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 now use BSG's (notably the lightweight and middleweight ones) or JX Burst motors (Heavyweight, though some successful HWs use multiple BSGs, as an example Hope no More 4). DSL MW popups are increasingly becoming generic, and there is somewhat of a race between Ounce, Pwnator, Naryar, R0B0SH4RK and Reier for making the best wedge.

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..

---

PROS

• Very damaging - several popups can KO their opponent in one hit
• Generally quick and agile
• Good frontal defense
• Can render most opponents helpless by sliding under them
• Can self-right - if your popup cannot self-right, you're doing it wrong in most cases
• Without any doubt, one of the most dangerous bot types in standard battling

CONS

• Duel (1vs1) specialists - much less suited to rumbles
• Useless while inverted, and takes precious time self-rightng
• Completely useless if you can't get under the enemy - dependent on Wedge war
• Like Rammers, extremely dependent on their drive train to win matches
• Highly dependant on wedges
• Easily outweaponed

Popups are good against most robot types, but anti-gut-ripper builds such as TRFBD's and Crawlers are a guanranteed loss in most cases.