The most random thread ever!!!

[James Gryphon]

Carne was a winner, but he can also be painful to watch sometimes. I probably won't make many more videos with him; you see pretty much what there is to see of him right here.

[rachel25]

Indeed

Indeed.

Indeed.

Indeed.

Indeed.

Indeed.

[Banya]

@James: What's up with Carne's bullets and the way they change direction after being fired?  And that they sometimes don't make it all the way to the target before dissolving?
At first look, SpamBot's a little boring, but otherwise this is another interesting round.

[Lady Ashenwyte]

Have you done one with Retiarus?

[James Gryphon]

@Banya: Those are drones. Drones are slow, homing shots; they run out of fuel after a certain distance. They also can block/get destroyed by enemy fire (as you probably noticed). They're not great for offense, but that downside is more than made up for by their defensive projection.

If you think you've seen boring... you ain't seen nothin' yet. There were two tournaments full of bots that would sit around and not fight each other, because the game didn't award points for kills yet. There was also a bot, "Pacifist Penquin"... who wasn't really a pacifist, but it seemed like it, because 99% of the time he was either in a corner doing nothing, or running to another corner to hide in. He only shot at close range, when he couldn't miss.

SPAMBot was a great bot in solo fights. His group mode, as you've seen, is less inspiring. I'm not sure why that is. While programmers are limited to how much code they can put in one robot, Colin hadn't hit that limit yet. Maybe he just didn't have time and figured that its advantage in single combat would be enough. (It obviously was, since he won T11 with it.)

One thing that I think is important to mention is that the melees I've been posting are not the only venue the bots compete in, for a Tournament. There's also one-on-one combats. So, a bot like SPAMBot that isn't so hot in group mode can still rack up lots of points in duels and get the winning score. It also goes the other way around; bots like Sword and Obsidian weren't very good at solo combat compared to some of their competitors, but they were dominant in group battles, where they could make the most of their heavy armor.

@Ash: Have I done a video with him before? I don't think I did. There are a couple with Arachnée, though, which is similar in some ways.

Edit: New video.

[Lady Ashenwyte]

I've understood why games like Five Nights at Freddy's are so scary. The human thing to do when we perceive  a potential threat is to try to scare it away, and if not, beat the ever living #@($*(@( out of it. (One of our finest evolutionary traits, if I may add) Not being able to do anything against something, is the most scary thing of all.

[James Gryphon]

I think I said something like that.

Shows that every robot has its day. This is the T8/T9 version of Jade, so you'd expect it to be less refined than the later versions (which I've shown exclusively to this point). However, he looks downright frazzled in this video, spending most of his time scurrying around trying (and failing) to avoid being blown to bits by bots that aren't half as intelligent.

[Banya]

You were right.  Jade didn't last long at all and dodged more than fired.  Horta is a literal brick wall, and Discovery can take a beating without doing much.  Defense Drone appears to be more offensive than defensive.  Fishbot is pretty  cool.  It makes sense that Arachnee turns into a spider web, but what advantage does that give it?

I've understood why games like Five Nights at Freddy's are so scary. The human thing to do when we perceive  a potential threat is to try to scare it away, and if not, beat the ever living #@($*(@( out of it. (One of our finest evolutionary traits, if I may add) Not being able to do anything against something, is the most scary thing of all.

I love beating the ever living #@($*(@( out of things that frighten me.

[The Skarzs]

Fight or flight?



THE CHOICE IS CLEAR.

[James Gryphon]

t makes sense that Arachnee turns into a spider web, but what advantage does that give it?

None at all; it's just the icon that Mr. Lechat chose to put up at that point in the code.

Here's Beholder Jr. and Pacifist Penquin at work.

[Banya]

"At work."  They kind of make me mad: Beholder with its clockwise-circles, Penguin with its inactivity, and Biosphere with its spinning and provoking.  Biosphere kind of makes me laugh from the way it sort of bounces off the others but doesn't always shoot.  It's like an annoying younger sibling.

[James Gryphon]

Older bots could be that way. They were a lot more limited in how much they could see and detect. Offense was a lot harder to get going back then; it took a systematic search to figure out where your enemy was, let alone to kill them.

Foley (who made the Orb of Doom in that video, as well as Obsidian, Nightshade and others) used to refer to Penquin almost exclusively as "Boring Birdo".

Probably the last one I'm going to upload this morning. I've really gone over the top putting all this material up over the past few hours.

[Banya]

This is a more interesting match.  Automaton reminds me of Jade in its speed and size.  I like that Dialectix, too.  Is that an earlier Magic Sword?

Penquin

Oops.

[James Gryphon]

This is a more interesting match.  Automaton reminds me of Jade in its speed and size.

It should; Automaton is basically a Jade clone, with a few new tricks thrown in. It didn't win a title in T13, but Paul Hansen worked on it more and took first place with the upgraded version in T14.

Is that an earlier Magic Sword?

It's the same one, but these are its original B&W icons, as opposed to the color icons I made for it (which it does have in several of the other videos). There was an earlier version of Sword released in two different unofficial tournaments prior to T13, but unfortunately those have been lost to time.

Oops.

It's an easy mistake to make. I'm not really sure where the alternate spelling came from, but it stuck, and I think just about all the arctic bird-inspired robots in the history of the game use it.

I've loved hanging out with y'all, but I'm getting a mite drowsy. It might be time for me to nap for a bit.

[Banya]

Good night, James, or good day.  This was fun.  Goodness, I have class soon.