Post by Un Autre Monde on Sept 11, 2008 11:17:26 GMT -5
(NOTE: This is intended to be modified with input from you, Mr and Mrs Reader, in order to produce a decent guide to writing fanfic robot fights to be posted on FRA. Post suggestions in the thread or, if you have the power, just edit them straight in. Thanks)
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NOTE: After a discussion involving members of the community, all future tournaments should have rules with regards to maximum pneumatic/hydraulic pressure, weight limits, voltage limits, etc. clearly stated in the opening post.
Contributors: Andy Jackson, Joey McConnell, Martijn Benschop, Nick Schuch (indirectly)
1: READ THE STATS
This should go without saying; what I do is read the stats once to determine what sort of robot I'm dealing with, so I can
work out roughly what will happen without having to consult the statistics every other sentence. Then, I go through them
again and look at the technical side of things to check all is sound - really looking for excuses for a robot to die during the
fight, for example if it had two NiCad battery packs weighing about 2kg powering a LEMCO drive train and a hydraulic pump
or Etek spinner, then I can reasonably assume that unless it does the deed in the first thirty seconds it will suck those
batteries dry and die rather pathetically. \clipart{proud} This is also the time to ask people about certain aspects of their
robots if there is something difficult to understand about them technically - asking for clarification will save you egg on face
later when someone complains that you didn't understand their vapour correctly. Later during the fight, you can refer back to
the stats to compare them and see who comes out on top in a pushing match, or whose weapon is more powerful, that sort of
thing.
At this stage, you should be able to work out roughly what will happen; this is the time to take into account tactics for the
robots, if they're given. Most tactics state the obvious, but you must read them nonetheless, especially since sometimes they
either try a non obvious tactic or include a bit of info (like differences in ground clearance) that you will find handy.
Also, around this point, write some wooty intros. Some people use introductions as a form of summarising each robots stats. Not only does this provide a nice introduction to the battle, it also means you can select the key parts of the stats and re-write them for reference in the battle. This saves having to look through stats which can sometimes be quite difficult. Besides, everybody loves wooty intros.
This leads on to...
2: KEEP THE BATTLE REALISTIC
Firstly, length of battles is somewhat important. Depending on your writing style, you might be able to ramble on all day, but
battles really should be a minimum of one or two paragraphs long unless there is a realistic reason why the fight would end
that quickly. This means one or two paragraphs of actual action, not one or two paragraphs of continuous filler and
exclaimation marks and three words of fighting
The key is to not make the battle too long or too short. A very long battle may result in the reader skipping towards the end while a very short battle may not contain enough action to be regarded as acceptable.
It does help, obviously, to have seen the shows and to know the general structure of a robot fight, as well as what is realistic;
bear in mind that fights with massive destruction are few and far between; one of the most common mistakes is to assume
that because vapourbots tend to be better designed and more vicious than real life robots, although not quite as fantastic as Mace, the damage and destruction in vapourbot fights is also amplified. This probably isn't the case.
Segueing nicely into...
3: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS
Generally, battles in vapourbot land follow the laws of physics to some degree. Here are a few examples of things that
newcomers to writing often put into their battles, but aren't really realistic:
-Petrol engines generally aren't amazingly volatile to the point where driving over the flame pit briefly will cause the entire
robot to burst into flame.
-Fire generally is only seen on robots with flammable components or fur - as a rule, a massive weapon hit will not cause a
robot to catch on fire unless it completely overloaded the aggressor's or defender's electrical system, and that requires
massive forces.
-Some events that happened in Robot Wars battles, like Axe Awe getting flipped out straight from the centre, Storm II
ramming Steel Avenger out of the arena, etc. were one-in-a-million and generally don't happen every other battle.
-Spinners:
-Spinners in vapourbots are presented with figures that suggest massive levels of damage from just one hit. These are
slightly optimistic to say the least
-It is rare for a spinner hit to completely rip through a robot, considering some of the armouring being used. As a rule, with
some examples:
-Hypnodisc had about 5-10kj at most
-Typhoon 2 had a maximum of 40kj
-Levels above this up to 100kj generally indicate your average vapourbot spinner - capable of damaging most types of armour aside from particuarly thick titanium or wearplate steels like Hardox.
-Above 100kj, shockproofing is an issue due to the forces involved - it is entirely possible for both robots involved to die on impact from shock damage. If a robot can reliably give hits of this power, it can potentially cause damage to just about anything.
-Above 150ish kj is the point where without extremely clever design, the robot attacking has one hit before breaking.
-Armour plating is only as strong as what holds it in place. For examples of this, see Supernova vs. Mekaniac or Hypnodisc vs. V-Max.
Nick Schuch once posted a guide on how various armours would stand up to an above average vertical spinner:
4: PRESENTATION:
Dividing fights up into paragraphs makes them considerably easier to read, and increases the chance of the fights actually
being read rather than being skipped over. One thing which doesn't endear your writing to readers is excessive exclaimations
- !!! can be a force for good, but use in places other than the end of particuarly dramatic sentence doesn't look good.
Likewise, save 'CRASH!' 'OHHHH!!!!!!' and 'OUCH!' for times when they are needed, as opposed to writing a few sentences of
one or two lines interspersed with exclaimation marks and excitable shouting. Those fights that are structured like that tend
to be rather bad.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: After a discussion involving members of the community, all future tournaments should have rules with regards to maximum pneumatic/hydraulic pressure, weight limits, voltage limits, etc. clearly stated in the opening post.
Contributors: Andy Jackson, Joey McConnell, Martijn Benschop, Nick Schuch (indirectly)
1: READ THE STATS
This should go without saying; what I do is read the stats once to determine what sort of robot I'm dealing with, so I can
work out roughly what will happen without having to consult the statistics every other sentence. Then, I go through them
again and look at the technical side of things to check all is sound - really looking for excuses for a robot to die during the
fight, for example if it had two NiCad battery packs weighing about 2kg powering a LEMCO drive train and a hydraulic pump
or Etek spinner, then I can reasonably assume that unless it does the deed in the first thirty seconds it will suck those
batteries dry and die rather pathetically. \clipart{proud} This is also the time to ask people about certain aspects of their
robots if there is something difficult to understand about them technically - asking for clarification will save you egg on face
later when someone complains that you didn't understand their vapour correctly. Later during the fight, you can refer back to
the stats to compare them and see who comes out on top in a pushing match, or whose weapon is more powerful, that sort of
thing.
At this stage, you should be able to work out roughly what will happen; this is the time to take into account tactics for the
robots, if they're given. Most tactics state the obvious, but you must read them nonetheless, especially since sometimes they
either try a non obvious tactic or include a bit of info (like differences in ground clearance) that you will find handy.
Also, around this point, write some wooty intros. Some people use introductions as a form of summarising each robots stats. Not only does this provide a nice introduction to the battle, it also means you can select the key parts of the stats and re-write them for reference in the battle. This saves having to look through stats which can sometimes be quite difficult. Besides, everybody loves wooty intros.
This leads on to...
2: KEEP THE BATTLE REALISTIC
Firstly, length of battles is somewhat important. Depending on your writing style, you might be able to ramble on all day, but
battles really should be a minimum of one or two paragraphs long unless there is a realistic reason why the fight would end
that quickly. This means one or two paragraphs of actual action, not one or two paragraphs of continuous filler and
exclaimation marks and three words of fighting
The key is to not make the battle too long or too short. A very long battle may result in the reader skipping towards the end while a very short battle may not contain enough action to be regarded as acceptable.It does help, obviously, to have seen the shows and to know the general structure of a robot fight, as well as what is realistic;
bear in mind that fights with massive destruction are few and far between; one of the most common mistakes is to assume
that because vapourbots tend to be better designed and more vicious than real life robots, although not quite as fantastic as Mace, the damage and destruction in vapourbot fights is also amplified. This probably isn't the case.
Segueing nicely into...
3: COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS
Generally, battles in vapourbot land follow the laws of physics to some degree. Here are a few examples of things that
newcomers to writing often put into their battles, but aren't really realistic:
-Petrol engines generally aren't amazingly volatile to the point where driving over the flame pit briefly will cause the entire
robot to burst into flame.
-Fire generally is only seen on robots with flammable components or fur - as a rule, a massive weapon hit will not cause a
robot to catch on fire unless it completely overloaded the aggressor's or defender's electrical system, and that requires
massive forces.
-Some events that happened in Robot Wars battles, like Axe Awe getting flipped out straight from the centre, Storm II
ramming Steel Avenger out of the arena, etc. were one-in-a-million and generally don't happen every other battle.
-Spinners:
-Spinners in vapourbots are presented with figures that suggest massive levels of damage from just one hit. These are
slightly optimistic to say the least
-It is rare for a spinner hit to completely rip through a robot, considering some of the armouring being used. As a rule, with
some examples:
-Hypnodisc had about 5-10kj at most
-Typhoon 2 had a maximum of 40kj
-Levels above this up to 100kj generally indicate your average vapourbot spinner - capable of damaging most types of armour aside from particuarly thick titanium or wearplate steels like Hardox.
-Above 100kj, shockproofing is an issue due to the forces involved - it is entirely possible for both robots involved to die on impact from shock damage. If a robot can reliably give hits of this power, it can potentially cause damage to just about anything.
-Above 150ish kj is the point where without extremely clever design, the robot attacking has one hit before breaking.
-Armour plating is only as strong as what holds it in place. For examples of this, see Supernova vs. Mekaniac or Hypnodisc vs. V-Max.
Nick Schuch once posted a guide on how various armours would stand up to an above average vertical spinner:
1-hit Kill - Polycarb: It isn't even there as far as I'm concerned. Straight to the internal components!
2-hit Kill - Good aluminum. (Bad aluminum is worse than Polycarb, really.) If it's thick, it'll take multiple hits to take it all off.
3-5-hit Kill - Good Magnesium/moderate Titanium: this can slow the weapon significantly, just to take off a 10x10 cm panel, but the weapon is powerful enough to take a lot more than that off before it stops and needs to spin up again.
Heavy Damage, but no KO - Against something like SpinVerter, with huge thick panels of titanium and hardox moving parts, damage is still possible, but not easy. It's confined to the joints. While taking a couple panels of this off will significantly reduce the mass of the opponent, and make them easier to toss with more hits, layer after layer of this stuff in the armor and frame will stop it unless some parts are more exposed than others (a front plow, but scant rear armor for example).
Undamageable - Usually this is just spinner-killing plows, and it's a matter of hitting the other sides of the robot, but 200 kg robots with 50 kg of spinning shell, and 50 more kg of reinforcing armor, are just too much.
2-hit Kill - Good aluminum. (Bad aluminum is worse than Polycarb, really.) If it's thick, it'll take multiple hits to take it all off.
3-5-hit Kill - Good Magnesium/moderate Titanium: this can slow the weapon significantly, just to take off a 10x10 cm panel, but the weapon is powerful enough to take a lot more than that off before it stops and needs to spin up again.
Heavy Damage, but no KO - Against something like SpinVerter, with huge thick panels of titanium and hardox moving parts, damage is still possible, but not easy. It's confined to the joints. While taking a couple panels of this off will significantly reduce the mass of the opponent, and make them easier to toss with more hits, layer after layer of this stuff in the armor and frame will stop it unless some parts are more exposed than others (a front plow, but scant rear armor for example).
Undamageable - Usually this is just spinner-killing plows, and it's a matter of hitting the other sides of the robot, but 200 kg robots with 50 kg of spinning shell, and 50 more kg of reinforcing armor, are just too much.
4: PRESENTATION:
Dividing fights up into paragraphs makes them considerably easier to read, and increases the chance of the fights actually
being read rather than being skipped over. One thing which doesn't endear your writing to readers is excessive exclaimations
- !!! can be a force for good, but use in places other than the end of particuarly dramatic sentence doesn't look good.
Likewise, save 'CRASH!' 'OHHHH!!!!!!' and 'OUCH!' for times when they are needed, as opposed to writing a few sentences of
one or two lines interspersed with exclaimation marks and excitable shouting. Those fights that are structured like that tend
to be rather bad.
