Radio F Software

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Radio F Software, 2008

J. Andre Bardin, more commonly known online under the moniker Radio F Software (frequently abbreviated as RFS and now known as Dracophile), was one of the most influential personalities in the Robot Arena 2 AI development community for creating the self-titles RFS AI Pack. He is also known as being the first (and last) AceUplink staff member to be fired and was also the owner of RFSHQ, a website community which outlived nearly every other Robot Arena 2 community on the Internet (February 12th, 2004 - June 22, 2008 although it is still online today).

Timeline

AceUplink Era

During his time spent on AceUplink, RFS quickly learned the Python programming language as he played the game. He created all of his game modifications during this time period, including the RFS AI Pack and personalized components. He was also well known for writing tutorials on how to code AI, edit components, and how to beat AI robots; his efforts gave him the custom rank "The Tutorial Man". In December 2003, JFranco, the webmaster of AceUplink, appointed RFS to work on the AceUplink Robot Database, an online encyclopedia of robotics information. With the stiff request of 1,000 articles, RFS attempted to resign from his position and when permission was denied, he simply stopped working and filled the database with entries of his own robotic creations until his FTP permissions were stripped.

RFS was unceremoniously fired from AceUplink staff in January 2004. His account, banished to the "Pending Validation" group, was the only such validating account to have several thousand forum posts and be listed with the "Super Heavyweight" post rank. For several months after being banned RFS remained the top poster on the forums only to eventually be surpassed by AW.

RFSHQ Era

The first incarnation of RFSHQ opened on February 12th, 2004. February 12th was the day that AceUplink's domain was purchased/expired, and the intent of the site was to "beat out" AceUplink. The first version of RFSHQ was used as an outlet to host all of RFS' creations for Robot Arena 2; and while partnered with TheDisturbedOne his mods were featured and other modifications were announced but never completed. Their joint-effort production name was Radio F Disturbedware and their only credit lies in The RFS AI Pack V1.5.

When the Robot Arena 2 community began to falter RFS quickly changed the format of the website to stay afloat. RFSHQ "reopened" on May 9th, 2004 as a comedy/satire website. The first article on the website was a sarcastic review of The Adventures of Bayou Billy on the Nintendo NES. From May 2004 through July 2008 RFS was the lead content supervisor of the website which at the time grew to a community of over 12,000 users and several "guest writers". Also during this time the RFSHQ website began to compile a complete database of every episode from the television series "BattleBots".

Post-RFSHQ Era

In July 2008 RFS, now under his pseudonym "Dracophile", outed himself as a "half-member" of the furry fandom, apologized to his audiences for lying to them for four years, and retired from his position as RFSHQ's lead writer. He has mostly vanished online and blended back into the original communities he came from.

As of January 2010 he announced plans to complete the final "V1.7" installment of the RFS AI Pack (now called the RFS Dracophile AI Pack where "RFS" is marked out). There is no official word on the total number of teams being added to the pack, but it is confirmed that stronger versions of both the original Robot Arena and Robot Arena 2 will make appearances as well as a "second chance" team devoted to decent designs that never made it to the previous packs.

Notable Game Contributions

The RFS AI Pack

Originally slated to be an AI pack that featured non-stock components, this idea was scrapped in favor of a fair all-stock AI pack meant to showcase creative, modern, and realistic designs that could be taken out of the Robot Arena 2 game and built in real life if desired. The original installment of the pack featured the standard fare of 45 robots and was otherwise unmentionable; it made no serious impact on the community and was pleasantly well-received. Through some creative code-editing with the help of TheDisturbedOne, two follow up packs were made that expanded the limits of the original AI from 3 bots per team to 6 and 15 teams to 30, making the final tally 180.

Despite the simplistic and often whimsical designs the massive expansion marked a turning point in the customization of the game's AI, allowing future AI pack creators (such as Starcore) to further explore and cultivate the new found "territory". For further information on the AI pack please see its full article.

Personalized Components

RFS never made a fully 100% original component because he lacked the required modeling software; however despite this he was the first to take requests on "personalized" components. After copying the GMF for the standard Ram Plate RFS turned it into a license plate. Users were able to request one plate with the following customizable features:

  • The state
  • A slogan
  • Up to 10 characters in the center for a message

An example of the license plate component is included in the RFS "Component Pack" (along with such items as a RoboUplink ram plate, a Fire Extinguisher CO2 tank, and a CD-RW disc for antweights) and is modeled after a Texas plate with "BORN 2 BOT" as the lettering.

Notable Robots

  • Tha Thumperizer: A heavyweight robot with dual vertical tribar spinners. The term "Thumperized" achieved fad status on AceUplink when RFS would lock or edit out posts replacing them with "POST/THREAD THUMPERIZED".
  • Rock 'N' Roller: A heavyweight robot that consisted of two middleweight robots, described as the first "multibot" robot. It required a team match to be set up with both middleweights ("Rock" and "Roller" specifically) to be on the same team.

Robot Combat Creations

Spanning several years in the early 00's RFS was involved with real-life robot combat both in the form of novelty scrapped remote controlled cars and "serious" competitions. His robots were entered under the team name Newfac Robotics although today his classic 1999 team name of Twilight Foundry Robotics is used to encompass all of his creations. Creations from Twilight Foundry Robotics were presented as various species of dragon on the team's website, their joke specie names are listed below with the robot descriptions. ("Serious" robots only listed below.)

Euro Antweights

  • Keep Back 500 Meters: A smaller version of Keep Back 500 Feet. Featured a clamp-based weapon and in a later version the robot had anti-flip spikes. (Draco clampus-minus)
  • Five-O: An invertible four wheel drive wedge robot with a titanium front end. The robot featured a police car paintjob and miniature working police lights. (Draco enforsus)

Antweights

  • Keep Back 500 Feet: The team's first creation. Keep Back 500 Feet utilized servos for drive, and while slow was capable of pushing Beetleweights around. The robot had two interchangeable weapons; a lifting arm created from galvanized steel, and a 12-tooth stainless steel clamping arm that was never used. (Draco clampus)
  • Super Turbo Baby Puncher: A thwackbot which currently holds the Robot Fighting League record for largest wheels on an Antweight robot - 4.5" diameter. Super Turbo Baby Puncher was a joke robot made from an R/C BattleBots toy. It's weapon was a ball and chain weapon taken from a ceiling fan. (Draco bashus)

Beetleweights

  • Fatal Contraption: A broken Nintendo NES was used as the chassis for this plowbot. Early information of the robot listed it as having razor blades for weapons. It was for show only and never competed. (Draco electronicus)
  • Kill Swtich: A giant tank-tracked wedge robot that was never knocked out by damage inflicted. Was formerly the #3 seed in its class at the North Texas SWARC tournament. (Draco magnus)
  • Detonator: A high-speed thwack robot that was painted to look like a dragon's face. The weapon, a spiked tongue, was dubbed The French Kiss of Death. Detonator was prone to overheating problems and was promptly destroyed in combat. (Draco carnivorous)
  • Earth Quake: A 4 wheel drive plow machine that looked similar to riot control vehicles. Created using twice as many parts as Kill Switch, the robot was so heavy that it had no armor. In its only tournament it won 2nd place, the only Newfac Robotics creation to win an event. (Draco super-magnus)

Grudge/Ally Status

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