Rammer

Real Life Examples: Punjar, HammerHead, War Machine

Game Examples: Roly Poly, Eye Poker, M.A.D.

Rammers (or rams) are simply battering rams in the shape of a bot. They use speed and static frontal weapons to damage their opponents. Rammers always employ back-and-forth tactics : a rammer that pins it's opponent is known as a pusher.

There are two different types of rammer, differing only by their weapon setup : the standard rammer and the focused weapon rammer.

A standard rammer is the simplest form of rammer : generally a box shaped chassis, some drive and a line of weapons in the front. Brown Wreckluse 2 is a standard rammer.

A focused weapon rammer has a very narrow weapon array, and generally side armor. They are mostly done in Stock for bypassing the spinners of a HS. French Conquest is a focused weapon rammer.

Building a Rammer

Rammers must be fast, faster than any other bot type. Additional drive adds to damage and to manoeuvrability, it also improves your pinning capabilities and your opponent control.

Rams MUST be invertible. A srimech on a non-hybrid ram is a waste of time and weight.

You could use any good weapon but the best are maces and iron spikes(in Stock).

Ram hybrids are numerous. A hammer adds a way to bypass the enemy's defenses and weapons. A poker adds pushing power and damage, especially for a pusher. A flipper can be useful (as it helps you with a wedge) for incapaciting your opponent prior to ramming him. A wedge reduces your damage and turns your bot into a pusher, but gives you more defense agains some robot types (Notably popups). Several builders think the HS/Rammer hybrid is the king of hybrids, and it is possible.

Pushers

Game Examples: SnowJob, Da Dog, Big Dog.

Pushers are similar to rammers in design (although most often slower than rammers), but their tactic is different: you charge against an enemy and push it around, hopefully pinning it on a wall. No back-up for another charge like rams. Weaponed pushers make less damage, but continuous damage. Pushers can be more efficient against spinners because you can block their weapons continuously. Some pushers have no weapons, and rely on traps, pits or OOTA's to win. (They generally don't)

A pusher can be in the shape of a standard rammer, such as Dark July or can employ a V-rack design. The V-rack is a very wide V-shaped weapon setup, which is superior to the standard rammer for pinning, but generally requires more chassis weight to be effective. It is nevertheless very rare to see V-racks on pushers that aren't hybrids.

Flail Rammers

Flail Rammers are a new subtype of robot which feature high-frequency weapons (usually razor tips) attached to vertical axles. This allows them to do damage while still moving slowly, proving as a counter to wedges and spinners alike.

The first flail rammer was MikeNCR's BBEANS6 entry ReActive.

Pros&Cons

PROS

• By far the fastest bot class
• Very easy to make invertible
• Lots of weapons, so can easily deweapon opponents
• Good frontal defense
• One of the best instant damage dealers
• Simple design, and hence more efficient use of weight
• Generally quite entertaining due to high speed

CONS

• Tends to have vulnerable top, bottom, and sides
• Has no wedges or poor wedges, so loses to gut-rippers all the time
• High speed occasionally turns into a liability (see : Rage III)
• Extremely dependent on drivetrain : losing motors or wheels is very bad.