Tough one to sort out alright.

I agree with George that those ten econd fights are boring, especially with delays, then excitement builds,,, then suddenly; "what! I think I blinked and missed it!"

Maybe with so many bots, so many battles, part of the solution may be to dedicate the weekend to just one event rather than annihilation "and" a tag team like last time. Extra grudge matches etc could be thrown in if time permits.

We will learn new lessons from RWII and one thing; the time schedule is something I want to inforce in NSW series II as well. It will encourage builders to be ready the "night before", not "finished at the event". Save up for those spare batteries, have them charged and secure all those connectors and switches!

setting a program of times as brett said is 100% the answer ,and something i have been trying to do all season ......and the annhilator was no exception ...all i got there was ,ohh we cant start yet some people arent here yet ,thats not fair etc etc ..
and as for our efforts during the season well i gotta say ,pretty bad ....
a good thing you guys dont play for a team as you all miss every game
and its not fair to people who make the effort and have to sit around for 2 hours waiting for others to arrive ... if 6 to 8 weeks isnt enough between battles to get ready then i dont have any answers ...
something that is the biggest issue and im sure it will happen at robowars is the lack of batteries being ready and charged on call........i understand you all want to use the super dooper mega batteries ,but i guess they are expensive.. but that is the number one issue to much time is wasted waiting for people to get batteries charged you should be able to battle every 20 minutes or so if you dont have the batteries get them if you dont have the money ,use batteries that are cheaper ...pretty simple stuff folks .
time limits in my opinion are as bigger part of what we do as anything .
it forces you to design and build robots that are easily fixed if damaged and quick to prepare for next battles ....try and see combat fighting as a whole package of things that go into making what it is .....
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Maybe I didn't make it clear in my other posts. The first group will battle for 5mins, if one robot goes out, the match keeps going till the buzzer goes, if more robots get killed during the match, so be it. If there are still 6 bots at the end of a match, judges kick one out.

After the first group has it's round one battle, group two goes in and does the same thing, then group 3,4,5.... this means by the time group 5 or whatever has battled, group 1 should have had 90mins to recharge, fix there bots and get in the arena again for round 2.

Hasn't any one watch the Robot Wars Southern Annihilator before? I know you have Sarge as you sent me it on tape. In the Southern Annihilation, it was: Napalm, Panic Attack, A. Terminegger, Pussycat, Disc-O-Inferno and another robot. After the first round Napalm and Another robot were gone from competition, Panic Attack was severly mangled from Disc-O and had to duct tape the bot back for round two where it was taken out.

Anymore questions
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Sorry to be a nay-sayer guys, but in my opinion the whole concept of annihlators, eliminators, tag-teams or whatever all detract from the basic concept of robotic combat - one machine vs another.

a 1-on-1 match is the essence of robotic fighting, and arena hazards, unusual fight formats and house robots are all just attempts to spice up the action for the enjoyment of the spectators.. not that thats a bad thing if you want public coverage, but you need to be careful, because if you go too far into the "entertainment zone" then you lose the "serious competitive sport" aspect and it just becomes a game of world-wrestling-style scripted acting.

It also interferes with the "rock paper scissors" aspect, in that instead of having a 1-on-1 match between a spinner (scissors) and a brick (rock) where they have to take the luck of the draw and fight it out, the scissors can now hold back and just go after the easily damaged "paper" bots in the multi-bot fight, and leave dealing with the rock up to the other bots on their team that are more effective against them. So naturally there will be ganging-up, and selectivity in who attacks who.. which sort of skews the whole thing..

The occasional rumble, grudge match, or eliminator round is fine as a fun diversion at the end of an event, but having witnessed the kerfuffle it caused with the judging and complaining about ganging-up and so on, I wouldnt consider it as a legitimate part of any ongoing series.

Just my opinion of course.
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Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people

Some good points there. Reading Chrisjons post above reminded me of an annoying issue from the Anihilator.

THere where a few people late which kept others waiting. I was actually on time ready to go but had to hang around waiting for others and when they eventually arrived I was given the bye and people that where late got to start ahead of me. And then the people that where late had robot problems anyway so it sucked even more that I was sitting there doing nothing while slackers had priority.
I thougt that was pretty crappy. Late people should have gotten the bye so the comp could have continued. Does anyone out there think they are so important that they should disrupt an event. I cant think of anyone. Anyway thats what happens when u plan things too much.

I liked the idea of the tattslotto balls but felt frustrated when people would just rearrange the draws on the board because they didnt like who they where fighting. I saw that too many times.

I still dont think an event like the Anihilator needs to be more complicated than it has to be. Theres no point.
Sometimes we just complicate things too much for the wrong reasons.

I would just make it simple. Its an all in brawl anyway. 5 or 6 in at a time by 5 matches is round one. Why does it need a complicated formula to organise a big brawl.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

Just this once, I have to disagree with Brett

Ask any of the NSW guys and they will (IMHO) say they the final melee is the most exciting part of the day. A melee is about the same format as a single Annhilator match so its fair to say that us builders would find the whole Annhilator format more exciting for ourselves as well as any audience - I know I used up about a year's worth of adrenalin at the first Annhilator!

If we change the rules to prolong matches to a reasonable length and take care that at least the initial rounds are competitively balanced, then there will be some pretty serious matches. Staying with a Rock Paper Scissors strategy is perfectly valid, but the Annhilator format has the potential to move robot combat from a 1 on 1 tactical fight up to a multi-way, longer-term strategic battle. The skew you are talking about is fixed by the politics that I was banging on about earlier - you can have a crap robot and win by forming the right alliance and knowing when to cut a new deal in response to the changing situation.

Its a bit like the difference between playing a first generation shooter game and playing Half-life 2.
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Australian 2015 Featherweight champion
UK 2016 Gladiator champion

I think I agree with Nick on this.
I think it doesnt change the Paper rock Scissors thing as its not like theres always going to be a set balance anyway. THe way I see it is like playing cards with more cards in your hands than normal.
Rules are exactly the same, games take longer and you end up with more possibilities with what u can do.

And it would be more intense and interesting for everyone apart from those bots that get attacked early but think with such a potentially high attrition rate that bots could have a second chance before being outed.
Personally I would enjoy the rush of having a herd of herbivour robots in a pasture ploding along whilst my raptor comes in and creates havoc.
But then again could end up with a paddock of spinners, you just never know but its still luck of the draw as before.
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Bots that do not destroy you, only make you stronger.

did they change stuff on the board did they george.

Now that just pisses me off completely. u might as well fix the whole damn thing then. geesgh.

I say we have it the same as last years except we fix the gang up problem and such as that sucked majorly.

besides that it was pretty good.

Also anybody who arrives late versus the spinners .

nah only kidding.
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Andrew Welch, Team Unconventional Robotics

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Also anybody who arrives late versus the spinners

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highly unlikely that in any situation everybody can be happy.

in a melee/rumble you have to consider -

1) a robot can be knocked out and the match will have to be stopped (which people have an objection to, including myself) otherwise the KO'd robot is likely to take a hit when its not working, and as we saw at the annihilator people dont like that too much.

so i guess if you want the annihilator to continue there are two paths. make the match go for the rest of the 3 minutes even if someone is KO'd, and try to avoid damaging them, which isnt going to happen frankly (alludes back to the rumble at marayong 7 where i almost took out the dead robort when i pushed basilisk really close to it accidentally.) OR stop the match and remove the dead robot and make it a requirement that the other 2 go at it for the remainder of the time.. which i think is a fine option.

another option is to have a "rumble day" where we have rumbles all day (go figure lol) with no real order. basically we have 6 slots available per rumble, there must at least be 2 robots from 2 different states in each fight and first come first serve. that way you dodge the problems of lateness, bye's, slightly reducing ganging up problems (which is all a part of the sport i guess) and judges decisions arent much of a concern seeing as there is no "champion", its just seperate and unrelated battles all day if you get my jist.

i think the battle switching was to PREVENT states drawing against each other, which someone said was a problem, however in the end it probably caused more problems that it prevented because it was usually 2 bots from the same state vs 1 from another.

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Sorry to be a nay-sayer guys, but in my opinion the whole concept of annihlators, eliminators, tag-teams or whatever all detract from the basic concept of robotic combat - one machine vs another.

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Also anybody who arrives late versus the spinners

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I actually don't mind the Rumble Day there Glen, sounds a lot more laid back.

lol, I like 1 on 1 battles, they save the hassle of having to watch all the other robots in the arena at once, but at the same time, it lacks the all out action fest of a melee. Also, I only have 1min of weapon power on Annihilation, with a melee, there are more bots per square metre so I have a higher chance to kicking ass and losing Prime example being the MM4 2nd Melee.

Either way, I'm turning up to tear people's bots into little pieces or go home with a wheely bin full of parts!
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as i said in an earlier post iam in favour of 1on1 battles and not the 6 bots 1st ko is out ..
anyone with a spinning blade or bar would of course love the 6 bots at once concept you can sit in the middle and someone is bound to run into you sooner or later.. but put a spinner in a 1 on 1 situation and they have to start driving skillfully and judge when to and when not to attack.The opponent of a spinner in a 1 on 1 battle also has room to judge his attacks etc so as to not sustain a direct hit ,
as much as i love all in melees they are not really a test of skill and design ,most of it is luck...@ NICK our melees are held at the end of the day because of there nature .mortality rates are high and you have 6 weeks to fix things
i gotta say i cant see a successful competition being completed over 2 days which involves the annihillator concept ...
and sadly a person who may have travelled 1000km to battle is pushed into a spinner in the first 10 sec of a battle while being accidently shoved by 4 other robots having their own little scrap in my opinion is no judgment of him his driving or his robot...
but be honest with yourselves hear folks in reality you all would remember him as being the one who got knocked out first ,and not through any fault of his own and i reckon that sucks ....... just my thoughts
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I don't fully agree with your comments Chrisjon. There maybe be more chance of a spinner hitting an opponent, but a lot of spinners require spin up time which is something that is harder to do when you have 6 robots continously hitting you, so i would say it works both ways.

Well considering we are the team that travels more then any other team 3600km round trip to Melbourne and a 2400km round trip to Sydney. We come to battle, not worry about getting knocked out in the first 10sec because we got ganged up on.

It's your event, run it how you like.
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not sure about the others but i was thinking maybe it should just be a 1 0n 1 comp run over 2 days .with no tag team .would that make it all a lot less intense and allow a bit of grudge match time as well ......and time permiting a few melles could be held ..
i would like the see .plan B ,anihillation and basilisk ,in a king of spin battle ...now that i would enjoy .
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would like the see .plan B ,anihillation and basilisk ,in a king of spin battle ...now that i would enjoy

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