Does anyone here subscribe to discovery+ ?
https://www.discoveryplus.com/
Do they carry all of the DSC seasons of BattleBots? It would be nice of they also had the seasons from other networks, but that is highly doubtful.
Can a show be downloaded to be watched later when the bandwidth is not available?
it’s annoying D+ posted episode 5 early but it wasn’t there at 7pm. I use Philo.com $20/mo for live cable.
I thought I saw Grabot tossed into the drone…
There is a growing controversy about the non-use of the primary weapon during a fight.
Would you penalize a quarterback for not throwing a single pass or a basketball player for not attempting a single shot during a game they won?
Do you mean they pulled it down during the time the show aired?
Yeah the scoring “system” emphasizing primary weapons irks me and I’ve never build a combat robot or attended an event. Damage is damage whether you hurt yourself or the other bot hurts you. In the NHL you get a point if you’re tied at the end of regulation, Battle Bots should reward the “loser” of a judges’ decision in some way as well.
With excessive rulemaking, there is a clear and present danger of everything being either forbidden or mandatory.
I rather enjoyed seeing what a mismatched Hydra innovated to go up against Huge; it was highly amusing to see the sign about the slightly used Huge defense for rent. If the game is all about primary weapons, then get rid of the screws, kill saws and the Pulverizer…
You should check this out when COVID is done…
I’d love to see an “anything goes” robot competition. Only thing that would be barred would be projectiles/explosives with enough energy to breach the spectator safety shields. Entanglements, sticky traps, liquid/powdered materials designed to penetrate and short-out electronics, whatever you can dream up.
I guess they already have that, but it’s top-secret and called DARPA. 
They talk about the 5 points for damage, but the 3 points for aggression and 3 points for control seem like incredibly overlapping categories that have a higher combined score. Somebody didn’t fully think through this system.
I rewatched the fight between beta and rotator that sparked so much controversy about not using the primary weapon. And as much as I get the argument about not ever firing the primary weapon, and my previous comments about the scoring system, I’ve got some other thoughts:
Rotator went out in a configuration that in combination with beta’s armor, could only make effective, deliberate contact with beta at beta’s rear. But we never saw him deliberately engage the rear of beta. If you expect beta to maneuver well enough that the rear is never presented, then I would propose that rotator planned to go into that battle knowing it couldn’t make effective contact with its primary weapon. How is that any different than electing not to fire your primary weapon until you (hopefully) wear down their primary weapon? And of the incidental weapon contact, I don’t see any that were initiated only by rotator. Pretty much every time beta was right there charging at rotator, trying to increase the odds of them contacting the battle box. The one time rotator did damage, taking the hammer off, rotator was not in control. It had ridden up beta, and was still moving with one wheel off the ground from precession. Beta just happened to hit the wall, such that they spun clockwise, and rotated their own hammer into rotator by mistake.
So I can see why some of the questions in the pits, but I really don’t question the decision myself.
All that said, Huge vs Hydra is a whole different set of questions.
The fight card for this week (Jan 14)
There have been a few fights from the Bounty Hunter offshoot posted on YouTube…
In this fight, MadCatter never fired its hammer against Malice. It didn’t have to, but I seem to recall an interview in which the MadCatter captain said his strategy was to operate as a push bot.
There was no outrage as it did not go to the judges, but would there be if it had? Did this fight take place before or after Beta vs Rotator?
I watched this fight over again.
If notches had been cut into the wheels of Huge, it may have been able to climb over the cowcatcher and attack Hydra from behind. Maybe Mitch can answer this: was Team Huge able to see the reconfigured Hydra very long before the fight?
Perhaps the only rule change needed is to give teams enough time to view the opponent in fighting configuration after which time minimal modifications are allowed…
One final comment about the SubZero appearances so far: we do not get to see the real Brady Davis. He is a real hoot MCing TRC events.
Huge vs Hydra is a good one to show how Battle Bots needs to include a Tie in the scoring system. Neither bot won that match, but the spectators lost.
Hydra had the attachment visible before the fight, but what was Huge going to do before the fight?
Uh, this?
The wheels on huge seem marginal for holding it up when intact. Adding some gaps might result in them folding up and ground strikes.
The fight card for this week (Jan 21)
SubZero goes up against Sporkinok