Battlebots - Another **** Vertical Spinner

[@bulletz9280]

If anything will ever ruin Battlebots, it will be overthinking it.

[@wisewolftony]

Yea like I'm seeing people suggesting add a bunch more arena hazards like ramps floor spikes and pits which is just stupid to me. As then all your doing is hurting every single horizontal spinner in the field making it so they have almost nowhere at all in the box where they can safely spin up and not be pinned down. Plus adding things like that isn't going to hurt vertical spinners at all. And Pits are the worst idea in the history of combat robots. I mean who wants to see a great match end early just because a bot fell into a small hole in the floor. And in this day in age with all the big hits that send teams flying they might fall into a pit that way and lose due to dumb luck. We already see that you can beat vertical spinners with other well built designs like Claw Viper, Quantum and Hydra hell even Tantrum who although they have a vertical spinner that isn't the main reason the bot is good it's due to the design the speed and how the weapon works not it's power.

[@BigFatWedge]

Wow. A rare smart comment. Kudos.

[@A9132robotwars]

I've been making videos on Robot Combat for years now and I wish they were even half as good as this. I hope you make more in the future. This was well edited and very informative and I applaud you for looking at both sides of the argument without bias. Great stuff!

[@metaleater9]

They just need to allow rambots back into the mix and whenever two rambots face off the arena hazards start activated from the beginning of the match. Some people may think they are boring but I think they have not considered just how fast and impactful a modern rambot would be.

[@TheDominusIgnis]

Haha, I actually agree with your video for the most part! You're right that Free Shipping's spinner is definitely isn't comparable to a lot of the other robots, I'd say its closest comparison to mind is iirc Tornado had a small disc which I assume likely was to serve a similar purpose to what Free Shipping is doing now and I can't fault them at all for wanting to be more competitive! My complaint is more me missing the unique spectacle Free Shipping would bring with its forklift, something that the spinner will never be able to replicate even if it does end up bringing its own charm. (Original Sin vibes is a bonus of course ;) ) However, I do completely agree with your main point! I think labelling the amount of spinners as just "another vertical spinner" isn't quite accurate as comparing the likes of Sawblaze, Deep Six, RIPperoni, Fusion, Minotaur, Glitch, Huge, Starchild and Bite Force definitely oversimplifies things! It really downplays the unique spins that keeps them all entertaining in their own rights and it is always sad to see people write them all off just because they spin in a certain orientation and I feel it's often just disrespectful to the teams themselves. Overall I'd say this is a really great video! Hope you've been enjoying the new season of Battlebots! 💜

[@digitaldeathsquid3448]

I'd love to see a BattleBots B-League for the more "non-traditional" robot/weapon designs. Not necessarily a sportsman-class, but something for the builders who don't just want to build a balanced vert. Think pre-S7 Kraken, SMEEEEEEEE, Hijinx, S5 Chomp, Perfect Phoenix, P1, Disk O' Inferno, Slammo, Claw Viper. It could be a great way to accept more experimental designs to see how they'd fare.

[@aydinaj4]

Yeahhh but in my opinion those names listed prolly wanta fight the conventional to show that unconventional can and does work. I think it wouldn't be the same level of satisfaction

[@GoatedAtNFS]

Crushers = Built Different Full Body Spinners = Useless suicide and crappy reliability and you’ll end up like Gigabyte getting discombobulated by Hypershock Hammersaws = *Sawblaze is in a class of his own* Hammers = Beta and Chomp street cred but low damage Lifters = Claw Viper is having Complete Control of his fights Flippers = My favorite type of bot. The anticipation of getting flipped out the arena in the past times was great! Now your hitting the glass or landing on the screws! (Thanks Battlebots for out of stadium rule change) Drums = Only 4%? this should be the meta Multi-Weapon = Looks cool! *Doesn’t work* Vertical Spinners = Deep Six still scares me Horizontal Spinners = There is no recreating a Tombstone like bot so tell your friends to stop trying

[@irradiatedanky1780]

My favorite type of bot is crushers, you should see petunia vs Shrederator

[@kingumangofficial6148]

Thanks 👍

[@emolgana]

I think the team at BattleBots do a good job of making sure the field is diverse enough each season. And even not in weapon type, it's diverse in Vibes(tm) and that's enough for me.

[@bami2]

In my opinion it's not so much the spinners as it's the reaction to spinners that might ruin the show or the sport. Sure spinners (and especially vertical ones) have a lot going for them: they just need to "spin up" and then touch the opponent to inflict massive damage. Verts have the additional advantage that the spinner also doubles as a flipper, where any successful hit has a good chance of yeeting the opponent bot upwards. But they have some downsides as well that control bots can exploit: they are vulnerable while spinning up their weapon, gyroscopic and inertial forces make control difficult, they need to get in close (and probably under the other bot) to deal actual damage, on every hit a large bit of recoil goes through the spinner bot frame/drive train on contact and when the spinning mass itself has been damaged and becomes unbalanced, there is a real possibility of the bot just shaking itself to death. But the reaction for most of the control/non spinner bot field has traditionally been to stick as much weight as possible into their armor and have some pathetic lifter or whatever afterthought as "weapon". I mean the spinner is probably putting somewhere around 30-50% of the weight budget of the bot into the weapon (and motors), while the control bot puts maybe 10% in weight on the weapon, 60-70% in armor and the rest on drive. And then the control bots are complaining that they can't go up weapon to weapon with the spinner or that "hit my fist with your face" strategies don't work anymore since spinners are finding out ways to be more reliable. If you look at for example Claw Viper, that bot has more drive power (lots of motors + sick amount of magnets) than most verts stick in their weapon. And it shows because it can just completely outdrive and push the spinner bots around. Pick up the bot, throw it against the wall or floor and just look at the bot basically destroy itself. Hydra pulls it off fine. Or like Shatter! just keep throwing hammer shots into the belts of the spinner weapon in the hopes of disabling it. That's how you deal with spinners, not whine that they are inherently OP. The only issue is here that the non-spinner bot isn't allowed to make any mistakes, since a moment of exposing weakness can lead to drastic results if the spinner bot manages to take advantage. But again the control bot will have a way easier time controlling their bot due to lack of gyroscopic or inertial forces and it's on the driver's skills to turn that advantage into a win.

[@martylawson1638]

Nice analysis, but he gyro dance of horizontal spinners is conceptually quite simple to eliminate. Draw an imaginary box around the bot and sum up all the angular momentum. If the sum is zero, then no gyro-forces. i.e. mount two counter rotating spinners of the same size and the gyro forces cancel out as long as the spinners are about the same speed. While only a few bots have attempted this, it works perfectly. A second big problem with lifters is that they're trying to lift 250lbs with a 250lbs robot. Makes it tricky to avoid lifting yourself instead of the opponent. Most solve this with forks out the front, Claw Viper solves this with magnets, but you can also solve this by moving your wheels forward after a grab so they're under the new combined CG.

[@bami2]

@@martylawson1638 Adding counterrotating mass to a spinner works well (doesn't even have to be for a horizontal), but it's still a lot of weight and complexity that needs to be invested to make it work. Either you do it like Counter Revolution or 13BLACK and sacrifice armor to allow for two big spinners, or do it like Hound or Ripperoni and you need to add more batteries, probably more motors, the actual counter flywheel etc. It's not free "fix" and again this is something that a non-spinner bot can take advantage of. And if the system breaks (or is turned off in order to conserve battery power), then the bot really just starts gyrodancing all over the place while there is now a bunch of mass doing absolutely nothing for the bot. My point was more that when people stop trying and start whining about the OPness of certain builds, then that's the point where the shows and the sport as a whole will start suffering.

[@thegreatstapley]

Justin, this is a fantastic video. Concise, structured analysis in a style we don't see in the YT robot combat space. Please do more like this. Wonderful stuff.

[@jonathanf2392]

Wow, I didn't know you made battlebots vids. Last time you did one was 10 months ago. But so many go with verts because it's the winning formula, people want to win. And it's harder and harder to do well with other type of weapons. As long as the bot works well and can put on a good show, then I don't care too much what weapon they have

[@gsmoton3132]

Amazing video I really enjoyed it

[@Mysda_]

Minotaur looked so dominant in this season, it might be the only classic drum that I'm rooting for. But I'm sure the meta can change. My bet would be on a return of horizontal spinners with a wedge for a ton more control. If they can mix the advantages of wedges but get the insane damage to the wheels of horizontals, it could get insane. And no Rotator isn't what I'm talking about, it should be able to hit when the opponent is on the wedge and protect the blade when it's not up to speed. Taking out wheels is the main strength of horizontal spinners, so hitting on the side is the optimal move.

[@Pseudoscience-is-a-scam]

Do you mean like Blade or Sean Becker’s Thagomizer series of robots? The latter works as a thwackbot with a large horizontal spinner and takes Tombstone’s spin move to the next level. They lead with their wedge and spin the body to hit the sides and rear of the wedged opponent.

[@Mysda_]

@@Pseudoscience-is-a-scam Spinning arround isn't bad, but it doesn't work against good ground game. Spinning with forks isn't really an option and you can get pushed into a wall and not be able to spin. What I'm talking about is something like Tantrum but horizontal. A smart mecanism that lets a weapon spin up, and gives great control option. It won't be easy but I love this idea

[@Teamdestro]

I wish there were more original ideas like shatter with the omni wheels

[@notimportant768]

"Stop harping on the number of vertical spinners theres variety in design" Bitch I can say that for everything short of a wedge and even then I can talk about how much thought was put into original sin's design and why it was strong. I agree its overblown but from your arguments alone its rather clear you would probably be rather annoyed if it were anything other than spinners dominating the field right now.

[@JohnJackson66]

I hope they will add more features such as (steps, ramps, pits and obstacles) to the arena to encourage different approaches

[@redberries8039]

yep perhaps 6inch of pea gravel, so it isn't all about 'ground game'.

[@wisewolftony]

Then your just screwing over every single horizontal spinner who doesn't use any sort of ground game. And things like that aren't going to affect vertical spinners at all. Also pits are some of the worst things you could possibly add. Nobody wants to see potentially great matches end just because a bot went into a pit. Even more so when in this day in age teams could wind up in a pit after a hit that sends both bots flying. To me you should never be thinking about adding things to the box when it will have a major affect on one certain type of bot.

[@wisewolftony]

@@redberries8039 You do realize that almost none of the bots are designed to be able to drive over gravel so you do that and your gonna have like like 80% of the fights ending due to some team getting beached on gravel and unable to move. Not to mention that your gonna have the gravel flying into weapon shafts cutting off belts left and right or getting inside other key components a ruining them.

[@cyanideytcuriousseadoggo]

My solution to add some incentive not to use a vert Give Verts to have a smaller weight limit on the damaging component.

[@baalfgames5318]

How the @#$% is it not a problem or ruin the show? It's basically the only viable weapon anymore. There's not many ways to absorb it, unlike with horizontal spinners. They hit MUCH harder than flippers and still upheaval their opponents, they're WAY more destructive than hammer bots and much quicker attackers than, well, anything that isn't a spinner.What? They need to get up to speed? That's hardly been an issue. Overall, it makes the battle scene very repetitive and boring. Sure, you'll get high impacts, but unless it's between two vert spinners, you usually know who's gonna win. And if a vert spinner DOESN'T beat something else, it usually just shows you how low tier that vert spinner is.

[@Paytrolah]

Moar verts

[@Andle95]

The main issue that I've had with both verts and horizontals as years have gone by is that in any matchup with anything that isn't another spinner, the onus is typically on the non-spinner to simply exist long enough and hope for their opponent to knock themselves out. You describe it as a tightrope, but I personally don't find it particularly engaging to watch a KE weapon be tiptoed around for 3 minutes, only to accidentally win by virtue of successfully pointing it's nose at someone for 5 seconds. Admittedly, this is probably more a matter of me disagreeing with the judging than the design archetype itself, but watching things get ragdolled by spinners becomes especially boring when half the time the arena floor inadvertantly biases itself towards KE designs to begin with.

[@233Deadman]

That to me is more an issue of how a lot of the non-spinners were being designed. Overly armoured boxes, not paying too much attention to anything other than survival. But then you get the ones like Quantum and Claw Viper which were mentioned in the video where they put the effort into being fast and agile, and they can give the good fights that way. Plus, there's something inherently pleasing about watching something get slammed into the wall hard enough to break something. A bigger issue for me is the very reason more and more teams converted from control oriented designs to spinners (Lockjaw, Kraken, Free Shipping, Big Dill ect.), which is the seeming over emphasis on damage within the judging criteria. A problem which in some UK events has started to be addressed by dropping damage as a category and replacing it with "Effectiveness". Essentially it functions the same for spinners, it's all about damage dealing for them, but also rewards grabbers getting control, flippers tossing the opponent and hammers landing repeated blows.

[@Andle95]

@@233Deadman I definitely agree that speedy box-rush type designs are far less popular than they should be. Claw Viper and Quantum as you mentioned are both a pleasure to watch, but you also had things like Tornado and Storm II in the UK. I think your second point about sums up my main issue though. For example, even Claw Viper in its match against Ribbot had to deal with what I'd call the spinner bias. Crab-walking and clearly impeded movement not being a cause for a count down smells a bit funny to me when half your drive is all you need to angle your vert/HS at the opponent who is now forced by the rules to approach you while you sit and wait. For every design besides your most generic of spinners, a dead drive is a dead bot. Why are KE weapons permitted to just exist in a clearly damaged state and still given the opportunity to randomly turn a match by virtue of how their weapon works? That's of course not to say that you can't have drive-centric spinners, Tantrum for example is amazing. I just think that designs like Deep 6, Upper Cut and even Tombstone (where so much weight is in the weapon) get kinda tedious to watch after the first couple of big hits. The judging criteria shifting is a good thing though imo, glad to see it happening.

[@233Deadman]

@@Andle95 The crab walking rule does solve issues that were there last season though, notably the nebulous enforcement of it, where you had Minotaur clearly impeded and not counted out vs Witch Doctor, whilst Ribboit was able to make it's way all the way across the arena against Hydra and still got counted out after Hydra just ran away. Is it necessarily the best rule? No. But I prefer the fact it's at least consistent.

[@Andle95]

@@233Deadman I suppose that's fair. = P

[@mohammadmalass6660]

Claw viper is awesome

[@createrz8433]

Not enough spinners. We need more. Let's start a movement for battlebots to be all spinners

[@dcrggreensheep]

No. That means no more bots like Hydra and Bronco and Free Shipping and Duck. We need variety for a good sport.

[@createrz8433]

@@dcrggreensheep exactly. Imagine a tournament with all spinners. Where every bot is just a carbon copy of each other.

[@roghider319]

​@@createrz8433basically competitive NHRL

[@ThePopeII]

I basically root against the vertical spinners every time now, with maybe a few exceptions here and there. I liked Uppercut and Deep Six...but neither of them are in it this season. And it kills me that Hydra lost a judges decision against Tantrum last season. Hydra deserved to be in the championship in my opinion and I believe they would have won, and it would have been a remarkable feat for a flipper. Nothing against Tantrum, it is a unique and sturdy bot, but I just felt Hydra did everything a flipper could have possibly done in that match, and they deserved to win.

[@huckstirred7112]

If you go to a local mud pit in the summer .9 chances out of ten there will only be 3 different tires in the winners circle super swamper bogger , super swamper sx , or super swamper I rock . Gumbo monster mudder is no longer available and what use to be ground hawg is now cobalt and is made by super swamper . That tire is limited in sizes and sucks on the street .So your better off with a different super swamper . It doesn't make watching or competing any less enjoyable

[@dcrggreensheep]

They should either: Create a non spinner and spinner division or update the rules.

[@evernewb2073]

that's kinda the problem, they HAVE been updating the rules, and every update more and more heavily favors having a fork+wedge setup and a vertical spinner and an increasingly massive repair budget.

[@evernewb2073]

just to clarify the reason the vertical spinning weapons are so prevalent is that they are both a scary _visibly_ destructive weapon for event judges to look at and simultaneously arguably better flippers than any lifting arm can hope to be. at least when you're talking about the bots that have been winning so consistently they succeed because nearly every time one of their weapons makes contact the bot with the vertical spinning weapon is going to be back on the ground and active faster than the bot that it just hit. the bots that can get that to work will have a fairly massive advantage against nearly any bot that isn't playing the exact same game whether you're talking about 250 pound $100000+ monstrosities or 2 ounce antweights made out of a broken electric shaver $5 bucks at radioshack a leftover controller from a toy car and some of the cardboard from a cereal box. even differences as drastic as whether you're talking about a tiny little disc just big enough to bite something important and pop a bot a few inches into the air or a massive drum taking up 40% of the mass of the robot aren't as important as you might think, the tradeoffs there are more in durability and repairability than in performance. wedges vs forks and whether you rely on the groundgame first or try to reach out and touch something with the weapon are absolutely decisions that matter though, and arguably the biggest reason to swing one way or another on that decision about what weapon type to spin up and what wheelbase to mount it on.

[@adriano2008]

Sponsor me, I'll make a revolutionary design.

[@matroqueta6825]

If vert haters are worse than verts, vert stans are worse than vert haters

[@wafranken6502]

who here wants to see robot wars bots fight battlebots bots

[@frankschwartz7405]

Oh...a talkumentary. Bye