PD's PACT bots

[Penguin Deus]

So I mentioned awhile back that if I was intrigued by the PACT rules and was curious as to what I'd use. I wanted to try my hand at making some stuff. Below are the three bots that I think I could see myself using. Mind you, these are very rough and not at all playtested in pvp.

At first I tried to exploit what I was felt was the metagame you guys employed, as well as exploiting loopholes I saw in the rules themselves. After awhile I got tired of that, since I've always been notoriously bad at making cheeseball designs for me to use. My particular playstyle, I think, is just a bit too quirky to exploit a lot of the "top tier" elements of LR fully. Thus I scrapped the idea and tried something different.

I tried to stick to things I knew already and just fix things up to fit the rules better. I also tried to diversify the robots based on showing off different aspects of my own game instead of attacking the metagame directly. I felt that my best bet at winning would be to stick to what I know instead of trying to re-invent myself on the fly. This is particularly true because I haven't played competitively in several years. Taking all that into consideration, I felt giving myself as good a chance as possible while still being able to showcase some skills would be the best way to do things. Thus, I made/revised these three robots:

Jiraiya pk

eye3 0/6/3/1/0
ul 0/2/6/2/0
xs 0/4/6/0/0
a2 3/0/6/0/1
gull 0/0/4/6
volute
g91 0/10/0
ananda 0/0/10
-
rm
73mv
GLL
mini-k
hp
wraith
wraith

screens, lock time, lockbox, turning, e. pow, radar, cooling

It seems like a fairly safe opener for me, and it left a good amount of parts open for me to use. The next two are more counter-bot oriented.

Go Clippers!

queen
eos
macaque
boar2
-
f73h
fudoh
r92
-
jiren
98g
98g
rs
69h

screens, ecm pulse, lockbox, turning, radar, cooling

I took my friend Azad's tank and made some minor modifications. It's a good tank and another fairly safe choice, particularly against slower stuff.

Dood (not named yet)

s2 0/4/3/3/0
u4 0/4/0/6/0
fl 0/0/6/4/0
dingo2 0/6/2/2/0
v2 0/0/0/10
limpet
lotus 0/10/0
ragora 0/4/6
-
rm2
ra
harpy
rl
r3

screens, generator, ecm pulse, lockbox, turning, cooling

Fairly simple bot, with an emphasis on movement and poking. Spam off orbits early, then poke and look for mistakes to come in and punish on.

I think I'm within the rules...but I haven't looked recently so if I am not, please let me know. I would have liked to use gaea on the last bot but I didn't find any particular setups I felt comfortable with. I also think that last set could use OB, but again...nothing felt right. I'd mess with'em a little more but I think getting input on the designs would make more sense at this point. Besides, like I mentioned earlier I don't really have anyone to playtest with anymore, haha.

[NiX]

Awesome. Will fire up LR again and check these out a little later. It's been a while since I've touched the PS2 haha.

[Grim]

I'll have to try these out sometime too. Maybe we'll get to record a vid of them in action on June 12.

[ItakeShitsonyourFace]

ur bots are garbage.

[Penguin Deus]

Good post, Owen!

[NiX]

Hey PD, don't mean to keep you waiting on my review. Schedule just got shot to hell.

[Penguin Deus]

Oh it's okay, I wasn't really expecting a review. I doubt I'll revise'em much, mainly since I don't really play anymore. I just wanted to see what I'd make on a first try with those rules is all.

[NiX]

What was nice about those rules was that they pretty much forced the use of the shittier internal parts. But I'll definitely give these guys a spin soon.

[NiX]

Ok, so I finally tried them out.

I assumed that the first one's using the Quad A2 legs, since the there was already a tank and a humanoid.

The quad's ability to kill is fine. It's just the G91+GULL combo that makes me uncomfortable. 99UL's low heat resistance also doesn't help. Maybe slap the UA on for a higher heat resistance, or take the R92 from the tank and put it here? Energy will take a bit of a hit, but it'll probably be worth it. Lizard might be better too for this one, but I'm not really sure.

The tank is probably the best AC in this garage. You can't really go wrong with the parts you used. Personally, I'd put decoys, and GIBBON for more E-def, but that's it. Since FUDOH helps cool things down, I don't think it'd really hurt to transfer the R92 to your quad.

The biped is ok of course, though I think you could've done better. For starters, since you're not running OB, HAZEL probably would have been the best radiator choice for this setup. It'll give you a lot more free weight and energy while still keeping you sufficiently cool, thanks to the inherently low temperatures of LOTUS and V2. And from there, you'll have much more room to do other things with the AC. It might work even with OB.

[Penguin Deus]

Thanks for looking at them.

G91+gull doesn't bother me on the quad. That particular quad is actually one of my normal bots (with minor mods), so I can say this from experience. The heat resistance on the ul is not all that bad (681), and if I remember right the normal cooling of the bot is like 15.8k-15.9k. This is all with no OB. That's way more than enough for me to handle the machine. Also, it bares mentioning that the strategy of this bot is fairly simple and LR-friendly: spam off or toss the cannon, and spam verts until the opponent tries to move in thne blaze em up with the handhelds from mid to close range. With the mini-k and hp, in general it simply isn't safe to come in and stay for long. The accuracy and pace at which those weapons can deal damage is a prime deterrent on the inside. I can see why most people would have a problem running gull+g91, though.

I thought you couldn't hangar with UA? The funny thing about the quad is that part of it's strategy is to be liberal with the firepower to limit enemy movement. UA would definitely be a better core choice though (it always is lol).

The tank is very straight-forward, and basically falls into one of the design archetypes of LR to a tee. I don't think it's a superior design to the quad, but I do think the quad and tank are cooler designs than the biped. I play type b so I'm not really into inside parts in LR. The gibbon is a nice idea but if I remember right I wasn't digging the arm movement and momentum shifts I was getting while using them. Oh, and the drain was bugging me too. It's worth revisiting though. I think it's a good suggestion.

Yeah I got lazy on the third one. That isn't to say that I think it "should be better" but I do feel that in general it's a lazy design and I took safe choices just about everywhere. You could go in all sorts of directions, probably, but to be honest there aren't too many directions that would be "better" in the LR metagame sense. You have to keep in mind that the biped's setup basically gives it a fighting chance against any possible design that can be made in LR, and this is before you even take into account piloting skills. Seeing as how I haven't played competitively since beginning of '07, I felt my skills won't be where they should and thus playing safe is what I should stick to. I will look into hazel though. I don't know if I tried it already, but it sounds like a fairly nice suggestion.

In fact, you can probably see that the unifying theme in all 3 bot choices was ease-of-use and safeness. The third one is easily the safest and most cookie-cutter, but I would say all 3 are generally safe bots. That's usually not my style, but it's also not my style to lose, so making concessions isn't a big deal.

[NiX]

When I tested the quad, heat spiked even from just boosting around a bit. One hit from a GL sent it into overheat. I just feel that whatever enormous boost duration you get from GULL+G91 is offset by how early it overheats. I understand that it's playable, especially since Quads do a lot of walking. Just saying that this one isn't as "safe" as the other two.

Gibbon has better drain than macaque. Similar weight and more AP too.

And yep, you can't hanger with UA. Might fit nicely with the biped since you don't have anything hangered there anyway.

[Penguin Deus]

I really don't know what to say as far as the heat issue goes. I simply haven't had those issues. I was able to handle pressure offenses from good players in this bot without incident. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'll look into v2 again anyways, though. May as well re-visit it, and I can just switch the bottom bot to gull instead probably.

Was UA also one of those parts where the l arm had to be a sword? I don't really remember anymore. I was thinking I might switch that rl to a rifle instead. I forget the name but it's the old rf220. It might be a little better suited to fighting over tp bots.

[ItakeShitsonyourFace]

If anything go V2/G91 over Gull/G91 for accel and not heat. It's not running OB anyways, so occasional overheats doesn't really mean much.

Oh, and your bots are garbage.

[NiX]

No other special rules for UA other than no hangers.

If you can handle G91 and Gull, then that's all that really matters.