Popup

Real Life Examples: Firestorm (but has no weapons) In Game Examples: None (but a good bunch of them in the Starcore AI packs)

A popup is a wedged bot that gets under a bot using preferentially burst motors and small wedges on them, and then when under the bot, uses very short hammers concealed in the body, Gut-ripping their underside.

Have a high ADC.

There was no such thing as a popup in the beginnings of RA2. The first popup was built by JimXorb.

A good popup needs to have a strong drive train but also a very good wedge and if you can, frontal armor. The best weapons used on popups are razor tips.

Pyscolone is a popup specialist.

Building a popup

The popup building theory is easy, but not the practice.

You need a bot with a slope at the front. A rectangle shape is enough though you might want to add more sides to minimize empty space.

Add front defense with a little side defense (best choice would be Caster armor, mainly on HW's). Then, add some snapper wedges (one at the middle or the bot or two at the left and right of the bot).

You need a powerful drive train and no underpowering (1 black for a LW, possibly one more for a MW, and 3-4 for a HW depending of your weapons). Z-teks attached to the chassis with rubber wheels is a good choice, because of lowered ground clearance, although you can use shinies too if you're short on weight.

It's time to add the weapons. It's basically razor-armed very short hammers just after (or under) the front plating. They must be set up to travel a good distance and the start position must be inside the bot. Then, you must make sure the razor's end position is sufficiently outside the bot to do easily damage 2 razors on a Snapper2 or 4 razors on a DDT are a good rule, although there have been succesful HW popups using 6/8 razors on a DDT. Use DDTs if you can (means only DDT's on a HW) because they are comparatively better than snappers.

In DSL, most popups will use MagSnappers (Lightweight and Middleweight true popups) or JX Burst motors (Heavyweight).

True popups

The majority of popups fire forward (Firestorm-style), but several popups fire upward just like a classic flipper, making them a good choice in low-walled arenas as well as closed ones.

The best example of this is the DSL AI MW SlashBack.

There are technical true popups in Stock AI (Dementia, Hanky Panky), but they're all horrible because the weapon is basically the wedge, thus not striking against the opponent (like real popups do), but just flipping him, with very low damage..

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PROS

• A good mix of OMD
• Very damaging - several popups can KO their opponent in one hit
• Generally quick and agile
• Decent front defense (espescially true of "True Popups", whose armor even protects the weapons)
• Can generally self-right

CONS

• Hard to build
• Completely useless if you can't get under the enemy
• Like Rammers, highly dependant on their drive train
• Weapons are not tough, a long fight is a bad idea
• Difficult to build armor in the lower weight classes
• Has to sacrifice defenses for the drivetrain needed in lower weight classes

Popups are good against most robot types, but other wedges are their toughest fights.