Mortician and CatKong BattleBots Proving Grounds Fight 1

[@mikedski9698]

Ray Billings: YOU WANT SOME MORE? Martin Mason: OH YEAH!

[@BigMcDay1234]

Underrated comment

[@prism____]

This is the best ive seen DOOM perform, it's good to see theyve been improving over the many proving grounds fights they've had

[@wyrmh0le]

I also love Proving Grounds living up to its promise of being a place for builders to test and improve their bots outside the show.

[@SethiozProject]

first time i see that bot, but quite interesting design. it's 3-in-1. it can defend both sides almost instantly and it also has the ability to hit on top of the bot (like saw blaze)

[@thedman1696]

Perfect use of the proving grounds for Doom. Making definite improvements

[@wristofkings]

It gave me some warm fuzzies to see Bil Dwyer back on mic duty, you can tell he loves this sport even if he's not the most technically minded. I'd love to see him as a guest at the commentary table during the main season too. Anyway, this fight proved to me that with the right team a pair of well-driven middleweights can absolutely do heavyweight damage, CatKong's first few hits were massive and Mortician may have been bouncing off but it left plenty of welts in Doom's armor. This time though Ray and Martin had the misfortune of fighting a Doom that was fully working and capable of tanking those hits.

[@teamgetwreckedcombatrobots776]

I gotta say. You guys actually did pretty well against Doom. Definitely one of the better multibot performances I’ve seen. Great fight!

[@smidy3]

I love videos like this!! As im in the UK i very rarely get to see battlebots on TV or Online.

[@blackmagicbanette2820]

Cat Kong and Mortitian did pretty good but maaaan Doom has really got it together. These Proving Grounds fights have definitely helped get these new designs the practice and development they need to be competitive, as well as giving a home to these more unusual ideas like having two middleweights fight a heavyweight. The sport is only getting better and better :)

[@ray9368]

Doom has made significant improvements throughout their time at Proving Grounds, and it's showing in how well the bot holds together. They certainly deserved their win here!

[@aptinventions]

Proving grounds has given DOOM the amazing opportunity to fight, learn, improve, and repeat.

[@BattlePark92]

Wow! All 3 bots did really well! I didn't think CatKong would hit pretty hard against an almost super heavy DOOM, and Mortician held its ground until DOOM ripped off one of its wheels towards the end of the fight. Oh yeah, DOOM's best fight I've seen yet. Thanks Ray for showing this fight.😀👍

[@ray9368]

Those wheels are just not really good enough for combat unfortunately. They are very lightweight and get decent traction, but I will have to look at other options going forward. I hate the thought of casting my own, but it may come to that.

[@BotvacProductions469]

this fight doesnt feel like battlebots, it feels like robogames

[@starry53]

If I ever watched that On Live, I'll go nuts seeing you Ray Billings and Martin Mason in-person.

[@xSoNiCcRaCkErSx]

Wow what a fight! This if the first fight I've seen of these two and I was shocked how well Doom's weapon held up. The deflection design that have reminiscent of Beta seemed work real well against Mortician.

[@bami2]

No wonder DOOM! has improved so much, they somehow managed to rope Ian Davis into helping them. Nah just kidding it's a monumental effort to get HW to even work, I'm so happy to see this level of improvement from the DOOM team because lets just say that tape and zipties don't make for good structural elements and they've progressed well beyond that now, they took some heavy hits, dished out some real damage and just kept on working.

[@aasgier9091]

Great fight! Thanks for sharing it Ray, as well thanks to the BattleBots staff for allowing you to share it. I'm not going to make it to Vegas anytime soon, so I appreciate it!

[@117Shaba]

DOOM looked solid and had effective sloped armor to counter the horizontal threat. CatKong was making progress against DOOM until it lost its weapon and Mortician just couldn't hit high enough to kill DOOM's weapon. Now, Tombstone with its height and reach.....yeah, that could've taken DOOM out. Still, what an entertaining fight!

[@wyrmh0le]

There's a slow-mo video out there of Mortician riding up Doom and juuuuuust kissing the arm. A tiny bit more reach and it would have sliced the belts if not taken the arm off.

[@ray9368]

Before the match was done, we had cut one of the two belts spinning the weapon, and broke the chain that rotates the weapon arm. We were very close to killing the weapon system on Doom! But they held on long enough to get the victory, which is how this game is done.

[@aptinventions]

DOOM was careful not to let Mortician get too close to any vulnerable spots. Both times Mortician hit DOOM's arm directly, it dealt significant damage.

[@Mysda_]

Finally official footage from the event!

[@BulaBeanMachine]

Great to see my two favorite builders in a collab! Keep the big hits coming, Ray, the sport needs you.

[@Redskasvoices]

I swear, I've seen a chapter like this before. Hey remember Beta? :b

[@Living_Murphys_Law]

That was really cool! Really good fight, and one of the better multibot performances we've seen at Battlebots. Just curious, do you think other teams will start uploading Proving Grounds fights? I'd love to see some more. Oh, and finally, Martin is simply the best.

[@ray9368]

I asked if I could have the footage, and asked if I could post it. And they agreed, knowing I would use this as an opportunity to promote their live show. I don't know if they will start doing anything more official with the video they get or not, but I agree it would be nice to see more of it!

[@takeitback916]

A man of the people@@ray9368 ! Love to see it, this would be awesome to see live!

[@10697018]

I hope they do, robot fighting rules. Tombstone is my favorite, hopefully you'll win another nut oneday.@@ray9368

[@gargunkle]

Most multibot teams don't really give me a positive outlook but this is one I can really get behind

[@legendarye172]

feels good to see Mr Bil back on the mic

[@c041h]

This is one of the best multibot battles I've ever seen. Definitely helps when you have two amazing drivers

[@ashefallprime4563]

Ray… that is the best I have ever seen an Impromptu team do in completion! Mad Props

[@BeanManer]

Honestly, these 2 bots could probally do good on the actual show

[@JamieReilly-DarkBots]

Very entertaining match! I'm curious how Mortician's damage output against heavyweights might be affected by a sharper blade.

[@ray9368]

Mortician has heavyweight kinetic energy numbers, but without the mass behind it you just sort of deflect away. The blade is fairly sharp, but in this case both the blade and Doom's armor were both AR500. Realistically what we really needed was a harder material to dig into it, and that might have helped a lot.

[@mansongamingz7559]

Tombstone was one of my fav bots back in the day in battlebots.

[@laurels7892]

So happy to have gotten to see this awesome battle!

[@thomasbriel4381]

that was so much FUN to watch. looking forward to the 2023 battle bot season

[@GoodGoga]

Everything i heard about DOOM at BB and RoboGames was very very sad. This time it seems they have an actually decent robot. Great stuff! And the overall package and presentation if the fight looks pretty well put together as well. Thumbs up for the Proving Grounds crew!

[@aptinventions]

DOOM went to RoboGames purely to test out some new improvements and learn. Would rather get KO'd than play it safe and learn nothing.

[@heartofdawnlight]

it was a fun fight to watch! I truly hope Battle bots considers a weight bonus for multibots, so we can have a few multibot teams make it in the competition & hold their own... not even like a 50% that some competitions give but even just 20% would do a lot to let them not fall aart too easily

[@JeffHendricks]

Just wanted to tell Justin: I see you working behind the scenes, my man. Don't think we don't notice. Thank you!

[@ray9368]

Justin has always been an integral part of the team, and he drove really well for this event!

[@JeffHendricks]

@@ray9368 Props where props are due!

[@gwventura1]

This was really neat to watch, thanks for posting!

[@ConstantlyDamaged]

Very cool fight. Thanks for sharing it, Ray!

[@tarasaurus98]

That's a really interesting way they do the live show

[@denisloebner4882]

awesome fight!. thanks for sharing

[@professionalidiot2767]

I love Steve's Aussie accent lmao. Go 'Straya!

[@knowntalker135]

HONESTLY WATCHING 2 PROS TAKE ON NEW BOT IS AMAZING

[@smiley148784]

Really fun match i'd love to see more middle weights team up like this.

[@ItsShooty]

13:03 to skip the TV fluff and watch the fight.

[@10697018]

I like Martin, he reminds me of Hacksaw Jim Duncan. Even looks a lot like him.

[@felixzapata9058]

THAT.......WAS FUN!!!!

[@jasonwhite2028]

Great fight, and the first viable multibot team i have seen yet. Unfortunately multibots have a big disadvantage needing two complete sets of drivetrain components and then having to half the armor and weapon weight between the two, i would dare to guess that the weapon and armor alone on a 250lb bot is close to the 120lb weight of each of the other robots. All of that being considered it is truly impressive how well you guys did.

[@OFCRadi]

Cat Kong And Mortician should be assigned into battlebots ngl, they would be a fun duo to watch for sure😅

[@BotvacProductions469]

that intro martin did for you was epic

[@TheDistur]

Martin is 110 percent all the time love that.

[@HoosierHacker]

Looking forward to more videos!

[@mikedski9698]

BEST FIGHT EVER!

[@JeromeDemers]

Thanks for sharing!

[@MattAdriano-c9b]

you dont even know if doom is a hammer saw bot or vert spinner hahahaha its so unpredictable

[@darkdragonsoul99]

someone watched entirely too much wrestling as a kid

[@20100lude92]

i would like to know what you think of (fluffy) wheel design. one of the first horizontal spinners i really liked. i guess there is pros and cons and id like to know your tought on it

[@motzog]

i don't just know the big famous botsRay made, heres a list of his lesser known bots: Darkness, The Raven, Corner, S.H.Tombstone, Shinspliter,(im not sure on this one, it looks so like old mortician.) Stink eye, and swamp thing. its cool how many bots he made!

[@unitedstatesofamerica6192]

Just wondering, how do you combat the geometry of armor like DOOM's when you have a horizontal spinner? It seems like most of the hits are more likely to glance off instead of making square contact. It seemed like you were doing decent damage during the fight though, considering the size of Mortician.

[@ray9368]

Giving away the equal mass really hurts us here. You are just much more easily deflected that way. If we had a harder weapon edge that might have helped. The weapon and armor were both AR500, so equal hardness levels. If we had an S7 weapon with a higher hardness, we might have dug in better than we did. I honestly think in an equal mass situation, say Tombstone vs Doom, it would go much differently.

[@TonyTonyChoppered]

I didn't expect to also see Ian Davis there

[@conniee.]

Now I'd like to see the full size of each of these bots take on doom, especially Tombstone for whippin' up on his little brother Mortician.🤔😄

[@braydentervort2950]

Still that is awesome, maybe you could put a smaller blade on it so you can get higher tip speed, that could do some damage and it would put less strain on your motors with less weight to spin up.

[@ceilingfanmusic6597]

Doom looks kinda like beta but with a spinning bar in place of the hammer. It would be a really effective bot if they can work out there drive

[@RobertPilla]

Someone was up early this morning

[@ray9368]

Sleep isn't mandatory - more of a guideline! :)

[@syruscoy1244]

Awesome fight

[@SethiozProject]

great fight, but i still don't like your open-wheel designs, that tyre got peeled off so easily, but at least it was able to take and give some good hits without breaking. i'd really like to see Tombstone V2, something with hidden wheels and more durable, so it can dish out the amazing hard hits without breaking itself

[@redsalamander9999]

0:47 Is that Bill Dwyer from the original series of Battlebots? It sounds a lot like him.

[@ray9368]

Yes that's Bil Dwyer. He's obviously still very good at this, and is having a really good time being involved again!

[@mikedski9698]

It Was A Good Try!

[@Jonnyonthespot123]

8:42 Are they in the same room as their heavyweight spinning weapon when testing? And Battlebots not only allowed this but aired it as part of their show? Yikes that's dangerous!

[@aptinventions]

Don't worry about it.

[@blemmitt]

This made me wonder what would happen if tombstone had an aysm

[@stonefish98]

7:50 Did they play Rip and Tear as their walkout song or something? That's some real atmosphere-killing calm public-domain stuff.

[@notoxicity7502]

Yeah they put copyrighted music for the intros in DAT so they'd have to replace it in the video

[@ray9368]

Correct - there was some copyrighted music there originally and we had to do something to cover it up.

[@aptinventions]

DOOM walked out to Sabotage - Beastie Boys.

[@stonefish98]

@@aptinventions That's a good choice.

[@obsessivecorvid]

what happened to the other version of Mortician with the internal wheels (like used at the JavaOne event)?

[@ray9368]

Having the tires internally might provide for more protection, but having them situated so close together made it almost impossible to control. They really need to be as wide apart as the spin circle of the weapon in order to drive well.

[@obsessivecorvid]

Ah, makes sense

[@JohnWick-zl5oc]

i like the tires copperhead uses, they are 100% nylon i think wich is heavy, so prob need to save alot of weight to use those, but it shard to drive if u lose 1 tire and impossible if u lose both...

[@ray9368]

Copperhead's tires are really nice, very tough, and heavy :) In that regard, kind of like the Brazilian wheels as well. For any rebuild of mortician I will likely have to do something different for sure.

[@FeArLemonz0D220]

I’m honestly supposed doom won that considering they couldn’t do anything for like 75% of the fight, while mortician and kat kong were really well controlled and were constantly on the aggressive

[@ray9368]

There are no judges, just the audience opinion. It's kind of unofficial :)

[@sparksthe_pegasus3978]

when the doom music kicks in

[@JohnWick-zl5oc]

the best strat would be i think if kong could pin or get under Doom then Mortican can hit the back, only way middle weight can win vs a heavy is with perfect teamwork or a bad heavyweight cause the heavyweight can use so much more armor and have much more power cause heaver weapon its quite a disadvantage im amazed they didnt get slaughtered they are well built for middle weights.

[@Itz.crossery]

Tombstone jr.

[@BotvacProductions469]

4:49 am i not the only one seeing this

[@shaggysunshine7441]

3:30 hulk hogan of battlebots

[@Superkuh2]

All robot fighting leagues should get rid of multi-bot entries entirely. Or at the least not give them any weight advantage.

[@ray9368]

Multi bots are fine, but I kind of agree with the weight bonus. I don't really like weight bonuses for anything honestly.

[@BotvacProductions469]

wheres chris and kenny?

[@Retrosicotte]

They aren't on Proving Grounds.

[@stonefish98]

I'm guessing Battlebots couldn't afford to pay them to work five days a week, all year long. This is Destructathon/Proving Grounds, not the TV show.

[@BotvacProductions469]

@@stonefish98 so chris and kenny will still be the hosts of battlebots world campionship 8? awesome!

[@stonefish98]

@@BotvacProductions469 No-one's said anything to the contrary. Technically WC8 hasn't been announced, but a lot of people are hinting that the goal is to film it in ~January. That's contingent on a whole lot of factors. Number one, does Discovery even want to order another season? :) (Probably, but you never know)

[@BotvacProductions469]

@@stonefish98 wait. i thought it would be coming in october

[@wyrmh0le]

That was an awesome fight! But not gonna lie, the show was kinda stolen by that dude's (DIY?!) prosthetic. Some googling and looks like he's Ian Davis on youtube. Sweet!

[@stuarthough8440]

wrong decision by the judges

[@mikedski9698]

💯👍

[@peterreber7671]

That was just a non-event, boring.

[@ZhouYiDao]

Really amateurish video production and commentary. I'm spoiled by watching BattleBots. Fun match, but the commentary was inane and ignored key events. Example: not noting when a primary weapon stops working.

[@ray9368]

There is no production team for filming the live show, and never really was any intention of filming at all. The fact that they get any footage at all, and then let me use it, with no return on that investment.....well we have to be happy with what we get here. Everything is focused on making the live show entertaining, and that's a different goal than making top notch video.

[@ZhouYiDao]

@@ray9368 understand! That explains it. It was a fun match to watch. That's the important thing in the end.

[@SlickGokuBaby]

It's likely worth noting that the TV show has a lot more room for editing the footage than what we have here with the live show commentary. There's a reason Chris and Kenny wear the same suit for the entire filming season of Battlebots. Not only can they do voiceovers in the editing room. They can cut in actual video of Chris or Kenny saying something about a fight, but could actually be from a completely different fight. Can't compare live commentary with edited commentary.