r/battlebots

Hey! Im currently trying to make a 12lbs hobby weight robot. One of my problems currently is trying to find out a good speed for the weapon and movement. For my weapon I’m making a vertical disk spinner with a wedge out front. For my movement I’m going with a four wheel drive. Also any general tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated

I'm not here to defend GenAI slop nor Bright Data, just dispel the most inane blaming of the direction/presentation of BattleBots on them as a sponsor.

Bright Data is NOT a GenAI company. Bright Data is NOT a GenAI company. Bright Data is NOT a GenAI company.

From their website

Bright Data is a data collection company. I'm not going to defend/sell you on that, but I will draw the line that Bright Data is not a GenAI service. They provide data for any client who is willing to pay that can be used for analysis, research, and yes, fed into AI models, but they aren't like Anthropic or OpenAI or such actually providing the models or services to generate photo or video content. They supply the data that it is trained on. They do provide likely GenAI-powered analysis but its not being used to generate videos/images/thumbnails for BattleBots promo.

Bright Data did NOT influence Orbitron and Nemesis to use AI.

https://preview.redd.it/j7ub59ia7kbh1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=690b1b197ebd594abcc9259286918e5b0a57d8ed

Orbitron and Nemesis were NOT nudged to have their AI integration due to having a Bright Data as a sponsor. Orbitron was conceptualized long before anyone in the builder community knew about Bright Data as a sponsor. And, gasp, some builders actually want to advantage of using automation and AI to drive their robots. I'm one of them. Nemesis and Orbitron are some of them. Its not like every builder in the world hates AI and never wants their robots driven by it. Degrees of automation are already being used by teams like Beta (their electromagnet and hammer drop cycle, for example) and for meltybrains, long before the AI boom even started.

The direction for editing and presentation is NOT held by Bright Data. It is held by the BattleBots organization themselves.

There's not much I feel comfortable revealing, details wise, about who influenced which decisions and which specific changes they have been trying to sell the builders onto for how BattleBots is presented. But with the pivot away from television and towards YouTube, they are looking toward how popular YouTube and short-form channels are edited to adapt to the younger viewers. I saw their explanation of strategy and changes at the builder meeting at Pro League. We have had some back and forth with the BattleBots production to let them know how we feel about certain things such as our likeness being generated by AI or how we feel about "Mr Beast style" editing. Make your opinions about the new direction of editing to them directly. They're the ones in the driver's seat and make the final calls to accept the edits and post it on the channel.

If you're going to complain about AI slop and/or Bright Data, at least know what you are talking about or else you are not helping the situation.

Battlebots has made a grave mistake SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE than the editing by SPOILING ITS FIGHTS.

The main way they have done this is by showing a bot’s weapon broken for too long or even having their DRIVERS SAY IT such as in Jackpot vs Copperhead,Manta vs Terrortops ,Ribbot vs Switchback and last but certainly not least! MINOTAUR VS HUGE!

And I think this is just as important as a complaint to Battlebots and should be of greater discussion unless someone else gets spoiled like me.

One last note of clarification:I wasn’t spoiling myself by slowing it down and making the mistake of paying attention to the show during a premiere,I WAS BARELY LOOKING and still got spoiled cause they showed these clips for full seconds.

Also Im probably an idiot and this is gonna get taken down for informing you of spoilers,I didn’t wanna say it but it had to.

So I am planning on making a vid soon and I won’t say much but after looking through many other people channels I want to know where is the easiest place to find records for each bots, like what bots they have faced and their overall record for the season?

Since the forum have raised some points on improving battlebots, here are some ideas on how I think the show can be improved.

Modern Bots are Too Powerful

Most of the top-tier bots are so destructive that they tend to end the fight really quickly with KOs. Doesn't this kind of hurt the quality of matches when they become too short? It feels to me like you given two boxers firearms and let them have at it when they really should have used boxing gloves.

I am not against technological progress, but such powerful weapons lead to immediate incapacitation of bots.

Battlebots Variety

We need to have some form cap on the percentage of vertical spinners that are allowed. This incentivizes more unique weapon designs and would also address my previous comment on how powerful bots are becoming because most of them are using vertical spinner weapons to be so destructive.

Things They should Remove

Shelf

Horizontal spinners are handicapped. As if horizontal spinners/full-body spinners aren't handicapped enough with their slower spin up times.

Killsaw Slots

The killsaw slots entangle the bots forks and it stops the action. The battlebot arena crew would then have to get the bots out which waste time.

Things They should Improve/Add

Hammers

The hammers should be powered by AI and need to come down more often.

Make the arena hazards more deadly to bots because the bots are becoming really durable.

Out of Arena Zones

Again, this stops the robot fighting action too quickly when one bot goes out like this.

Different Weight Classes

They should bring back the different weight classes. Larger bots tend to cost more to fabricate and maintain which limits the entrance of people into the sport. It might also make the show more entertaining to watch because the weapon dynamics might behave differently for different weight classes.

Both Bots Weapons Incapacitation

If both bots' weapons are down, they should stop the fight early for a judges' decision if it becomes obvious that no further damage can be inflicted on one another after 45 seconds of weapons failure. The pushing matches are not that entertaining to watch.

Judging

Use AI for Judging

AI can record and analyze pretty well now, it should be used as the voice

of the third vote as a less biased tie-breaker on close matches.

As a massive BB fan who was disappointed at the editing, this is a huge relief.

From the official BB YouTube account on the latest episode --

"One thing we’ve always loved about the BattleBots community is that you’re not shy about telling us what you think : )

For the Pro League, we wanted to try out a different style of editing, adopting techniques and pacing familiar to a YouTube audience.

Whilst that approach achieved some of what we were hoping for (early ratings data confirms this), many of you felt we pushed it too far. We agree. There’s a better balance to be found, and that’s exactly what we’re working towards.

Because of the time lag in the editing schedule the changes will take a little while to percolate through, so please bear with us. Soon the fights will be a little less frenetic and key backstage moments will be allowed to breathe. We need a better balance between what works on YouTube and what BattleBots fans have always enjoyed. Many of our post-production team worked on the TV shows, so we know what you like; we hope you’ll be happy with the results.

Thanks for sticking with us while we fine tune. We’re committed to making this the best BattleBots season yet. Keep the comments coming."

Finally found some time to look for that 1st episode. I was right.

They F🤬G Ticktock-ified it!

It was all intentional, no skill issues involved. The editing is damned good for the job they were ordered to do, they just weren't given the right orders. The direction and shooting are the same as they've always been, which isn't a great starting point for what the producer asked of the editor.

Every angle has the action dead center, the cuts are short, and the audio is pure sound bites only. It looks and sounds good on a phone screen for 2 minutes or less at a time.

A lazy internet junky can easily select and cut discreet clips for sharing online. Productions producing this sort of content isn't unusual in the slightest, but usually they film and edit the episode for TV like normal, then take raw footage and separately creat the online specific stuff.

This is where those budget cuts come in. In stead of paying for two rounds of editing, they just made the editor do the-entire-damned-thing as if it were a collection of clips and gifs because that is exactly what they hope viewers will do with it.

At first when I heard people talking I thought maybe they're aiming for people watching on YouTube on mobile which ideally would require very different editing and framing to look good. I was only half right. They doubled down and went all in on cramming BattleBots into the collective consciousness by making it a meme generator. If it goes according to the producers plan we'll see Reddit flooded with BB branded reaction gifs before too long.

I am very skeptical about this strategy because it alienates actual invested viewers like us- it's entirely unwatchable in this format. They could have compromised just a little, and it'd work for both without costing anything.

Serious question, and with how many ai sponsors they’ve taken this would actually be super on brand for them

It’s the only reasonable explanation other than just the editor being extremely bad that I can think of

As valid as all of our critiques may be, the people behind the scenes at the very top probably don't care a great deal about them. Why do I say this? Here are a few reasons.

1 - We are a vocal minority.

The hardcore fans of anything are always a minority, and usually vocal. Reddit's internal figures say this sub has had about 14,000 unique viewers in the past week, and maybe a few hundred of them have been involved in conversations about the problems with episode 1. Meanwhile the episode is approaching 100k views. In their eyes, they have no reason to think that making changes to please us, especially because...

2 - Most of us will watch it anyway.

Hardcore fans of things like the thing enough to watch it even when they have issues about how it is being executed or presented. Many of us care enough about this sport to watch single-angle, low-quality event livestreams and raw footage of beetle and ant events. Many of us moved mountains to watch shows from China despite them being on platforms that we could barely access and entirely in a language we didn't understand. The fact that this series is currently being edited in a way that makes it almost unwatchable isn't going to be enough for most of us to actually stop watching, even if we will keep complaining about it. Knowing that, they will almost certainly be thinking that...

3 - Finding new viewers is more valuable to them than keeping old ones.

One advantage of being on youtube is discoverability. If Battlebots can game the algorithm well enough, they can get their content pushed to people who would otherwise have never seen it. They likely believe that the current editing style will do a good job of appealing to the average youtube viewer who has no attachment to what they're watching. They might even be right, and I don't honestly know if I hope they are or hope they aren't.

Overall, it sucks to see something you love get watered down and become a shadow of what we know it can be. I don't like any of this and I wish the world worked differently. I don't think we should stop banging the drum about trying to make things suck less, but I personally will do it with managed expectations about what it will actually change.

the amount of self-sabotaging that battlebots does to itself as a show is fucking incredible. ever since season 7 ended it's been like watching two planes crashing into each other at 0.1x speed. i genuinely cannot believe that they probably looked at this in post and deadass thought "yeah, this looks like actual dogshit. send it." like what the FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE MAN

we had ALL the makings of a great first episode. an insane upset on probably the best bot in the competition right now and two other really solid fights. just put those fights together and splice them with a bunch of footage from the pits, (which is ANOTHER thing that everyone's been asking for considering this is a STEM show without ANY FUCKING STEM PARTS IN IT SHOW THE PITS OH MY FUCKING GOD), and you'll have a pretty decent first episode.

like these people HAVE EXPERIENCE RUNNING THE SHOW. they've only been doing it for 7 goddamn seasons now with their absolute best one being the MOST RECENT SEASON. HOW THE FUCK DID WE GO FROM SOMETHING LIKE SEASON 7 TO THIS TRAIN WRECK OF A "SHOW." it's all just so frustrating to watch and it's equally as frustrating to know that they've simply refused to listen to any amount of feedback that they've been given for the past 3 years

i'm so glad that something as well put together as NHRL exists, because without it i'd just be a depressed husk of a man rewatching the same old battlebots fights over and over again to try and fill the combat robotics hole in my heart. even now i'm still willing to put myself through rewatching the first pro league fights simply because they're actually INTERESTING. unfortunately, we'll only get to see about half of the fights considering how incredulously putrid the camera angles and editing are in these fights.

i feel so bad for malice here; they get the best win of their entire career and it's shown like THAT. what a fucking disgrace man

EDIT: this is not a post intended to slander the filming or production team in any way. THEY'RE ONLY DOING THEIR JOB AND WHAT THEY'RE BEING TOLD TO DO. this post is meant to be directed towards the entire upper management at battlebots who have consistently screwed over their hard-working team and their loyal fans by approving subpar content and offering zero communication as to why they're making the choices that they are. fans like myself have been respectful and constructive with our criticism since the first episode of proving grounds was shown on the facebook supporter's group, and we have been met with the same issues over and over and OVER again. the production staff and the teams competing deserve to have a fanbase willing to show some spine to the management, especially considering the fact that fans have paid for facebook and discovery+ subscriptions to support the show's funding.

that's only part of the reason why this post is worded so aggressively. the other part of it is that i'm fearful that this may be battlebots's last shot at being able to make an actual show. the management needed to get their shit together and learn from ALL the kinks that they needed to iron out from the live shows, the proving grounds, and the vegas showmatches, and use everything that they learned to put out a quality product and prove that we deserve to have a place on a streaming platform. unfortunately, the fact that several people have made posts here saying that they couldn't even get through the episode makes me worried for the future of heavyweight robotics. maybe this is too doomer or whatever, but it's been clear that battlebots as a company has been struggling HARD and they really needed the leadership to make the pro league land. unfortunately, we've been disappointed yet again and i find myself struggling to believe that there's a future for them in this state

The biggest beef I have with proleague episode 1 is the audio mix, it's far too laid back, far too video game-like

Combined with the random sound effects and it now being 60fps which would otherwise be a good thing, makes it feel like fighting tiny toys

But yeah also, the edit feels like a Bollywood flick lol like it's just so cheesy bad rather than cheesy good.

Hope they fix the mix at the very least for the rest of the season cause it's just a huge bummer as is, seriously just keep using the faceoffs sound mix