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 few tips, mainly of the razor variety, 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 who are not that new, you'll get my opinion condensed in a wiki page).

Beginner

• 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 the weight limit as close as you can. It is a good habit to practice, and yes you are starting to be good if you pull off a bot at the exact weight limit (248.9 / 398.9 / 800.00 kg depending on the weight class).

• NO CUSTOM COMPONENTS, "custom" meaning components that don't come with DSL. Either install DSL in an unmodified version of RA2, either download DSL from Sage's signature.
  • No cheatbot2 parts as well. Most of these are unbalanced, and thus considered cheating.

• Minimize empty space, unless you are being particularly smart by making a heavier chassis to put a lighter but better armor choice on (you should know that a chassis's hitpoints depend directly on weight, so a larger chassis has more hitpoints than a smaller one if you use the same armor).

• NO PIGLETS FOR DRIVE! Unlike in Stock, DSL has two 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 motors, (especially PIGLETS) are weapon motors, and using a weapon motor for drive (and vice versa) is wasting weight. (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.)

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

Intermediate

• 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 apply if you are building a horizontal spinner or a sit&spinner.

• Ant batteries are pretty much all that you need on bots with no active burst motors. You can power a spin motor with one ant battery (yes, a Dual Perm as well!), but one 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 two minutes of a match.

• A good bunch of the weapons in DSL have normals, meaning they 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!

• Avoid 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, so 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 (also 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 an 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 in-game 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 1st, but one 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.

Advanced

• I am completely against the overuse 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 my opinion would be keeping it as light as possible without making it too exposed or brittle.

• Be aware of your motors' hitpoints. A vast majority of them 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 are generally over 500), servo motors and all pneumatics except 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. Also, popups are probably better using razor tips as weapons.

• Be sure to read the txt files in the Components folder. These contain most of the information about components (weights are somehow wrong though). A good part of them are useless (the cheatbot2 ones). Also the Styles folder contains all the information about all of the components that are not first in the dropdown menus (example the Perm 80's, Hypno teeth and a good part of the stock weapons like the iron spikes, ice picks, razor tips, etc.)

• 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 baseplate anchors because they can be fitted nearly everywhere, are one kg lighter, and have more attachment points. Just avoid them if you are not attaching them directly on the baseplate, because all of them 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 not mounted to the chassis.
  • NOTE: Titanium 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.

• And finally, when you are good enough at DSL, get your *own* ideas and start your *own* style. Or at least, stand out of the norm by building somehow creative robots.

In conclusion

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