SyFy's Robot Combat League

I didn’t see a thread on this. SyFy has a new tv show,Robot Combat Challenge. As the title suggests, the show pits two anthropomorphic robots against each other in a punching fight, somewhat similar to the movie Real Steel.

I watched the first episode the other night. They gave intros to the competitors, and gave a rundown on the set up for the show, then had the first skills test that set the pairings for the tournament. Finally, they showed the first match.

The teams are pairs of people, one serves as the tech lead - robot driver (via game console joystick kind of controls) and tech lead, and the second is the robot jockey (wears a harness and drives the arms and upper body motion via direct physical input).

First thing that struck me is the setup is somewhat weak. The teams are individuals who we don’t know how they were selected, but they were paired up by the show. Furthermore, the robots were all designed by one lead engineer, who designed a common system (the rack for support and motion, the basic operational design) and then individualized 12 different robots (armor, structural tweaks, range of motion, and size, appearance). The robots were then assigned to the teams, the teams did not select their teammates nor did they select the robot or control any of the differences in the features of their robot.

Out of the cast of 24, some pairings that caught my attention:
One team has George Lucas’s daughter, who is an MMA fighter, paired up with another chick.

Another competitor is a male MMA fighter. Another was a 2-time Olympic hurdler. Another is a soldier and helicopter pilot.

Then there’s the father/daughter pair of geeky engineers who build robots, who also apparently had bouts of serious illness at the same time - she had kidney troubles, he had cancer. Um, yeah. They were the only ones who knew each other before the pairings.

The teams were then given a training session to learn how to operate their robots, using the training sparring generic robots.

The first task was a timed trial to hit a target on one sparring bot using another sparring bot, not their “own” robot. Kind of shake out the cobwebs, get used to moving and reacting without being punched at.

The results from the timed trial seeded the tournament, where the fastest time was paired against the slowest time for the first challenge.

The fastest time went to the olympic hurdler and his partner, the slowest time was the father/daughter team geek family. The one team was given a blue robot with a canister body described as having moderate body armor, heavier, and longer reach. The father/daughter team had a robot with chromoly steel frame armor that apparently had sheets of plexiglas or lexan as the armor plating.

They got a practice session where they practiced moving around, and the blue team broke their own robot just bouncing around. One of the actuators on the legs broke and spilled hydraulic fluid around.

Okay, time for the match. First round was dominated by the blue team. They were moving better and scoring lots of big hits, team geek family couldn’t coordinate their movements, dad was a lousy driver, and the tiny girl trying to punch in the harness had never done anything like that before, and wasn’t really getting any hits. The blue team managed to bust the armor off one shoulder of the other robot and break one of the arm actuators before the round ended. They then had 20 minutes to try to repair their robot or face a TKO.

They replaced the actuator and just managed to get the armor back on. Time for round 2. Round 2 was a bit different.

The blue team started out well and were getting in good hits, but then managed to break their own arm actuator hitting the other robot. Then the other robot started getting in some good shots, especially to the body, before finally breaking their own arm.

That’s right, the most damage was caused to their own robots trying to hit their opponents.

The blue team ended up losing by TKO, because of all the hits, so team geek family actually won.

Okay, I’ll watch again to see how it goes, the combat is somewhat fun, but the lack of contribution by the teams to their robot design or selection hampers the fun for me. The robots have individual strengths and weaknesses, but we don’t have any real way to judge what we’re told, and the teams had no input to selection of those factors, so they just have to deal with what they have.

The design seems to be so that the robots are armored, but not so strong that they can’t fracture.

And we now know where Star Trek came up with their exploding consoles. These robots have a tendency to throw up big cascades of sparks from their torsos.

Anybody else watch this?

Watched first episode, I was interested initially but I found the show lacking for many reasons.

Chris Jericho is a not a good host

Not having a competition to select teams was a bad idea

While I understand why the teams do not design their own robots, the premise of one guy making them really takes away from the premise that is successful with shows like survivor.

The actual fighting seemed weak… did anyone else get the impression that the robots were almost rigged to fail, complete with smoke and pyrotechnics?

I may watch one more, but I am about to give up on it :smiley:

My robot-crazy teen sons just LOVED this. Maybe that’s the audience they’re going for

I’m a pro wrestling fan, so Jericho’s involvement was enough for me to give it a look (heck, I watched that “Downfall” game show…). I don’t think I’ll keep watching.

Honestly, the whole fight felt as staged as a pro wrestling match. The underdog, feel-good father-daughter team up against the slightly-cocky top seed, taking a beating in the first round only to come out with the upset. The fake spark explosions. Even the part that was probably the most real–where the catastrophic failures were pretty sudden–didn’t seem to come across very well. The father/daughter team at least had pieces of armor fall off, but the other team just seemed to go from OK straight to disabled. Real(istic)? Probably. But it can just as easily be a tech hitting the “Hydrolic fluid spurts now” button that’s next to the “sparks fly now” button.

And, to continue a bit with wrestling analogies, since all the robots are pretty much the same, it felt like I was watching King Kong Bundy vs Andre the Giant. Yeah, having two big, strong, lumbering giants face off is a fun spectacle, but not something I want to see main event every week.

I thought it was pretty weak. It was like watching people struggling to play a really shitty fighting game for the first time (but to be fair, I suppose that’s exactly what we were seeing).

I’d rather watch a Tekken or Street Fighter tournament. Even if the players suck, at least the games have visual flair.

The premise is fantastic but the execution is horrible.

Exactly. Just bring back Robot Wars. It was actually compelling.

The lack of excitement in the actual fight is highlighted by the way it’s presented: notice how much they cut to the audience “cheering.” If it were just a static shot from a few different angles, it would be about as interesting as watching giant “Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.” Actually, now that I think of it, it was pretty much exactly that. And the canned sparks and faked “damage” is intellectually insulting.

Despite the late-night time slot, I think this is for kids.

I’m not a wrestling fan, so I didn’t know him from the next guy over. He was kind of blah.

At least give us some insight into team selection. Why were these two paired up?
Sure, I get that you need at least one geek/robot person to be the “tech lead”, and you need someone vaguely athletic to be the “robot jockey”, but why these folks? Were they volunteers? Answer an ad in the newspaper? Why these pairings? Who did the “this would make a good team” sorting? Did they have any control in that process themselves, or were they assigned? It looks like assigned. So the competitors don’t have any control over their teammate. Great, one element of making a competition shot down.

Agreed. The teams have no control over the design features, the advantages vs. disadvantages of their selection. They didn’t even pick the paint scheme or the name. Shoots down element number 2.

Oh absolutely. The smoke and pyrotechniques was the most obvious, but look at how easily the hydraulic cylinders broke. I have to think they were designed to be weak spots so there would be damage, so their would be something visible (spurting fluid) and with a functional impact (loss of motion of that element). I mean the one team broke their own robot just moving around in the practice session.

Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots is exactly right, down to the built in weak spots.

I will give it another go, but I don’t know how long I will follow with this pattern.

Watched episode 2 last night. They ran 2 competitions in the 1 hour slot.

First up was Team Commander against Team Scorpio. Commander was a big green army robot, with huge fists, piloted by an army helicoptor pilot and a mixed martial artist. Scorpio was a smaller purple and black robot with blades on it and carbon fiber armor, piloted by a couple of geeks (guy toy maker and girl).

Each team got the chance to work with the training robots to get used to moving and such, then practice with their robot, before the match began. The Commander guy proved just how designed for failure these robots are when he broke his own robot’s actuator by punching too hard. He didn’t hit anything, just throwing the punch really fast the arm broke itself. Team Commander was really big on strategizing and taking notes, and looked really good on paper. Team Scorpio worked out some good coordination and speed.

Then came the match, starting with dumb line of the night number 1.
Host: “Keep it clean.” WTF does that even mean with a robot match? No eye gouging? And the irony of a professional wrestler saying that.

Anyway, the match was interesting, Scorpio did lots of moving and started getting good hits, leading up to ripping off the armor on one shoulder of Commander and breaking their actuator. Commander couldn’t get the armor back on that arm, so the second round they spent their time playing defense, trying to protect their arm. Didn’t work, a good solid hit from Scorpio to the right shoulder busted the actuator on the left arm. Um, yeah, can you say poor design? Third round was even more one-sided, leading up to Scorpio actually tearing Commander in half. Seriously, the top of the torso and head fell backwards off the legs.

This spawned dumb line of the night number 2.
Announcer: “We’ve never seen anything like this in the history of Robot Combat League!” Uh, this is the second fucking episode, there’s a lot of things you’ve never seen, like a whole 3 round match. Hyperbole much?

It was a bit more exciting to see the fight this time, even with the gratuitous sparks and spewing hydraulic fluid. Scorpio won with the upset.

The second pair up I can’t remember the names, but one team was an IT nerd with a female adrenaline junky/extreme sports competitor. She’s done motorcross and race car driving and wants to go to NASCAR.

Anyway, they had the same practice rounds, then the match. This one was fairly even in trading blows and stuff. First round both robots had repairs to make. At the end of the second round, the horn went off but the lady kept swinging and got a late hit in on the other robot. They ended up being DQ’d for the late hit.

Next week we get a visit by George Lucas and get to see how his daughter fares.

I too watched the 2nd episode. It was a little better than the 1st, but I think this belongs on late Saturday mornings after reruns of “American Gladiators.”

Also, I keep meaning to mention the grid they keep showing for the tournament placements. There only seem to be 6 slots for the initial seeds, and then a second bracket inset at the bottom. I can’t tell what’s going on, if they’re only showing a closeup of the brackets or what. I think there may be a wildcard match or something in that bottom set. Seems like they’re purposely obfuscating the brackets to try a surprise seed later or something.

So apparently I’m the only one left watching this. :wink:

Finally saw the whole tournament grid last night. Definitely had six brackets for the first rounds, and then an extra bracket in the second rounds to make an even 4 sets. So there has to be some kind of wildcard.

Amanda Lucas: “I don’t want people to think I’m succeeding just because of my dad [George Lucas].” So then why bring him on the show? Why mention it at all? None of us would have known if the show hadn’t said it, and even then he didn’t have to come out to the set. Okay, it’s robots, of course he wants to be there. Still.

So this one demonstrated that torso armor is a must.

There was a really good fight going on between Game Over and Axe Head in the first match. It went all three rounds and had lots of gratuitous broken cylinders and spraying hydraulic fluid. Game Over broke almost all the arm actuators, and was fighting mostly by swinging shoulders rather than being able to punch. They did knock off Axe head’s head, which looks dramatic but really isn’t as critical as it seems. Overall, Axe Head had much less damage and got in more hits. Game Over had a ridiculously oversized head and chest with the screen in it, and seemed like it restricted arm range. Lots of determination even if the robot didn’t hold up.

The second match was over in 1. Good hit to torso broke the body - something like 8 actuators all at once. The robot was crumpled sideways.

Still don’t appreciate the spark generators, nor the apparently designed-in weakness.

My biggest issue with the show is that in the first week they were all assigned a robot that all apparently had strengths and weaknesses. But some robots were clearly better than others so there was a huge luck of the draw as to if you got a good robot. And I think that was the defining factor into who won each match. I don’t think the best team won, I think it was the best robot. Crash had stupidly good armor that no one was able to get through, even with the “devastating” weapons. So all they had to do was stand in front of their opponent and swing their arms and they won every match. Even when they broke their arms due to their strong heavy armor they were never in danger. Hell in the final they fought some rounds without an arm and were still able to compete. Scorpio having blades was also very good but after cutting their first two opponents in half unfortunately got matched up against Crash and couldn’t get through their armor. And then the other finalist Steam Punk, second best armor of the robots and that what got them to the final, not the strategy or skill of the operators.

I thought the judging in the final was a bit off. Crash won by a huge margin in round 1 when I thought it was a close round. Despite Steam punk then dominating all the next 4 rounds, causing so much arm damage that some rounds Crash had to go in with only 1 arm, they give it to Crash.

Being a former pro wrestler, a pro wrestling fan and someone who runs my own fantasy wrestling league using a video game simulator, AND someone who loved Real Steel enough to watch it 4x and robots in general…you would think the show would be up my alley…

it’s not…

Jericho as a host is not the best…I would have rather seen Mike Tyson or someone like that host. And that’s from a Jericho fan mind you…

The execution is rather weak. it’s EXACTLY like Rock em Sock emrobots only on a Million (hundred thousand?) dollar scale. There’s no real strategy involved as you can’t duck or block…flailing your arms works just as good as throwing a perfect gyaku-ken karate punch…and you cant move the bot physically around ala Real Steel.

So yea…neat concept but too much before it’s time. I would have made this show 10 or 20 years from now when something closer to Reel Steel (as in real time movement control, full body control, full range of motion/movement) is actually feasible

Wait … pro wrestling is staged??!!

I thought I was the only one that watched this through.

I have to agree with this. The biggest factor for survival was armor to protect the body. As long as the torso didn’t get broken, they survived three rounds. Crash could flail away and do just as much or more damage as someone with directed strikes. Precision was difficult to achieve. People with actual fighting skill were beaten by flailing away and breaking your own arms.

So the competitors did not choose their teammates or their robots, had no input into the robot design or the specific traits of their robot, had to learn to operate the robots and fix the robots during the competition.

To be fair, the creators probably didn’t know how these machines would stack up against each other, either. They attempted to give a mix of strengths and weaknesses to each robot, without any real insight into the performance of these machines to know how strengths and weaknesses work on them.

I thought the judging was off, but the other direction. I think Steampunk won one round. I was just going by general impressions the first time through, but I went back and watched each match looking for hits to count on each side. Now it’s a challenge, especially with the camera views changing and such, and so I had to focus on solid hits and hits that caused significant damage. So instead of getting scores close to 30, mine were in the 7 to 15 range. And I counted when Crash broke their arms as a point for Steampunk.

Also, I didn’t care for the little pokes Steampunk was doing to Crash’s body. They weren’t reading to me like significant hits. I do realize that was the weapon arm, but it didn’t seem to be actually getting through the armor.

So to me it seemed they called round 3 in Steampunk’s favor when Crash won it, just so they could last the full 5 rounds.

Round 4 was a clusterfuck with a stop for a fire and a reset, then a second reset for being out of position.