DSL-TC
Considered by many to be the best mod for RA2 ever created, DSL: Total Conversion is different enough to be a Robot Arena 3. The main makers were DarkRat, Starcore, and Lu-Tze.
Bot building
Armor
We have still 4 materials, but now DSA is useless and the armor tab becomes realistic. You have to choose between 1,3,5 or 10mm armor of the chosen material, increasing weight and armor rating too. Example, 5mm of plastic is stronger than 1mm of steel.
Armors are 6 times stronger than Stock armors.
Components
There are plenty of new components, and all the Stock motors and batteries disappeared, as the stock extenders.
A grand total of 5 batteries are now avilaible (AAH somebody can correct me here?), 8 different and more powerful spin motors (not including the gearboxes and different motor versions) and 6 burst motors.
Includes lots of new weapons including DSL bars thate are a cross between an extender, a ramplate and a weapon, weapons from the replicas, and the old weapons are revised to be more realistic. Generally, the heavier the weapon is, the tougher or/and more damaging it is.
A lot of new extenders has been added, round extenders can now be used in the four armor materials, there are panels that can be used to build a shell spinner, drum components, bigger discs, and skirts with hinges (actually very weak servos) to use as protection/wedges.
Wheels have been changed for realism (now, the miniwheels are lightier than the shiny wheels), they also possess different grip, are widely extended in weight and size (from 6 to 40 kg), and do possess different hitpoints too (bigger wheels are the tougher ones)
Paint job
There are now more decals, textures and surface layers.
Bot fighting
AI bots
There are now replicas of real robots, generally built from cheatbot2 and unbalanced components (but original, to make them look as the real robots), and rebuilds of Stock AI bots, using only non-replica parts, and seriously more dangerous than the stock AI. Some have been greatly changed (LugNut is now Lock Nut, an extremely powerful HS, and Grog, the Warrior is now Grog, the Vengeful, a mighty shell spinner).
The stock AI bindings have been also changed, because most of the stock AI bots drove really lousy.
Arenas
The old arenas are unchanged, but there are new arenas, like the Battlebox and the Robot Wars arena, but several exotic ones like the Drum of Death or the Cave arenas (respectively, with a big fan making the bots fly, and big rolling boulders crushing the bots if not avoided)
Sound effects
New music backgrounds have been added (Robot Workshop, Team HQ, Main UI) and the sound effects have been nearly totally renewed, for more realism when fighting.
RA2-Mod Series List
Newest Mod Released: DSL-TC v2.1
Predecessors: DSL-TC v1.0, DSL-TC v1.2, DSL-TC v2.0
- Type of Mod/Patch: Total Conversion Mod
- Mod Style: Realistic
- Mod Graphics: 9.5/10
- Mod Playability: 10/10
- Mod Difficulty: Hard-Very Hard
- User Friendliness: 8.5/10
- Mod Features: More User Friendly GUI Interface, Brand new full set of HQ items to play with; including motors, wheels, extenders, etc., All new teams based off of the bots of the community and real life bots, AI Team number increased from 3 to 5 bots per team, More fully customized arenas including the Battlebots Arena, the Robot Wars Arena, and a Huge Monopoly Board, Replaced sounds to sound more realistic during fights, more AI types including "Omni" and "TopKnot", couple of cheatbot2 components which also hides the stock components. The mod also has a website.
- Feedback Availability: Through the forums or through the DSL-TC official website.
- Pros: Parts created to build bots that look more realistic, Challenging AI, DSL Patches and Fixes were generally easier to install and are explained thoroughly, arena and collision maps are generally well made, loads of new parts to play around with, promising and attractive GUI and backgrounds, new Introduction music when in the main menu, much more armor types to choose from.
- Cons: Difficult AI can be a little frustrating for people playing RA2 for the first time, SHW AI take a little long to load, Mod uses a specific method to install properly which may be confusing.
- Community Popularity Rating: 98/100