The RobotWars/BattleBots Thread

[Shadaza]

I have recently become something of a super fan to Robotwars. So much so that as an example of evolution in the series I have decided to redo series 1, each team has the same heat they had in reality, but the difference is the teams present all enter their most recent robot to the main contest (series 1-7 not including extreme 1-2).

For example, season 1 champions Road Block entered a similar robot called Beast of Bodmin, that will compete here. Perhaps more dramatically, Chaos 2 will enter as "Robot the Bruce" was from the same team.

Here is the lineup to Heat A.


Beast of Bodmin, the evolution of series 1 champs Roadblock, made the series 3 semi finals.

Grunt, A stock Robot that was made to promote the series and entered as reserve, fast on the trials but retired deliberately.

Diotoir, the famous Irish team that on it's last appearance in Series 5 defeated Tornado! Was Nemesis in series 1.

Sonic, a super fast series 3 robot that lost it's second fight against eventual champions Chaos 2. Was Barry in series 1, the heaviest non-walker in the shows history!

Killertron, a robot that remained mostly unchanged across series 1-2 and 4. Armor was made of plastic but the weapon looked good.

Shogun, a rather bog standard series 1 only robot, in reality was smashed by Killertron in the heat semi final.

If the heat was run with those robots, who would win? (A gauntlet where the weakest gets eliminated, a trial Sumo battle against Shunt with another elimination and finally 1 on one battles to decide winner amongst final 4.)

Out of those I'd think Beast of Bodmin would go through. Shame that team never returned after the 3rd wars.

Are you the same Samster that votes on the "Arena" section on the robotwars wiki?

Well looking at heat A, Barry went out in the gauntlet, but their next robot "Sonic" was a very speedy machine and I feel would have no trouble with it. BoB, Diotoir, Grunt and Killertron will either equal or better their runs so this would knock out Shogun as they were the team that were 5th and drop to 6th behind Sonic.

The Sumo with Shunt would end with Grunt killing itself, I don't want to pretend it will go on and fight.
Leaving Beast of Bodmin, Killertron, Diotoir and Sonic to reach the battle stage.

Diotoir and Beast of Bodmin would be the first battle and Killertron vs Sonic the other.
Now, Diotoir and BoB would be the interesting fight, Diotoir is undoubtedly the stronger machine in terms of pushing power (It managed to outpush Tornado!) but should the Irish machine end up driving over the Bodmin Wedge causing it to topple, I doubt it would be able to self right. In the show all the lifting arm seemed to do was pop the eyes off. I can't see the lifting arm of Diotoir as being able to scoop up Beast of Bodmin and the Cornish lad's seemed handy drivers so Beast of Bodmin to win.

Sonic vs Killertron seems a much simpler battle, there is no way that Killertron could position itself to get a decent hit on Sonic, the mouse would just wizz around and push killertron into the house robots.

The final of Beast of Bodmin and Sonic would be short and sweet, Sonic had high ground clearance and no way to flip itself up should it topple over, it would drive up the wedge and topple over.

Winner, Beast of Bodmin



--------------------------------------------

Heat B, lets see what the newest versions of each teams robot can do!


Mortis (Series 4 edition)
Mortis was the prewars favourite for series 1 and series 2, it was the most expensive bot ever built but never had any real success/luck in the main show. Heavily armed but somewhat unreliable.

Cassius 2
Rex Garrod's machine was based off the first real succesfull flipper, Cassius 1. It competed in series 3 ending up in pit early on, but it looked a strong robot, with more potential than the series 2 grand finalist.

Napalm 2, oh boy.
The robot that looked shoddily built, and looked like it would fall apart at any moment, the 2nd version of Napalm entered into series 5 managed to limp through one battle before being trashed. By all means awful with one redeeming factor, a monstrous amount of luck /

GBH2 (also known as Mulsanne Monster)
This bot entered series 6 and lost it's one and only battle, despite this, it is the newest machine in the heat and it seemed it had a fairly powerful flipper so could well
be a favourite for the heat.

Leighviathan
The series 2 robot was the follow up to Leighbot. It seemed to have fairly decent pushing power and apparently is now being converted into an automated snowplow.
Neither of the Leigh-machines ever won a battle.

Uglybot
This thing was just bad, even for series 1 standards, it barely got anywhere in the gauntlet and that was the extent of the teams robotwars history.

Heat B's special trial event was "British Bulldog" where machines had to race from one side of the arena to the other dodging the house robots.

[watka]

Hmmm, my decision really comes down to whether I take Rex Garrod's questionable driving into consideration!

I say Uglybot goes out in the gauntlet as its such an awkward machine.
Napalm 2 would fall in the British Bulldog, I remember it being slow and cumbersome, and the other bots have decent wedges.

As for the battles, Leighviathan has no active weaponry, so it wouldn't stand a chance.
GBH 2 was a good bot but I could see it getting battered by Mortis' axe and Cassius' wedge getting underneath GBH's rear flipper so I'd count them out too.
Mortis vs Cassius 2 would be close, in fact Mortis has actually beaten Cassius 1 in the past. I'm actually going to give it to Mortis on the assumption that its lifting arm actually works to its full potential.

[Samster]

The Samster on robot wars wiki isn't me, I don't even have an account there.

As for Heat B. Uglybot barely went anywhere in the Gauntlet so they are out.

Napalm would go out in the Bulldog, it looks easily the weakest, shoving power wise. Though with their God-like luck, you never know.

Leighviathan, I doubt would stand a real chance against Mortis unless they managed to get underneath with their scoop and flip it over.

GBH2 might stand a chance against Cassius with a powerful flipper but Cassius has the better wedge and would be more likely to get a flip in.

Cassius vs Mortis would probably be dependent on whether Mortis' lifting arm can serve as a self righting mech. If so, then they'll survive to a judges decision and probably win on damage and aggression. If not, which I think is more likely, then I think Cassius will just be able to flip it, I don't see Mortis' lifting arm getting beneath Cassius.

[FullMetalJack]

Electric Lunch... aka proof that a good driver can (almost) beat a superior machine.

The fact that Panic Attack won Robot Wars series 2 proves that good drivers can beat superior machines. Cassius was clearly a superior robot, as was Mortis.

[Shadaza]

Heat B is torn between Mortis and Cassius 2 (much like it was super close between the two teams in reality.)
with the vote tied at 1-1, I present Heat C.


Plunderbird5
The Plunderbirds last ever robot was by no means their most successful, Plunderbird5 was a decent pusher but horribly slow with no real weapon.


DreadnaughtXP1
This team were famed for their unreliabilty, after breaking down 5 times in 4 series! But the bot when running seemed semi decent and it was one of the few robots to complete the Gauntlet in series 1 and 2.


Wedgehog entered the first series only, it only weight 26kg and was fairly slow, regardless it made the heat final.


Cruella 2
This is the series 2 version of Cruella which seemed mostly the same, only with an addition of a circular saw at the back. This robot failed hard at the gauntlet stage and could do worse than it's series 1 bot here!


Wysiwyg
This was the 2nd stock robot of the wars and therefore threw the trial stage, it only weighed 10kg but seemed fairly nippy in the gauntlet.


Chaos 2
Ok, this heat might not be much of a contest, Chaos 2 won series 3 and 4, had a dangerous flipper and none of the other robots in this heat can even self right.
Robot the Bruce was the series 1 entry for the Chaos team and it was a slow box and even that won the heat...

So if anyone can find a reason why Chaos 2 won't smash the heat, let me know!

The trial event is Football.
The next vote between Mortis and Cassius 2 will decide Heat B, as both watka and Samster made good points in each robots favour.

[roblo97]

I would love to see V3 take part(f1 styled clusterbot made of 3 Bots.)

[watka]

I think we all know Chaos 2 would dominate the heat, but hear we go anyway...

The gauntlet would see Cruella 2, don't see why it would do any better in the gauntlet this time round.

The football would in fact be very interesting, Chaos 2 might struggle but if the team were intelligent enough to remove the flipper for the round then it has 2 prongs that could be used to guide the balls, as can be seen in this pic:


Dreadnought has the advantage of prongs too. Wedgehog adds prongs so they'll go though. Between Plunderbird and WYSIWIG, I'll make it easy for myself and say WYSIWIG would fall at this stage.

Into the battles, Chaos 2 and Plunderbird 5 are the stronger bots. Dreadnought is too lumbering and ineffective, Wedgehog has a pathetic "toothpick" axe and was very light (would like to see Chaos 2 flip it!). Chaos 2 would then dominate Plunderbird in the final.

[FullMetalJack]

One word to describe this heat. CHAOS2WINSLOL

[Samster]

The Gauntlet would see off WYSIWYG, since the driver (deliberately or not) seemed to be pretty terrible.

I'm torn between Wedgehog and Cruella for loosing the Football, neither have anything to help them control the balls or an ideal shape. I'll eliminate Wedgehog for being slower.

That leaves Chaos 2 vs. Cruella and Dreadnaught vs. Plunderbird 5

Chaos 2 would simply flip over Cruella while Plunderbird could easily get a grip on Dreadnaught with its scoop and claw thanks to Dreadnaughts fairly large ground clearance. While I don't see Dreadnaught's lifting arms getting beneath virtually anything given their size.

So our heat final is Chaos 2 vs. Plunderbird 5. CHAOS2WINSLOL. Plunderbird is too slow and Chaos 2 would just flip it the first chance it got.

[FullMetalJack]

WYSIWYG would fall in the Gauntlet.

Dreadnaut would fall in the trial as it'd break down.

Chaos 2 vs Cruella is obvious - Chaos 2 would win
Plunderbird 5 vs Wedgehog - Plunderbird 5 would win

Chaos 2 vs Plunderbird 5 - Chaos 2 obviously

[Alextrax52]

One word to describe this heat. CHAOS2WINSLOL

You couls describe that for any heat in which a Heavyweight involved (HYPNODISCWINSLOL RAZERWINSLOL PANICATTACKWINSLOL etc)

[Shadaza]

The winner of Heat C

Chaos 2

Now for Heat B, I have decided to put Mortis through, series 4 Mortis looked quite deadly (watch the war of independence special) whilst Cassius 2 was poorly driven




-----------------------------------

Now for comedy Heat D.

In reality, Heat D was the unofficial Featherweight special, with all the bots in it under 15kg in weight!
However 2 of the teams later entered heavy weights so we end up with a comedy of a heat.


259
Adam Clark's last machine was by far his most dangerous, 100kg, most of it on the spinning disc that could rip bots to shreds, though it was somewhat unreliable. Qualified for the 6th wars by destroying 3 other bots in less than 30 seconds!


Griffon
This "Biohazard knock off" was the heavyweight entered by the same dude who entered the eventual heat D winner Cunning Plan. Griffon failed the gauntlet in series 2 and
limped through it's only 2 battles in series 3, it was potentially fast and dangerous but never showed it. Still, much heavier than the others in the heat (259 aside!)


Demolisher
The tiny Demolisher was the fastest bot in series 1 and one of the fastest in Robot Wars History! Lost the heat final by flipping on it's back, something it does easily.


SATarn
A steady 10kg bot that was comfortable in the trials but broke down at the arena stage.


Bugs
A slow fragile GCSE project, it somehow made the battle stage but didn't last long at all!


Krayzee Tokyo
3.2kg of questionable material, managed to slip through the gauntlet before doing a Marco Appicella at the racing trial.

The trial stage was a 3 lap race around a figure of 8 circuit.

So, 2 unreliable heavy weights and 4 even worse featherweights. Should any robot come into contact with 259's disc...ouch.

[Samster]

Other than a break down, I see no reason why 259 wouldn't demolish the opposition.

[Londoner]

Griffon looked to have the potential to do really well. Sadly, it had the reliability of a Lancia.

I have no idea how Wild Thing lucked their way to a victory when they faced 259 in Series 6. Such an injustice, considering Adam Clark's robots were always brilliant works of engineering, and 259 was the best of them all.

[Alextrax52]

Griffon looked to have the potential to do really well. Sadly, it had the reliability of a Lancia.

I have no idea how Wild Thing lucked their way to a victory when they faced 259 in Series 6. Such an injustice, considering Adam Clark's robots were always brilliant works of engineering, and 259 was the best of them all.

You could say they had good luck in series 5 too as Prizefighter dominated that fight and somehow Wild Thing won it

[watka]

Mortis against Cassius 2 is a very hard decision, but I think the right one!

Here's my take on Heat D:

259 would make it through the gauntlet, JUST. All of the other robots are small and nippy, except Griffon which has a pretty useful lifting ram. I'll say though that Bugs will go out at this stage as its the sort of robot to get stuck on something.

Now again 259 would be susceptible in the race trial but if it was allowed to use its disc, and I will assume it is, it would smash up one of the other robots beyond repair. I'm going to say that robot is SATarn, as Griffon might be able to withstand a few hits, and the other 2 are smaller and faster than SATarn.

In the battles (still not sure how you would determine who fights each other!), but Demolisher and Krayzee Tokyo are weaklings. One would get flipped by Griffon and the other absolutely obliterated by 259 in perhaps the funniest battle ever. 259 doesn't have a SRIMECH but I don't think Griffon would get a chance to get underneath, so 259 would win!

[Shadaza]

The Winner of Heat D, 259.


Now I will post Heat E and F together as the quality in both (with one obvious exception!) was pretty poor.

Heat E.

Pussycat (Series 7 guise)
The Pussycat machine managed to make the grand final in series 4 and was famed for defeating Razer multiple times.
The series 7 model had stronger armour and 2 blades instead of 1, it won the all stars championship though didn't do all that well in series 7.
Entered Bodyhammer into series 1, the machine that would eventually be the runner up to Roadblock.

Crusher
Crusher was the series 3 entry from the team that entered Wharthog into series 1. Crushers only appearance was a round 1 defeat to Beast of Bodmin (no shame in that).
Wharthog's only appearance was a fail in the gauntlet. The team famously refused to be interviewed by Jeremy Clarkson.

Psychosprout
This legendary machine was a remote controlled car in a giant ball. Hilarity ensued.

Torque of the Devil
A slow moving middleweight series 1 only entry, defeated by Bodyhammer in the heat semifinal.

Full Metal Anorak
A fairly nimble lightweight machine, lost in the heat semifinal too Reali-T

Reali-T
An upside down "wok" with ramming spikes, it had fairly decent speed and nearly made the grand final even though it only weighed 40kg.

The Trial was a cage maze where the end goal was the other side of a maze and the team that was furthest away from the end would be eliminated.

---------------
Heat F
If you thought Heat E was bad! Here is heat Fail


Rameses II
This is a series 2 machine from series 1's "Skarab". Rameses was an average hammerbot and may well be favourite for the heat *shudder*.


T.R.A.C.I.E
The robot that did win the heat in reality, though it never looked all that convincing. Though at 10mph it was fairly speedy.


Elvis 2
The only other robot in the heat to do more than 1 series, Elvis 2 was jazzed up for series 2 and it looked clumsy, though if it makes it to the battle stages may have a shot.


The Blob.
About as speedy as you'd expect of something called "the blob". Claimed it could do 15mph but it never came close to that. Was beaten in combat by the Skarab.


Prince of Darkness
"The worst robot I have ever seen" - Jeremy Clarkson. Though to it's credit completed the gauntlet and was the only robot that could even really do the trial!


The Mouse.
By far the best engineered robot in the heat, too bad it was a stock robot and "broke down irreparably" in the trial.

The Trial was "robot snooker." Teams had to drive their machine into some balls and push them into their goal, the more points the better.

Note, fight order is decided by the trial. The winner of the trial would fight the robot that came 3rd and 2nd would play 4th. (Though sometimes this was not the case for unknown reasons.)

[Samster]

Crusher looks like the sort of robot that would get stuck in the Gauntlet so I say them out. The rest of the heat would play out as before only with Pussycat in Bodyhammer's place.

Heat F would also play out the same with TRACIE and Rameses making the heat final. TRACIE would just shove Rameses around due to the latter's awful speed and likely win a judges decision.

[Shadaza]

I would wait longer, but I have the same opinions here as Samster.

Heat E Winner:

Pussycat

Heat F Winner:

T.R.A.C.I.E

They join: Beast of Bodmin, Mortis, Chaos 2 and 259 in the Grand Final.

4 of the 6 finalists were the same teams that got there in reality, though only TRACIE is unchanged from the original line up.

[watka]

I would wait longer, but I have the same opinions here as Samster.

Heat E Winner:

Pussycat

Heat F Winner:

T.R.A.C.I.E

They join: Beast of Bodmin, Mortis, Chaos 2 and 259 in the Grand Final.

4 of the 6 finalists were the same teams that got there in reality, though only TRACIE is unchanged from the original line up.

The Heat F line up is pretty similar to in real life so I have no problem with that. However, in my opinion, Pussycat would not win Heat E. Given another go, I think Crusher would make it through the gauntlet in place of Psychosprout. Then in the maze, I could see Pussycat having real problems as its not the easiest robot to control (just ask the Series 7 drivers!), so although its clearly the best fighting robot there, it would go out. Full Metal Anorak would beat Torque of the Devil based on speed and Crusher would beat Reali-T due to Reali-T's lack of active weaponry. Full Metal Anorak would then beat Crusher as Crusher would not be able to get hold of it. I know I'm in a minority here!

In the final, I can't see Chaos 2 being beaten unless it's ganged up on (and I think they'd all want to deal with 259 first!).

[Shadaza]

in my opinion, Pussycat would not win Heat E. Given another go, I think Crusher would make it through the gauntlet in place of Psychosprout. Then in the maze, I could see Pussycat having real problems as its not the easiest robot to control (just ask the Series 7 drivers!), so although its clearly the best fighting robot there, it would go out. Full Metal Anorak would beat Torque of the Devil based on speed and Crusher would beat Reali-T due to Reali-T's lack of active weaponry. Full Metal Anorak would then beat Crusher as Crusher would not be able to get hold of it. I know I'm in a minority here!

Whilst Pussycat is difficult to drive, it is powerful and reliable and nippy enough to run rings around it's old robot Bodyhammer and therefore around "Torque of the Devil" which would be the robot to fall at that stage. Even if Pussycat did go out, I can't see FMA winning the heat as Crusher weighs over double the weight and would simply be able to push the tiny machine around. I will keep Pussycat in the final.

So the Grand Final.
TRACIE and Beast of Bodmin would be easy prey to any of the other 4 so I will rule them out right away.

259 might have the disc to knock out anyone of the other 3 but no way would it eliminate all of them before beating itself, plus a Chaos 2 flip would destroy it immediately so that rules it out. Plus robots like Pussycat and Mortis might take multiple hits, both were incredibly well armored and by series 4 reliable.

Say Chaos 2 survived fighting 259, Chaos's main weakness was it's limited CO2 supply, it ran out in fight against Dantomkia (it's last fight) and couldn't flip itself back up despite it's flipper being powerfull enough to flip itself on to it's back. So after tossing Mortis around (to some effect) and Pussycat around (for very little effect) it would soon find itself stuck and as far as I am concerned out.

Leaving Mortis vs Pussycat, by this point time will be running low and Mortis would have taken much more of a beating than pussycat, I don't feel Mortis would be able to do all that much to Pussycat with the cats disc covering Mortis in scratches and thus Team Cold Fusion and Pussycat would win the final.

Long story short, a 1v1 contest would lead to a Chaos 2 win, but all 6 fighting at once would prove too much for the CO2 canisters of Chaos 2 and the "unflippable" Pussycat would win out.



(So that is one vote for Chaos 2 and one for Pussycat) If there are any other views let me know

[Samster]

TRACIE would certainly be out first but I think Beast of Bodmin would last longer than you said. 259 would likely break itself before long as you said and I think Mortis would get flipped over either by Chaos 2 or BoB. BoB would be next to fall, either getting flipped by Chaos 2 or shredded by Pussycat leaving those two. If Chaos 2's CO2 runs out by that point (I'd like to think George Francis would be smart enough to conserve energy by letting the others whittle each other down at the start before dealing damage) then it depends on whether they can flip Pussycat out of the arena (is this possible in the 1st wars arena?). Otherwise there's nothing Chaos 2 can do since there's no pit yet. Pussycat would just be able to scratch up Chaos and take them to the judges decision where they would likely win on damage.

So Chaos 2 if they can get Pussycat out of the arena, otherwise Pussycat wins.

[Dan B]

IT'S BACK!

Well, Battlebots that is; found this Youtube of the various new fights.
https://www.youtube.com/user/mattman154/videos

Quite a few of the veterans are back, including some of the original bots like Nightmare and Warhead. Looks like it's faithful to the original though I hope that in later seasons it isn't invite only, so we can see more variety in the bots.

[nome66]

i won't fully enjoy the new battlebots show unless they include Grant Imahara (of mythbusters and older battlebots fame) as a guest host or something.

[FullMetalJack]

Yup, it's coming back.

LET THE WARS BEGIN!!!!!!!!!

Again

[Londoner]

Dara O'Briain will be hosting the new series, with Angela Scanlon alongside him, and best of all, Jonathan Pearce on commentary again.

Even though I'd rather have Craig Charles hosting the series, the BBC couldn't have got a better replacement than O'Briain. Really looking forward to this. Hopefully they've brought back the old 80KG weight limit for robots, that was the best set of rules the show had.

Inb4 the pathetic Brutus Maximus team enters their wooden "robot" again, and loses one of its wheel for the third consecutive time.

[FullMetalJack]

Dara O'Briain will be hosting the new series, with Angela Scanlon alongside him, and best of all, Jonathan Pearce on commentary again.

Even though I'd rather have Craig Charles hosting the series, the BBC couldn't have got a better replacement than O'Briain. Really looking forward to this. Hopefully they've brought back the old 80KG weight limit for robots, that was the best set of rules the show had.

Inb4 the pathetic Brutus Maximus team enters their wooden "robot" again, and loses one of its wheel for the third consecutive time.

That robot retained some of the original charm even when the standard of the robots got better and better, so no complaints if they do.

I'm wondering how many of the old favourites will be back.

[dinizintheoven]

Got to admit, I'll be leaving it aside. Without wanting to sound too much like the old git that I am, the early series had a charm that I'll never see recreated. Ramshackle surroundings, Jeremy Clarkson presenting and clearly wishing he was somewhere else, robot trials, sumo wrestling, robot football, then the knockouts, which were a genuine knockout with carnage and devastation and damage. Craig Charles was fine in series two, we all laughed at George Francis and his squeaky voice, and all was fun...

...but slowly it all wore off. Possibly due to the tactics of Mr Helium-voice and Chaos 2, the robots all morphed into a wedge-shape with a flipper, which never cause any damage, just turned their opponents over. The teams were all sprouting cute kids who would cry when their robot lost, the trials were dropped, Craig Charles went from ham to Oscar standard, and the final nail in the coffin was Robot Wars EXTURRRRR-EEEEEEEEEEME! instead of series 4 which completed the transformation into an electrical version of WWE wrestling with giant foam hands that was explicitly promoted to an ever younger audience - pre-teens rather than the twenty-something geeks that the first series had been aimed at. I was gone before it inevitably ended up in the graveyard slot on Channel 5.

In a way I see a parallel with F1; though I've never lost my interest, because (seemingly) I can't at this stage, at least the transformation has taken longer. Teams based in sheds on a Norfolk turnip farm or a French petrol station, ugly and ungainly but wildly differing car designs some of which were very much more effective that others - that was the 1970s. Identikit cars that were barely distinguishable from each other, designed to maximise one particular area with a fanatical attention to detail while still being constrained by a set of ever tighter regulations and then artificially "enhanced" with DRS and the like... that took 30-something years. Robot Wars degenerated in a tenth of that time...

And I can't think that the old lessons will be un-learned in the way that aerodynamics could be un-learned. Even if every team is new and every robot is new, I'll bet the vast majority of them will be shaped like doorstops and have a gas-powered flipper, and anyone who dares to try something different will be sent packing in seconds.

Bring on the new series and see if I'm right. I really hope I'm not, but I think it's inevitable I will be.

[dr-baker]

A lot of logical, sensible (!) stuff.

I've seen some classic episodes recently, with Craig Charles and Philippa Forrester. and I was thinking, if I were to build a robot for this, what seems to be the most effective? It is a low slung device that can right itself, enclosed wheels and a strong flipper or two. Spinning discs seem ineffective ultimately. And perhaps a novelty theme for "fan support". In other words, exactly the type of device that Mr Diniz was describing as the now-typical robot. (Although I might also add a large spike if that were safe and legal according to the show's rules).

And that veering towards homogeneity is exactly the boat F1 is in. Innovation seems to be frowned upon and quashed at the earliest opportunity. And whenever the is innovation, it usually is beneath the skin where it cannot be seen, unlike the Brabham fan car, unlike the Tyrrell P34, unlike the Eifelland's rear-view mirror.

Basically, I reckon Mr Dinizintheoven has hit the nail band on the head.

[Ataxia]

Rubbish. We're in the age of being able to program a Raspberry Pi in our living rooms in your pants, so I think that perhaps there's plenty of scope for innovation. Signal detection and scrambling devices could be a way of "immobilising the opponent", magnets to wipe any ECUs...I'm sure it's possible to create something innovative, depending on how enclosed the rulebook is.

Will it be the same? Hell no. It'll be a very different kettle of fish, and I don't think it'll necessarily be worse off because of that.

If you wanna be negative, just don't watch it. Simple as that, really. I had written a long thing about every discovery in the world becomes of a smaller and smaller scale, but we're talking about Robot Wars, which was always a bit of fun on a Friday night after The Simpsons and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. It may again be a bit of fun; Dara O'Briain always brings a jovial touch to most things he presents, so it'll probably continue to be a bit of fun. If that doesn't float your boat, I'm sure Eastenders or Midsomer Murders will be on a different channel...

[madmark1974]

I took my family to a live Robot Wars type show run by Robots Live, not affiliated to the old TV series (although Behemoth
was one of the robots competing), about a year and a half ago, and it was pretty much all flippers, there were a couple of
'Razor' type bots but they never did any damage, the battles were either 6 or so bot free-for-alls, or one-on-ones.
All of the bots were 100kg but the flippers were so powerful that most of them were ejected out of the arena pretty quickly.
All could also self-right, so a lot of what Diniz says was true to that event.

It could well be that because this was a slightly more 'amateur' event the competitors didn't want to have to spend money
on fixing broken robots, so anything that could do real damage a'la Hypnodisc or Razor were not encouraged.
Even the 'house robots' never really tried to do anything much to damage the others.

I'm hoping that the BBC will throw a bit of money at this to encourage the competitors to try something different and
to be able to actually cause some damage, with the promise that the bots can be fixed and not just have to give up and
go home if you get trashed.

[watka]

So now having seen both Battlebots and Robot Wars come back, I have to say whilst America has really moved forward in robot design, the UK has stayed static. The British robots are nowhere near as powerful. We saw the return of Razer, Terrorhurtz and Behemoth pretty much unchanged from 12 years ago - and they looked capable against the newer robots. In Battlebots, legendary robots like Nightmare and Warhead have come back and been absolutely trashed.

Robot Wars was good to watch, but it came across as very humble compared to Battlebots. I will definitely watch the whole series, but I hoped for more.

Also as a P.S. why were some of the cameras filming the battles at a seemingly low frame rate?

[Samster]

So it's probably safe to say that Razer has ROTY in the bag already. Out of the very first round when they attempted to drop Kill-e-crank-e into the pit only to fall in with them. Kind of highlights though why I've never been a fan of the pit as it has allowed a rather useless robot in Nuts to progress over them.

[watka]

So it's probably safe to say that Razer has ROTY in the bag already. Out of the very first round when they attempted to drop Kill-e-crank-e into the pit only to fall in with them. Kind of highlights though why I've never been a fan of the pit as it has allowed a rather useless robot in Nuts to progress over them.

Although I'd like to have seen Razer fight the others in the league format (they all would be pretty evenly matched in my opinion), I'm glad we got to see Nuts smashed to bits multiple times.

[Samster]

Well in the second episode, Razer already has stiff competition for that ROTY award from Foxic. First of all they survive their first round melee battle basically by running away and hiding while their superior opponents took each other out. Then they proceeded to do absolutely nothing in the heat rounds (asides from pushing Dead Metal for a bit) which included a battle declared the most boring battle in Robot Wars history by one of the judges when they took on the broken MR Speed Squared.

Easily the weakest heat lineup of this series, only one robot, Thor was really anything special and they didn't even get through to the final after they got bounced into the pit in the heat final against the flimsy looking Shockwave.

Thankfully next week's lineup is looking good with no less than five teams from the original which include Dantomkia, King B, Big Nipper, Supernova and Or Te (Team Big Brother).

[watka]

Thor looked really good. Fast, low ground clearance, powerful, well driven; all that before you even consider the weaponry. Shame that it wasn't sturdy enough to take the hit from Shockwave. I'm not particularly interested in seeing a pushbot win.

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

Robot Wars Series 10 is starting soon!

[watka]

Very excited too! I have heard that the rules have been opened up a bit in the hope for some "Carbide-killers" to emerge (things like nets and entanglement weapons being allowed, for example). Smacks a bit like fixing to me, but on the other hand no one got anywhere near beating Carbide last season.

[1993DonningtonNo1Mk2]

Just received the Official RW Handbook in the post, covers all the S10 Competitors as well as those from S8-9!

[Samster]

Of course from a reject standpoint I'm most looking forward to seeing 'Donald Thump' in action.

Those of you that didn't like Apollo and Carbide being in the same heat last time, well you won't like Heat B as Carbide is in with both Eruption and Aftershock. Also Gabriel, Big Nipper and Crackers n Smash are the other three so its this season's heat of death.

Other potential rejects include The Kegs, a two part cluster-bot made from literal beer kegs and modern favourite Nuts. Also Ian Watts of Bigger Brother fame is back with a four part cluster called The Swarm.