Naryar's DSL tips

Note: This page contains the opinion of one single forum member. Some of the advice given here may not reflect the general consensus.

A bit of information for those of you who are new to the best thing that happened to RA2, that is the DSL mod (or for those of you that are not that new, you'll get my opinion condensed in a wiki page).

• DSL is made and supposed to be realistic. DSL tournaments use the realistic rule (no stacking, no overlapping). And you risk being criticized if you showcase unrealistic DSL bots.

• The best chassis armor choice is Titanium (except for 3mm), then Plastic is second (except for 3mm), steel is pretty bad (except for 5mm), aluminium is even worse, and DSA is the worst choice you have.

• WP863E batteries fail in all aspects. Do NOT use them or else you'll waste weight.

• Build to weight limit as far as you can. It is an habit to get, and yes you are starting to be good if you pull off an exactly 800 kg bot (or 248.9 / 398.9 depends of the weight class)

• NO CUSTOM COMPONENTS. Either install DSL in an unmodified version of RA2, either download DSL from Sage's signature.

• Minimize empty space, unless you are being particularly smart by making a heavier chassis to put a lighter but better armor choice on.

• Ant batteries are pretty much all what you need on bots with no active burst motors. You can power a spin motor with 1 ant battery (yes, a Dual Perm as well!), but 1 battery for each spin motor is the minimum - if you have the weight throw in some more, you don't want to deplete your batteries after 2 minutes of match.

• NO PIGLETS FOR DRIVE! Unlike in Stock, DSL has 2 different types of spin motors: WEAPON motors and DRIVE motors.
  • Drive motors: Copals, Astroflights, Slimbodies, TWM3, TWM3R (DRIVE VERSION ONLY), all of the NPC's and the DRIVE E-tek are supposed to be for drive. All the other are weapon motors, and using a weapon motor for drive is wasting weight, as well as the opposite. (Technically, drive motors are stronger (superior torque) but have average speed, and weapon motors are weaker but MUCH faster, making these better for damage since the damage of a spinning weapon is directly proportional to the speed of the weapon)

• Unless you know what SwitchDirEcoOmni.py is and are ready to use it, don't put weapons on your back. It is better to focus all your attack power on the front like most real life combat robots do. This obviously doesn't applies if you are building a horizontal spinner or a sit-and-spinner.

• Extremely important: check other showcases for ideas and tips. If you want examples of top level building, there's mine, R0B0SH4RK's, Urjak's and Reier's. If you want examples of more creative builders, there's JoeBlo's and 123savethewhales's, as well as that of the almighty Clickbeetle.

• A good bunch of the weapons in DSL have normals, that is do damage in only one direction - pretty much all spinning weapons intended to be directly put on a motor (replica discs/saws excepted Potter's and WhirlWep's, sawblades, chewblades, ant sawblade, ninja star, replica discs, MOE & Fluffy weapon, etc), all of the teeth except the double sided ones, all of the axes, spike strips, bear claws, samurai swords, both icepicks, pointy tips, pole spikes and the 25kg hammer (unlike all other hammers, it has normals!)... The only weapons with normals I find worthy are sawblades, replica discs (not all of them though) and DSL bars on spinners - and do as they say, put weapons on their ends !

• I am completely against the use of flail weapons (weapon heads on axles). Not only do they havok extensively when ripped off (resulting in some bots flying, clearly affecting the outcome of the match), but they seem to be unbalanced in a few ways. I also think they waste weight when you could add more weapons.

• About extenders... I pretty much consider extender work as necessary wasted weight (but still wasted weight), so try to keep it as light as possible without making it too exposed or brittle.

And don't use the old Stock extenders (T, angled, Y) because they are not only heavy, but have pretty low HPs for their weight. Beater bars can also be used as extenders so more weapons can be attached to them while also being able to deal damage.

• Some wheels are better than others - they have more grip than others, that is they will make your bot faster. I will list the most recommended wheel selections.
  • Wide ant wheels: Underrated. They are very light and have a decent 1.2 grip. Just don't expose them. They're tiny however, say goodbye to invertibility.
  • Hypno wheels: Excellent choice. They might be heavy for their small size (invertibility issues as well), but they have nothing less than 1.5 grip. Also excellent ground clearance when you stick them on a NPC.
  • Vlad wheels: Another good choice. 1.3 grip and excellent hitpoints for their weight. Also they look great IMO.
  • Tornado & Slipperbottom wheels: Both are nearly exactly the same. They are heavy but tougher than Vlads (as well as larger) and have the same grip.
  • Techno Destructo wheels: An awesome 2.3 grip, so awesome in fact that using them in anything lighter than a HW is overkill. Don't use them with something lighter than a NPC though. They are very large however, and this results on most of my HWs having exposed wheels.
  • Wheely Big Cheese wheels: GHEEEEYYYY *Ahem* 2.3 grip, and heavier, tougher and larger than Technos. I don't use them - they're not bad, but I hate the bot.
  • Overkill wheels: King size ! Same grip as Technos and WBCs (unlike what the description says), but larger, tougher and heavier. I don't use them normally because they're heavy and just so bulky... but they can be very useful in a few cases.
  • Small DSL wheels: Inferior to the Hypno wheel because of 1.3 grip for the same weight. The DSL wheel 2 is exactly the same as the 1, but 1 kg heavier, so no, I don't use them anymore.
  • Motorcycle wheels: 1.3 grip, and all of these have 3500 HP (yes, even the larger ones). A decent wheel choice, I don't use them normally because they're just BIG.
  • Fatboy wheels: Another decent choice with 1.3 grip - I don't use them a lot though since apart from wheel size, they offer no significant advantage with increased weight.

• Multi-extenders and skirt hinges are a god send. Yes, multis are somewhat hard to work with, but they are in most cases better than the anchors because they can be fitted nearly everywhere, are 1kg lighter and have more attachment points. Just avoid them if you are not attaching them directly on the baseplate, because they all have only 350 HP. Skirt hinges are completely invulnerable to damage, have 3 attachment points and can be rotated as well, making them very practical to work with. They're heavier than multis and anchors though, so don't use them in all situations.

• On external armor: External armor is extremely useful in most bots, and generally preferable to chassis armor (Don't overdo it though, because if you trade heavy external armor for 1mm Plastic and the other bot manages to get to your chassis, you can die in a second). For judging the armor efficiency, divide the HP of the component by their weight, and as a general rule, use the ones with the higher ratio - you'll see soon that the small skirts (all materials) are awesome. But avoid ramplates because they have much lower HP than indicated, as well as Titanium halfsheets in external.
  • NOTE: Ti halfsheets are an efficient defense against gut-rippers if placed in a special way. There is a middle attachment point on the halfsheet that can attach to the bottom of the baseplate, giving you theorically invulnerable armor as well as more attachment options.

• Be aware of the motor hitpoints. A vast majority of these have only 400 HP and hence very weak, try to avoid putting them outside the chassis. In fact, all the Perms, NPCs and Magmotors have 400 HP (except the firsts on the list - that is Perm 132 S, NPC-T64, and TWM3 whose hitpoints can vary but is generally over 500), servo motors and all pneumatics excepted the Storm burst piston. The Eteks, Piglets, and burst motors are fine though, with hitpoints over 5000.

• If you want to build a gut ripper, my personal idea would be using small high-DP high-piercing weapons, like popups that are probably better using razor tips as weapons.

• And finally, when you will be good enough at DSL, get your *own* ideas and start your *own* style.

DSL was made for not only balancing the game (it's still unbalanced in some aspects and it's fair game using these :P) but especially diversity, don't forget this.

Good building !

-Naryar