I never saw the original (no cable), but I did see Robot Wars on PBS.
Design and build - OK
backstories - bleck
Brian
Grant Imahara has some free time now. Maybe he’ll bring back Deadblow?
I liked BattleBots for having an interesting arena full of hazards. I hated Robot Wars for having house robots in the arena. In the one it is an obstetrical, in the other we have the ref interfering with the wrestling match and that seemed wrong.
Although the Battle Bot hazards should be set to automatic to make them more fair.
Also, Battle Bots had Bil Dwyer. He really made the show and sold the sports format.
Has anyone else been watching the new season? Here are my thoughts…
The bots are coming in 2 classes: too much emphasis on looks, which makes them suck in the arena vs. total utilitarian which are ugly boxes but very efficient. I wanted to root for the pink haired girl who competed in the original as a child and is now grown up, but when she put a “brain” in her bot (Plan X) I knew it was doomed.
I like the tournament format, I admit to fast forwarding through the backstories, and I am warming up to the UFC fighter color commentator, he does get excited when destruction is happening.
Flipping your opponent still looks like the best strategy as the builders are still not designing a recovery option for an upside down bot.
And I really want the dick who flagrantly late-hit attacked after the buzzer to get his bot shredded by the upside down lawn mower thing (IceWave maybe?) that is marching through the competition.
I’ve been watching it. I was a big fan of the original, so I’m excited to have it come back.
Getting the opponent’s bot up onto the sides (basically a “ring out”) is very effective. Even self-righting bots can have problems from up there.
Spinners, especially horizontal spinners, continue to be the dominant means of destroying the enemy. However, these bots are often more complex and have a tendency of experiencing mechanical breakdowns. When their weapon is gone, they’re usually toast. On the other hand, if their weapon works, well, you get robo-carnage.
I do wish they would focus a bit more on the engineering and less on the builders. Oh well, I guess I just have to accept that this is a par… oh wait, no I don’t, I just fast forward through it. Muh ha ha ha!
I hope Tombstone and Ice Wave square off. The battle of the horizontal spinners. Although it will probably be decide on the first shot as one (if not both) will have their weapon destroyed.
And yes, Lockjaw’s after the buzzer hit was pretty blatant and a total dick move.
The one I was amazed by was the walker bot from the first episode with the big red blade. How do you build a fighting bot that can’t turn around?
I turned in on the other day meaning to just watch for a few minutes as I did kinda enjoy the old series. About 3 hours later…
I was so excited when it came back out, and since I am cable-less (and other shows get priority) I have to get it on Hulu, which means I can’t skip the annoying backstories.
I agree that for as long as robot fighting has been around, why you wouldn’t have some means of flipping your bot over just vexes me.
Taking this weeks tournament, when PlanX and Bronco (my fave!) fought, I said to (a mostly bored) Ms. Cups “Broncos gonna kill him cuz as soon as he’s flipped, he’s screwed” And lookie what happened.
Same with WarHead. Beautiful looking bot, horridly nonfunctional. Don’t these people try to, you know, win?
Also…where’s Vlad the Impaler? I remember no one being able to touch him in the last tournament
I’d watch Tombstone and Ice Wave battle every week, all show long. Have like ten of each and swap them out as one gets destroyed.
Isn’t that kind of what killed the last round of robot battle shows? The wedge robots/flippers were just too dominant? So, yes, it seems like being able to operate while flipped over would be vital, if difficult to achieve.
On the most recent show I watched, one team apparently had the bright idea to build out some scaffolding so that the flipper couldn’t get under the main body of the robot. Unfortunately, it turned out that the flipper could. Fight lasted three seconds.
I like the idea of having attendant robots to help out during the fight, although the fire breathers don’t seem to actually do a lot of damage. All show, and no destroying expensive electronics, it seems to me.
I guess I’ll trust to my anonymity and say that we went to watch the taping one day last month in Vallejo. It was a LOOOONG day - we saw probably 3 or 4 robot battles at 3 minutes each, and spent the rest of the time waiting around and being flat-out lied to about how soon we’d get to see more robot violence. I suppose it’s no big surprise that it takes all day to film 15 minutes of TV. There were long lines to get the wristband which gave us admission, and long lines for the food trucks at lunchtime - plenty of porta-potties, though.
We found a seat in the very uncomfortable metal bleachers behind the original guys who’d built the interactive arena. They had a big spaceshippy control desk.
I won’t spoil the results of the battles we saw, I can’t really remember anyway. I went along mostly for moral support for maxthevool, who had been a fan of the original series – I surprised him with the tickets, which I saw advertised on a tech blog. I was a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed the actual battles, I had not really been expecting to, but I suppose I got caught up in the excitement.
Man, that would be an interesting spinoff (no pun intended)
Have a tournament that includes flipperbots, and have one that doesn’t
Missed this until now and I’ve made note for future weeks. I loved the original and even ate (and fought sometimes) at a local place themed after them. It was called the Robot Club & Grill and both the food and mayhem were magnificent.
bottom right block
I’ve watched the first two episodes so far. It seems to be pretty unbalanced to me. Maybe when they get further into the show and only the winning bots are left it will improve some. I’m kind of disappointed that the fire weapons haven’t really done anything, that’s pretty dramatic to watch.
Are they allowed to modify the bots before matches, IE, change things based on what their opponent brings?
I’m not crazy about the addition of flamethrowers, although so far they haven’t been much of a factor. I suppose it could be an effective finishing weapon, if you get your opponent damaged enough that you can safely get close and roast the electronics. I just don’t like the idea on them in BattleBots, though.
Not fond of the “multiple bot” rules either, but I suppose they had to make some changes to make things more exciting (whatever that means). Again, they don’t seem to have had too big an impact, so I’m not that worked up about it.
I have to admit that I got a bit of a kick out of Donald Hutson’s rules-lawyering with the net in the first bout against Overhaul. Yeah, I know it’s against the spirit and tradition of the competition, and if I were one of the kids from M.I.T. I’d probably be pretty pissed, too. A re-match was probably the only way to prevent too many hard feelings, but I tend to fall into the camp of, “Hey - if you didn’t want entanglement devices, you should have said so in the rules.” (Assuming Hutson was correct in his reading).
Unless they have a mechanical issue, I’d be willing to bet that Tombstone makes it to the finals. And that’s fine with me - I’m really loving the carnage. 
Yeah, I loved the netting ‘present’ too. The other team went right for it, spinner blazing.
“Spirit and tradition” my pimply ass. If it isn’t banned in the rules, it’s a fair strategy. I wonder, are the rules posted anywhere?
Another thing I’ve noticed, speed and maneuverability seem to be dominant. Big lumbering bots end up in the grinders.
I seem to remember lesser bots from the past. These all seem to be heavyweights, absent a medium or even small class. More bots, less talk, would be better. Maybe even multiple bots in the arena at one time.
Anyway, it’s on (in these parts) Sunday night at 9PM, for those who are interested.
From what the announcers were saying, it sounds like the rules were vague in that regard, and perhaps one could read the rules going either direction? Makes the rematch make more sense. I agree that if it’s legal, by all means do it.
I do think that you don’t want nets legal, though. Boringly dominant.
Here, apparently. Here is rule 7f:
“The following weapons are not allowed under any circumstances: Squirting glue, throwing out fishing line, ball bearings and such.”
I think they decided that nets were considered the equivalent of “throwing out fishing line and such” in terms of being an entangling weapon, but since the rules weren’t clear enough, they had a rematch rather than disqualifying the net bot.
I just figured everyone knew the rules, someone (possibly even them) wrote in to clarify, and the producers thought it would be a good bit of “drama” for the series and wrote it in with every party knowing what was up.
Maybe I’m just jaded towards television and controversies therein, but that was my assumption from the beginning. It was all staged