Popup
Real Life Examples: Firestorm (but has no weapons) In Game Examples: None (but a good bunch of them in the Starcore AI packs)
A popup is a wedged bot that gets under a bot using preferentially burst motors and small wedges on them, and then when under the bot, uses very short hammers concealed in the body, Gut-ripping their underside.
There was no suh thing as a popup in the beginnings of RA2. The first popup was built by Jimxorb.
A good popup needs to have a strong drive train but also a very good wedge and if you can, frontal armor. The best weapons used on popups are razor tips.
Pyscolone is a popup specialist.
Building a popup
The popup building theory is easy, but not the practice.
You need a bot with a slope at the front. A rectangle is enough.
Add front defense with a little side defense (best choice would be Caster armor). Then, add some snapper wedges (one at the middle or the bot or two at the left and right of the bot for HW's).
You need a powerful drive train and no underpowering. Z-teks attached to the chassis with rubber wheels is a good choice, although you can use shinies too. Just be sure you do have low ground clearance.
It's time to add the weapons. It's basically razor-armed very short hammers just after (or under) the front plating. They must be set up to travel a good distance and the start position must be inside the bot. Then, you must make sure the razor's end position is sufficiently outside the bot to do easily damage 2 razors on a Snapper2 or 4 razors on a DDT are a good rule, although there have been succesful HW popups using 8 razors on a DDT. Use DDTs if you can.
For examples of good popups, see Pyscolone's page.
PROS
- A good mix of OMD
- Very damaging - several popups can KO their opponent in one hit
- Quick and agile
- Decent front defense
- Wedgy (can take the drive train of an opponent)
- Can generally self-right
CONS
- Hard to build
- Completely useless if you can't get under the enemy
- Like Rammers, higly dependant on their drive train
- Weapons are not tough, a long fight is a bad idea
Popups are good against most robot types, but other wedges are their toughest fights