How to Increase your Botting skill

Greetings,

This is a tutorial for anyone who is confused about choosing which AI Pack to start off with as well as some good resources to use including tips, techniques, and the basics on how to perfect your skill in building. If you follow the elements of this tutorial correctly and obey its content, chances are, you are on the way from building bots like these:

To building ones like these:

Why has this tutorial been made?

Good question, this tutorial is designed to guide our newcomers throughout the game of Robot Arena 2 and its expansions. All in all it will be used to help people gain more knowledge in choosing a pack that better suits their level and style and will also help them understand the basics of building better bots... erm hopefully. It won't be easy and this tutorial DOES NOT guarantee you to become as good as builders like Clickbeetle, Sage, InfiniteInertia, Kill343gs, Pyscolone, ACAMS, etc. but it will give you the tools of becoming the next best thing!

Interested? Then let us begin... May I also add that this lengthy tutorial will be subject to change as the other members see fit. So if I have missed out on something, then I simply ask that you forgive me and post it in this thread. You can also post on-topic comments as well or if you want to add something to the tutorial. I'll surely be glad to receive any and all help. I will also add on chapters whenever I can, as this tutorial will be derived from many other tutorials, I may add more info when needed on a particular subject... Now that that has been put aside, we begin!

Chapter one: THE BASICS and The prologue

Prerequisites: Knowlege of Installing Mods

So you just opened up your "new" Robot Arena 2 CD or have just downloaded the full version of the game and have been playing at it for quite some time. Eventually you think to yourself "Hmm... is this it for this game? Is there anything challenging I can add to it?" and other questions out of the boredom of playing against bots like Ripblade and EMERGENCY all month.

So eventually you join the forums and to your surprise find out that everyone is a better builder than you. Their bots look amazingly powerful and they have all these new types of showcases of themselves going against robots that you have never seen. Eventually you either find and install the same pack that they have and are either obliterated by the immense destructiveness of the AI itself or you get the guts to actually make a showcase of your own and get your bots critiqued on what can be done to make it better (mostly dealing with empty space). On rare cases you may take up quickly to the difficulty of the AI pack and simply build better bots from there, but this tutorial isn't needed for those types now is it? So what now?

One thing to remember is that a good bot builder knows his botting skill level. To determine what botting skill level you have can be confusing, but one good way to know is by simply trying out different AI packs and seeing if you can win AT LEAST 3-5 tournaments of the pack. It does sound like a had thing to do, but this is what building bot skill is all about. Please look at the outline of what packs should be tried out to get a general idea of where you stand (not limited to new packs, this is just an example):

Stock:

  1. Starting Point: Finished 3-5 Tournaments of Stock RA2 (that came with the game).
  2. Level One: Finished 3-5 Tournaments of either Starcore V1.0 or RFS AI Pack 1.1/1.2
  3. Level Two: Finished either 3-5 Tournaments of Starcore AI V2.0, RA2GE + Awesome Patch,
     JX RA2 Starter Pack, or RFS AI Pack 1.5.
  4. Level Three: Finished 3-5 Tournaments of Starcore AI V3.0 
  5. Level Four: Finished 3-5 Tournaments of PYS AI Pack
  6. Level Five: Can compete effectively against InfiniteInertia AI.

For DSL I would recommend at least mastery of Level one Packs:

  1. Level Two: DSL v.1.2 (respectively)
  2. Level Three: DSL v.2.0, or DSL v.2.1 Patch Applied (respectively)
  3. Level Four: NAR DSL AI Pack Alpha (respectively)
  4. Level Five: ???

As you can see, there are certain packs in order of difficulty. Level one and two packs pose a challenge and level three and four packs are simply brutal. The ??? Indicates either packs that have not surpassed their difficulty or does not exist. Note that I have also separated DSL and stock packs as they are completely different in terms of gameplay; so DSL packs get their own category, but since DSL is more demanding in terms of skill, it starts off at level two. These packs can be found here.

After this process is tried out, you will be able to accurately see how skilled you are. This process will take time however, and it's best to build a bot based on your own knowledge first before you ask for advice; as it is better to see how much you are improving.

Chapter two: Knowing your ammunition

Prerequisites: Knowlege of the Different Building Techniques

Ok, so you have the packs and the bots, but you still need help on how to make your bots better, and copying designs from the computers arsenal isn't helping much. Thankfully, all that's needed is a good tutorial on how to build those bots and to correct what you think is going wrong in your designs. Here are just some of the best tutorials that will help:

   * Naryar's wiki tutorials are essential for knowing the in's and outs 
     of the different bot types to build and their stats as well as some 
     brief overviews on typically used components.
   * Click's Component Stats is also useful in finding out just 
     how effective each weapon/component is and in even more detail.

Basically, for building good, healthy-looking, robots in general, I have created a slew of general rules to help you better understand the concept of creating "The Perfect Robot". Even though this is seen as more of a myth, we can atleast try to build up to close standards of an all-powerful bot. Doing so we can simply look at the following formula:

The Perfect Robot = A Perfect Chassis + A Perfect Drive Train + A Perfect Weapon System + A Perfect Power Supply - Imperfection

So lets break this formula down even further, starting with the Chassis.

A near Perfect Chassis is a chassis that has little to no empty space on all sides of its build. Due to the primitiveness of the order by which this must be done, the chassis MUST be built first before you can continue building. This is very foolish of gabriel interactive, as it makes it much harder to create a snug chassis that compliments the placement of the components and it doesn't help to limit the number of points that we have to work with... but oh well.

Chapter three: Your Drivetrain

Prerequisites: Knowledge of some building techniques.

In Robot Arena 2 there are two types of motors: drive motors and weapon motors. This section is going to focus on the drive motors.

In Stock, the best drive motor is the HP Ztek. Normal Zteks are acceptable on Lightweights and Middleweights. Redbirds and Reversible Angle Motors are also acceptable on Lightweights and Middleweights. You can attach these to the chassis or onto other components like baseplate anchors, extenders and snapper 2/II's.

You also need the perfect wheels. In Stock, there are 3 main wheels that most builders use. They are either Shiny Hub Wheels, Granny Guard Wheels or Rubber Wheels. Shiny Hubs are the wheels that you should use the most. They are overall the best wheels in terms of diameter, how grippy they are and their weight. Granny Wheels are slightly bigger and have slightly more grip. Rubber Wheels are the best wheels for popups because of their small diameter and how grippy they are. They give the bot a lower ground clearance and therefore, better wedges.

In DSL it is very different. You cannot use the same motors for your drive and for your weapons.

To be continued...