Robot Arena 2 : Design and Destroy

Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy is a computer game made by Infogrames. It is the sequel to Robot Arena. It has many new features, such as the Havok physics engine, fully 3-D environments (This includes being able to flip over other robots), and total customization of your robot. This includes chassis design, weapon placement, mechanics, and even paint. The "cheatbot" code from the original returns, this time offering a Hovercraft Engine, a Magnet, a Flamethrower, and a Cannon (Though an upgrade patch is required for the cheat to take effect). Weapons are completely customizable, including things such as mounting weapons on various attachments, such as poles, disks, and tri-bars. Although the original was not received well by players, this game has a very small (but dedicated) fanbase and small communities for the game are still active today.

The Community

AceUplink

The original AI of Robot Arena 2 was less than impressive (Although arguably better than the original's), save for the exception of one Heavyweight: The dreaded flipper EMERGENCY. This led many members of AceUplink, a popular site and heaven for many Robot Arena 2 fans, to create a special AI pack featuring some famous robots from BattleBots to increase the challenge. Over a period of months, some of the more industrious AceUplink members created custom components, weapons, motors, and chassis that, in the end, looked stunningly like their real-life counterparts. Some of the robot's featured included Nightmare, Warhead, Minion, Son of Whyachi, Killerhurtz, Ziggo, Mechavore, Diesector, Hazard, Toro, Mauler 5150, Atomic Wedgie, and M.O.E., among others. The pack of robots was extremely difficult, many could not even be harmed save for a tiny chassis housing the Robot Control Board, which was nearly completely encompassed by very durable parts. Nevertheless, the pack livened up the game considerably. AceUplink no longer exists now, and a copy of the pack would most likely have to be found through various fansites.

RFSHQ

A ex-AceUplink staff user, "Radio F Software", claimed he could out-do AceUplink by making his own website. The first version of "Radio F Software Headquarters (RFSHQ)" launched in February 2004 as a place to host the "RFS AI Pack" mod that expanded the limits of the game to allow 6 AI bots per team instead of the stock 3, and 30 AI teams instead of the stock 15. During this time, Radio F Software also ripped his tutorials and lessons from AceUplink and hosted them on RFSHQ instead. Using his notoriety in the forums, traffic was successfully diverted to RFSHQ.

Originally, RFSHQ was meant to make fun of AceUplink. Early articles on the website's "TXT Dumpster" and "Photophile" content sections reveal "frauds" done by the AceUplink staff. By May 2004 RFSHQ had shifted from a Robot Arena 2 website to an original comedy content website while still keeping the old files on the servers. RFSHQ added a staff comprised entirely of banned or angry AceUplink users and launched an attempt to demolish AceUplink by abusing holes in their administrative policies. AceUplink tanked in 2005, not because of RFSHQ's attacks, but because of hosting contract expiration.

Of all sites in the Robot Arena 2 community, RFSHQ can possibly been seen as the "most successful", outliving all other websites from the community with the exception of the official game forums. Because of its size, RFSHQ also began picking up and using pieces of sites on the verge of closing. Among these sites was Robot Arena Reborn, a website that contained a database of every modification for Robot Arena 2 made to date.

Still alive today, RFSHQ continues to host the modification database and robot exchange.

GAMETECHMODS.COM

gametechmods.com is a fairly new space that has emerged in the Robot Arena 2 community. gametechmods.com is the home of DSL-TC total comversion mod, and is the new home of the unofficial "robot exchange" where builders can upload and share their robot designs with other players. The official exchange hosted on the Robot Arena 2 website was taken down, which leaves gametechmods.com as a replacement. While the site does not contain the old robots that the previous exchange held, it has amassed a substantial amount of contributors and is still growing. gametechmods.com is host to several game modders.

http://ra2dsl.gametechmods.com (The famous mod by DarkRat, Starcore and Lu-Tze)

http://beetlebros.gametechmods.com (Noted for their work in DSL v2.0 patch and the BBEANS tournaments)

http://darkrat.gametechmods.com (One of the first to release a components pack)

http://starcore.gametechmods.com (Starcore AI pack V1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 are some of the best AI made)

And other modders who use the official forum to link their work.

Online Tournaments

Several websites mentioned in the Communities section also ran tournaments of their own that would be played online betwween two or more users. Lag or latency in connections frequently posed problems, along with various connection issues that would prevent users from battling each other, but the majority of these negatives did not stop players from simply enjoying the spirit of the sport.

Official Robot Arena 2 Tournaments - RA2T#1 + RA2T#2

A tournament was started by Jimxorb on the official Robot Arena 2 message board with approval from staff, making it the first official tournament. There have been 2 Middle Weight tournaments set up by Jimxorb (Who had previous tournament arranging experience from his Bots4Battle days) on the official website, many people entered and the robot that won the first tournament was a robot designed by Jimxorb and Be0t, using a popup spike inside a wedge design capable of 1-3 hit KOs, power that was at the time unheard of, it was called Death Port 2.

For the second and final tournament Lu-Tze made a new arena that Jimxorb designed, it had corner grinders and low walls, to allow pushers and flippers a chance of success against spinners and axe robots. The well-built arena is still the favourite arena of many players even to this day, it also had an image of Be0t's winning robot printed on the floor of the arena (Part of the prize in the original official tournament.) RA2T#2 was won by Be0t again, this time with Death Port 3 who was solely made and designed by Jimxorb this time to fit Be0t's driving style, although the robot was well built and very powerful it was now a common design. No more tournaments after the second one were ever

AceUplink Onslaught

AceUplink was the home of arguably some of the most successful tournaments in terms of registration numbers. Because of their links with the official Robot Arena 2 website, AceUplink had their foot in the door early on in the life of the game. The first three tournaments were held to a single weight class, but Tournament Four included tournaments for three weight classes, including the custom "Antweight" class created by member "MiniDJBeirne". The fifth tournament which was redubbed "The Onslaught", the first tournament to use a custom arena; a feature later copied in the community. A second Onslaught tournament was organized, but did not last long as interest in the game started fading. The meticulous organization of AceUplink's rules and brackets would later end up being a centerpiece of future tournaments from many other websites. Site staffer "Omega" later contributed rankings based on the results of all completed tournaments. At the time of AceUplink's closing, Omega was #1 ranked with 43 wins and 17 losses.

• Tournament #1 - Lightweight Combat, Best 2 out of 3
  • Winner: Ronin2k3 (8-0 Record)
• Tournament #2 - Middleweight Clawtop, Best 3 out of 5
  • Winner: AW (12-1 Record)
• Tournament #3 - Middleweight Combat, Best 3 out of 5
  • Winner: TeamMaceCo (13-2 Record)
• Tournament #4 - All Weight Combat, Best 3 out of 5, Round-robin prelim
  • Antweight Winner: MiniDJBeirne (12-2 Record, 4 ringouts)
  • Lightweight Winner: CARP 104 (12-2 Record, 6 ringouts)
  • Middleweight Winner: Omegaforce (12-1 Record, 3 KOs, 9 ringouts)
• Tournament #5 - Onslaught (Custom Arena), Best 3 out of 5
  • Lightweight Winner: Omega (12-1 Record, 11 KOs, 1 ringout)
  • Middleweight Winner: CARP 104 (12-3 Record, 6 KOs, 3 ringouts)

Other AceUplink Tournaments

"AW", an Administrator from AceUplink, was in the middle of trying to create unique arenas to inspire the building of robots that would perform other functions besides fighting. One such arena that was being developed was similar to many FIRST Robotics events where robots would pick up coloured balls and put them into baskets. In theory, successfully putting a ball in a basket would grant you points in the game and the ball(s) would respawn.

DSL Mod Tournaments

The DSL Mod included several strange arenas in its upgrade. One such arena was built off of the AceUplink ball idea; a soccer arena. The idea of the arena was similar. Robots would try and push a single soccer ball into either the Red or Blue goal to score 2000 points. Points for damage were disabled in this arena, and attacking your opponents was discouraged, and subject to disqualification. Unlike the AceUplink arena, the DSL arena was completed with minimal programming bugs. The soccer ball would respawn in the middle of the arena after a goal was scored. Entrants for the first and only soccer tournament were required to follow a strict "No Weapons" policy and instead used various sheet metal plates to design their own kickers or punters for their robots.

AON & BBEANS

AON (managed by "Alphasim") and BBEANS (managed by Clickbeetle) are two unique forms of tournaments that the creators claim "eliminates lag". This is accomplished by giving AI code to every robot that is entered and running the fights on the "official" computer. Fights are then taped and displayed online for the contenders to see how their autonomous creations did in combat. Most fights are done in a "best 2 out of 3" format in the event of an accident caused due to the various physics problems in the game. With a lack of online human players in recent months, the majority of tournaments now have shifted to this simpler form of fighting as there is no need to set up convenient times for each player.

Robots

The default robots are as follows. Many of the robots have real-life counterparts, usually BattleBots. These are listed in parentheses.

• Red Zone
  • Lightweight: Scout (None)
  • Middleweight: ALARM (None)
  • Heavyweight: Sentinel (Vlad the Impaler)
• PREHISTORIC
  • Lightweight: Roly Poly (None)
  • Middleweight: SaberTooth (None)
  • Heavyweight: Grog, the Warrior (None)
• The Good Ol' Boys
  • Lightweight: Catfish (None)
  • Middleweight: Mud Runner (None)
  • Heavyweight: BEAR (None)
• Team Dragon
  • Lightweight: Ninja (None)
  • Middleweight: Bushido (None)
  • Heavyweight: Ronin (Alien 2)
• BLACK STORM
  • Lightweight: BOT-204 (Ankle Biter)
  • Middleweight: Devil (Timmy)
  • Heavyweight: Coal Miner (B.O.B.)
• Team SPARK
  • Lightweight: JACKPOT! (None)
  • Middleweight: The Boxer (Cassius Chrome)
  • Heavyweight: EMERGENCY (Vlad the Impaler)
• SpikeHeads
  • Lightweight: M.A.D. (None)
  • Middleweight: Dementia (None)
  • Heavyweight: Little Metal Friend (Jaws of Death)
• North Polers
  • Lightweight: MiniBerg (Hammertime)
  • Middleweight: Iceberg (Hammertime)
  • Heavyweight: SnowJob (Frostbite, IceBerg)
• HIGH VOLTAGE
  • Lightweight: Flapjack (Hexy Jr.)
  • Middleweight: BackSlash (Biohazard)
  • Heavyweight: Wide Load (None)
• Team HEX
  • Lightweight: Flame Chopper (Shrike)
  • Middleweight: LugNut (Jack Rabbit)
  • Heavyweight: Hanky Panky (Bacchus)
• Team Z
  • Lightweight: Berserker (Ziggo, Son of Whyachi)
  • Middleweight: Razor (None)
  • Heavyweight: Eye Poker (Monster)
• SteelYard Dog
  • Lightweight: Lil' Dog (Double Agent)
  • Middleweight: Da Dog (Punjar)
  • Heavyweight: Big Dog (Punjar, Doom Of Babylon)
• RIOT
  • Lightweight: Civil Disobedience (None)
  • Middleweight: REVENGE (M.O.E.)
  • Heavyweight: Raptor (None)
• MEGATON
  • Lightweight: Stinger (None)
  • Middleweight: Tornado (Mauler)
  • Heavyweight: DEADBEAT (None)
• The Scrappers
  • Lightweight: Arc Pounder (Herr Gepounden)
  • Middleweight: Ripblade (Backlash, Nightmare)
  • Heavyweight: Backyard Ripper (Afterthought)

There are also six example robots for the player to experiment with when they start the game:

• The Rookies
  • Middleweight: C.R.U.S.H. (None)
  • Lightweight: Sting Ray (None)
  • Middleweight: BOT-CHOY (Diesector)
  • Middleweight: Forkie (None)
  • Middleweight: Atom Smasher (None)
  • Heavyweight: Walrus (None)

There are also three "secret" example bots that can only be seen with the "Import Robot" command.

• Team n/a
  • Heavyweight: BarberShop Chop (Heavy Metal Noise)
  • Middleweight: Spin Bonker (Ziggo)
  • Middleweight: Tailwhip (Blade Runner)

Havoc Explosions and Glitches

One of the main reasons behind the game's relative commercial failure was the relative instability of the Havoc physics engine. Several glitches were discovered revolving around the physics engine, and various others happened randomly. The inevitable result were "Havoc Explosions", which often sent robots flying. Additionally, several glitches in the game itself decreased the accuracy of the game. Examples of these glitches included "overlapping", which allowed several components on a robot to take up the same space, and "the chicken glitch", which allowed extremely rapid rotation of an object. These glitches allowed complicated and powerful robots to be made, and quickly became a staple of the community. Additionally, the advent of AAM (advanced attaching method) allowed for even more complex robots. AAM is a technique in which the .gmf file of one component temporarily replaces that of another component. The other component is then placed on a robot, and the .gmf files are returned to normal. The net effect of this is that the builder can place components where it would not normally be possible due to space restrictions. This is normally frowned on by the community, as it creates unbalanced robots and is normally considered "cheating".

External links

• Official Robot Arena 2 Website
• DSL Total Conversion Mod Website
• gametechmods.com Home Page (with bot exchange)
• RA-Reborn Download Database (now hosted on RFSHQ)
• BBEANS Tournament
• Dis's RA2 Site
• GameFAQs Walkthru