have to self-right with its flipper if overturned, and The_Angry_Goat has done a great job of keeping the pressure on flipped opponents with both Buzzkill and Wyvern. Pro's armor also isn't the strongest, so repeated blows could do some serious damage. However, Pro is OOTA-capable, and if Buzzkill gets flipped without the disc at full speed it could end up stuck on its back like Hikage did earlier in the event. Sirocco's strange propeller will be going up against the drumette of Bonk&#33; Sirocco's weapon has been able to hit the top of Annoying Wasp and the boxy sides of Pro (the less said about Blood Blister the better), but Bonk&#33; seems to have a slightly better shape to go weapon-to-weapon with Sirocco, and it could end up damaging the spindly support rods. Finally, Do Not Open is fighting Caldera, and quite frankly if any robot can stop that devastating shell, it's DNO.

In the featherweights, Hikage is fighting Rebellious Activity. Given Hikage's performance against Oh Geeze and RA's performance against Database, I think this could put the drumbot out of the competition. Feathergo is fighting Bolt Thrower. It seems like a decent matchup; Feathergo's weapon is a bit underpowered and the lexan armor is vulnerable, but Bolt Thrower has even less armor, and is one of the few bots Feathergo will be able to seriously damage. Database is fighting Oh Geeze. I think Database will struggle to do damage, and could end up stuck on its back like it did against Rebellious Activity. Finally, the two horizontal spinners in the playoffs, Redneck Alimony Payment and Vorpal Bunny, will fight each other.

In the Sportsman Class, The Horney One's very fast hydraulic lifter will take on Wyvern's spring-powered flipper - another battle of scorpion vs. goat. Neon will be fighting Sling Shot - get ready to see some robots hitting the ceiling. Loud Love's flailing hammers will be fighting Nurse Killjoy's beak. This doesn't look good: LL's awkward shape will make it difficult for Nurse Killjoy to grab, Nurse Killjoy has thin armor, and Loud Love's hammers pack a surprising punch. And finally, the two most powerful weapons in the Sportsman class, the hammer of Tormentor and the spear of Ahlspiess, will clash. With weapons like that either bot could get a KO in a few hits, but Ahlspiess was designed to fight hammerbots, and unlike Loud Love, which beat Ahlspiess in part due to its awkward shape being hard to hit, Tormentor is a box with vertical, thinly-armored sides.

[Badnik96]

Um, Sirocco didn't go 3-0. It lost to Annoying Wasp.

[patrickrowberry]

2 tough robotsi am agents but pro is the perfect robot to bet caldera

[Hooray For Lexan]

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>Um, Sirocco didn't go 3-0. It lost to Annoying Wasp.[/quote]

Wait, shit, so it did. I don't know how the hell I entered that wrong. Fixed it.

Fortunately it looks like that didn't affect the group standings.

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>2 tough robotsi am agents but pro is the perfect robot to bet caldera[/quote]

...not really. You could flip it in theory, but your speed-traction balance means you risk oversteering and giving him a free shot at your corners.

[Venice Queen]

So uh, it came to my attention today that Toxic posted his RP for Panda about 6 1/2 hours late. now the signup page says "RPs will be due Saturdays (NOT Sundays) at 11:59:59 PM PST." I have been judging this as a hard deadline for the matches I write. For things to be fair, either all the other writers will need to do this, or I will need to be more lenient. HDiT, could you make an official ruling one way or the other (I genuinely don't care which it is, I just want us to be consistent)?

If we're going with the hard deadline, I don't want Panda's win to be counted as an FF loss - it would be unfair to him to retroactively enforce rules (and I was kinda expecting to lose anyway ). although I would like my slight annoyance to be acknowledge :P

[Hooray For Lexan]

...Well, originally I wanted to do a hard deadline, but it was resulting in too many forfeits. At this point, I'd say be more lenient. If the RP isn't there when the writer of the match, whatever time zone he or she may be in, wakes up on Sunday morning to check the RP board, then it's a forfeit (as long as it's after the nominal deadline - if you're in the UK and get up at 6 AM you'll have to give them a little longer).

[patrickrowberry]

waits for results

[Toxic]

Panda goes to the Semi-Finals&#33; Was not expecting that.

Good run for Redneck Alimony Payment. I like that bot....gonna have to tweak the design a bit, I think.

[Badnik96]

Holy crap, 3-0 in the quarters&#33; I am on a fucking roll here.

[That Kode Guy]

Loud Love remains unbeaten&#33; Screw you Caldera and Hikage, you never meant anything to me anyway&#33;

VIVA LOUD LOVE

[Venice Queen]

Woo Buzzkill&#33; that was a helluva match&#33; also Oh Geeze I Didn't Mean to Flip Your Robot Over continues to be great&#33;

<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Results</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>

NOTE:

[Cha0sFerret]

Neon was gonna go down eventually, I guess. Gimmick bots can only get so far. Good fight, Badnik&#33;
DNO continues to impress.

I have a few issues with the result of THO vs Wyvern. Let's make a list:
<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>Wyvern's charge drove it back against the dead zone gate, but the lifter, almost as tall as the gate itself, picked Wyvern up like a toy, slammed into the gate at vertical, and Wyvern's momentum sent it toppling over.[/quote]I'm sorry, I'm not convinced that THO's lifter goes high enough to pull this off.
<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>...lolwut.[/quote]That was just unnecessary.
<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>THO is pretty short with the lifter retracted, and with those front prongs I'm not even sure if it can get stuck on its side.[/quote]I believe it's already been established that it can be stuck on its side, see week 2 results.
<blockquote class='quote_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd>&nbsp;</dd></dl><div>so I rolled the dice on it and the dice chose The Horney One.[/quote]I have a problem with using what's essentially a coin flip to decide anything that isn't a double FF.