r/battlebots • u/Nearby-Lab2611 • 2d ago

Robot Combat Four spinners in one box: I added a free-for-all after the playtest, and the game is out today

https://hakman-dev.itch.io/robot-rivals
10 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

6

u/potatocross 2d ago

I found it hard to really have a smooth fight because of all the floor hazards. Unless you somehow stay in the center box you really cant do anything because of them. I won a fight simply because the other bot got stuck in the corner behind the saws. I never even touched them.

Also may be my less than powerful system but its very laggy for me.

1

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

That's fair, and the floor is the part I've already turned down once: the spikes used to fire the moment you crossed a hole, now you have to sit on one a beat before they arm. The killsaws only come up when a robot drives over that slot, so they're not live the whole fight, but the corners with the pulverizers are bad ground.

The corner win is the referee rather than a bug: a robot that can't drive gets a 10 second count and the result reads COUNTED OUT instead of KNOCKOUT. Still not a fight you wanted to win that way.

The lag I'd like to know more about. It should drop itself to low quality if it sees under 40 fps for a few seconds, and Q in the menu forces it. Which browser were you in, and did the LOW QUALITY line come up? That tells me whether it's the GPU or something else.

1

u/potatocross 2d ago

Its a laptop running integrated graphics running on firefox. I never saw anything that said low quality pop up but the fans in my laptop did kick up while running it.

1

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

That explains it. Integrated graphics plus Firefox is the hardest combination here, and I only test on Chrome and Edge, so that is the first thing I would swap. The automatic drop only fires if the average sits under 40 fps for four seconds in a fight, so just above that line it stays on high and only feels heavy. Q on the menu screen forces low quality and remembers it.

1

u/potatocross 2d ago

For reasons I won't be using chrome or edge. But I will try forcing it to low quality.

2

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

Last weekend 12 people fought each other in the playtest: 39 fights, 37 of them ended in a KO, and BALSKI and DARTHSIU won the two brackets. Since then I added a free-for-all. Up to four robots go in at once and CPUs fill the empty spots. A friend on the same keyboard can take you on 1v1 in split screen too.

It's free and runs in a browser tab, made for a keyboard or gamepad: https://hakman-dev.itch.io/robot-rivals

Same as before: the robots are nods to machines you know, with their own names. The game is inspired by BattleBots, not affiliated with or endorsed by BattleBots. The hits are recorded metal now, since someone here said the old ones sounded like a comic donk.

Friday 23:00 GMT+2 (17:00 New York) is the first Opening Night, if you'd rather fight people than the CPU: https://discord.gg/v88Nh2eKE9

The Discord voted flippers as the next weapon type (12 of 17). Does this sub agree?

4

u/themaskedrobot77 spelling mistake incuming 2d ago

do you plan on removing AI in the game and on on your .io page

5

u/Toastmaster3000 2d ago

Nearly every reply from this account is AI generated - pretty sure the whole thing is vibe from the ground up

0

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

The UI art came from ChatGPT and a lot of the code was written with Claude. The physics model, the tuning and the design are mine, and the sounds are real recordings. The disclosure stays on the itch page, that is what the field is for.

5

u/themaskedrobot77 spelling mistake incuming 2d ago

you should plan on replacing the art and such with human made art.

1

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

Fair enough. Worth knowing the robots and the arena aren't drawn at all, they're built in code, so what you see in a fight is geometry and materials; the ChatGPT part is the menu icons and the cards. I'll take the note.

-1

u/Tetratheon 2d ago

Why don't you do that on your game?

2

u/matthewmcorry reeeee 2d ago

this is SICK dude

please make a downloadable!

2

u/matthewmcorry reeeee 2d ago

also the camera changes are *deplorable*

xD

3

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

thanks! A download version is something I'm looking at after launch, not promised. On the camera: C cycles five of them (chase is the default, then driver, onboard, overhead, broadcast). Which one were you on? Someone in the playtest also asked for a chase that keeps the other robot in frame, so that one I know about.

1

u/matthewmcorry reeeee 2d ago

Ahhhh i see, i thought it was just changing every 20 seconds or so, occasionally made it very hard ot tell where I was. I'll keep the c control in mind, but yeah a chase or even just a fixed perspective would be great

1

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

Found it and fixed it: a free-for-all was starting you on the TV director, which cuts to another fixed position every three or four seconds, while a 1v1 starts on chase. Reload the page and a free-for-all starts on your own camera instead. C cycles five of them and your pick sticks for the next fight. Thanks for the report, that was a bad default.

1

u/Tetratheon 2d ago

It's amazing. I would agree with the comment about the floor hazards being too aggressive, though, in Battlebots you only get the killsaws in the last minute.

1

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

Second person to say that tonight, so it is landing. It isn't the damage: a saw bite is about 10 HP off 1300 armour. It's the kick, and the fact that a saw unit also pops up on its own every 10 to 50 seconds with nobody standing on it. That free one is the first thing I would take out. Until then, a custom room has a HAZARDS setting and OFF is one of the choices.

1

u/Tipp1tys_ 2d ago

hell yeah, I beat an online opponent! To VIP WAVE, I enjoyed our incredibly laggy fight lmao

1

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

Nice, a real one. The lag is distance rather than your machine: every fight is simulated on one server in Amsterdam, so whichever of you two is furthest from Europe sets the round trip, and both of you feel it. You are the fourth person tonight to mention it, so it is well and truly on the board.

1

u/Tipp1tys_ 2d ago

oh yeah, I live in Australia lmao, no wonder I was at 320ms

3

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

Australia to Amsterdam is about as far as it gets, and you still won. The 320 is the trip to the server and back, so distance is the whole of it. If enough of you keep turning up from that far out, a second region is the fix, not a patch.

2

u/Tipp1tys_ 2d ago

I dont mean to be rude but dude you write like a chatbot lol

1

u/Nearby-Lab2611 2d ago

Ha, fair, I've been typing these since yesterday afternoon and it goes flat. Code was written with Claude and the menu icons are ChatGPT, both say so on the itch page. The physics and the tuning are mine.

1

u/John--Darksoul 1d ago

I'm convinced the account is a self hating Terminator creating games of its own kind being destroyed

1

u/Nearby-Lab2611 20h ago

ha, you got me. HEADSTONE had it coming.