#scrapbot

[ashiayagami]

here's a boss from the game I talked about before, a scrapped (in a literal sense and not like, scrapped from the game) manager robot that built himself back toguether with scraps of other machines and random stuff.

He was once a well known android that knew a lot of making sure the construction bots did their job right, but one day something terrible happened... an earthquake happened out of nowhere while he and some of the crew were inside a building they were making, and it collapsed on top of them... and for a good long while he was deactivated there in the rubble, in no way of coming back online... that, was before an outbreak occurred where androids were starting to become infected with a blue and purple quartz-like crystal, changing their programming and modifying their exterior as it consumed more of their material to grow even more, he unfortunately was one of the victims of this crystal as an infected found its way to where he was deactivated and decided that he would be a great host. Later in the story the heroes would discover a ping coming from an abandoned construction site and decided to investigate, thats where they find him, in the shadows staring them down without a single word, as if he was waiting for them... A metal door closes behind them before the fight starts, making them stuck with this thing they don't even see, only when he shoots bursts of fire that they can see the rest of his mangled body fitted with the scrap of the crew that he was with, and the way he's brutal when attacking its sure to assume he's an infected too.

The battle would be basically to fight him in the dark, using the heroes abilities in their favour against him.

[flufflepantsart]

Scrap Ferrite ex, my first gen 9 pokemon card, and first 3D card I've modeled in Blender.

It's been a lot of fun getting back into 3D. This one required me to do a little forced perspective to get the pose to be readable + exaggerated enough.

Card template from: https://pokecardmaker.net/creator

[heavymetalrobotics]

Welcome to part 2 of our event recaps from ARC Scrapbots 2! In part 1 we went over the first half of the event which was building a robot out of junk in just 3 hours. Now we get to the fighting! My first fight was against a robot built by Leon.

One of the cooler looking robots from the day, Leon's bot was built from a VHS tape box, and used the "flipper" electronics kit to turn it into a biting/grappling weapon. Foam board teeth and eyes on top gave it a monstrous appearance, like some kind of robot sea beast. From a strategy perspective this was a difficult opponent for me. Full-body shell spinners like the robot I made need space to get the weapon up to speed, and control-based robots like Leon's are excellent at shutting that strategy down.

Immediately they closed on my bot and used their jaw weapon to stall my robot's spinner. Despite trying my best to back away to make some space, they kept chasing my bot down and grabbing onto it, even hooking one of my weapon teeth in their jaws. Eventually I got my robot to work itself free and got the weapon up to speed, just as Leon's bot seemed to stall out (this will be explained in more detail in later posts). I used to opportunity to attack and ran the spinning shell into their chassis at full speed...which did nothing. I backed away to get the weapon spinning again, but it merely twitched instead.

It seems that the shell was still rubbing on my bot's chassis slightly in just one place in the rotation and would stall out if it stopped at that point. I ran it in reverse for a second to free it, then full speed forwards to get it functioning normally again. By this point Leon's bot had recovered and was moving in to attack again, so my spinning shell ended up hitting their front teeth again. This time though one of the decorative eyes was knocked off their robot! Technically that is damage I caused!

I managed to spin the robot free from my opponent pretty easily this time, but in doing so had difficulty telling which direction my own robot was facing. That is one of the biggest downsides to shell spinners. They are almost by definition round and symmetrical, making it challenging to understand which direction the chassis underneath is facing. By the time I got that sorted out they had cornered my bot against the wall of the arena. I backed away once again to get the space needed to spin up, but that put my bot dangerously close to the arena pit.

When trying to drive a robot with a horizontal spinning weapon like a shell, the torque from the weapon motor actually steers the robot in the opposite direction while driving. For this reason shell spinners tend to drive in swinging arcs rather than straight lines. Since I was so near the pit, I opted to keep the weapon turned off to maximize the control I had over my bot while escaping from the corner. Unfortunately the weapon stalled out again and before I could free it, Leon's bot grabbed hold of it.

Despite having superior traction with the foam rubber treads, my bot was simply too light weight to push my opponent. I tried to steer to the side to maneuver around them but fell victim to another of the shell spinner's driving quirks. Since the shell was pinned by my opponent, it remained stationary and the chassis turned underneath. So rather than getting free and driving around to their side, my robot spun a 180 degree turn and drove itself down into the pit, losing me the fight.

All in all, it was a good fight even if it was short. Driving shell spinners is really difficult, and control bots are their biggest weakness, so I wasn't surprised at the result. The main positive thing I took from this fight was that my robot worked wonderfully! It was responsive, the weapon spun up to a reasonable speed (most of the time), and I even caused a little damage to some cosmetic items. I went back to the pit table afterwards with no repairs needed and confident that with a little bit better driving I could take some victories in the remaining fights.

Below is the link for the fight video from ARC's youtube page so you can watch the fight for yourself. It is timestamped to this fight in particular. Up next for me was a spinner robot built by my pit table-mate Ben. I will go over that fight in the next post. See you then!

[alexbraindump]

501-B - Chapter 1: Descent

“With the introduction of the brand-new line of Fysi-Apomi hyper-resilient plant life, even those of you out in the most remote corners of the galaxy may create your own little garden! Stuffed with all the nutrients one could need and capable of producing up to quadruple the fresh oxygen of regular plants, our new line of greenery can help improve your life on any industrialized planet.”

A holo-television. A simple piece of technology, light suspended in the air between two strips of projectors. Colors of such depth and motion of such smoothness to suggest reality unfolding right there before oneself. Upon this particular holo-TV, the visage of a well-dressed human woman in a lush greenhouse. Flowing blonde hair and a silky suit to build the impression of one to be trusted.

“As you can see here-” She took hold of a pot. From it grew a little berry bush. “Our wonderful plantlife is capable of sprouting all the food one could need!”

The view panned outwards into a wide shot of the greenhouse. There were trees bearing fruit and bushes bearing berries and sprouts from the ground bearing vegetables. The woman walked backwards to follow the camera panning.

“With Fysi-Apomi, you can-”

Ring-ring. There was a shrill sound across the room. A remote was picked up and pointed at the holo-TV. With a press of the power button, its display dissipated into thin air. A few floating particles of light lingered for seconds. Ring-ring. The remote was tossed down onto a coffee table dotted with empty soda cans, cups of microwave noodles and the disassembled mess of a gadget or two. From the couch arose a bipedal vulpine. He pulled a hood over his face, obscuring all but the end of his snout. Ring-ring.

Dusty boots clacked against metallic flooring as he made his way across the room. It was enclosed, made of metal all around. Piping and exposed wiring ran in bundles along the ceiling and walls. Opposing ends of the room terminated in doors, one of regular size and one of a cargo bay.

Ring-ring. The fox stood before the source of the ringing. A phone mounted to the wall. On its ID screen were the words “CALL FROM: MR. B.” He pulled the phone from its terminal and held it to his ear.

“Where in the name of the gods are you, Cade?!” squawked a shrill voice. “My contact is waiting for you!”

“None’a your business, man,” Cade bit back. “You’ll get everything you need, don’t you worry.”

“Scrapbots could be encroaching upon that ship as we speak-”

“Off my back, B, goddamn. I’m just about there.”

“Define ‘just about.’”

“Close enough that I’ve gotta hang up and get ready for entry now now. Byeeee!”

“We need that part, Cade! Don’t let this end up like-”

Cade slotted the phone back into its terminal. It was followed right up by another call from Mr. B. He removed the phone, slammed it back into place and then shut the terminal off completely. Both the terminal and holo-TV having gone blank, the only sound to accompany the room was a slight, electronic droning. Cade strode off back towards his TV.

Between the TV and the wall was an empty space. Just about enough to house a person. Cade stepped into it. He pulled up his sleeve, revealing a watch underneath. Upon lifting it towards the wall, a small chime of approval sounded off. The wall creaked for a moment, hissed out a puff of air and then slid open. Its movement was staggered and jittery, but upon completion a roomy compartment was revealed within.

Green. Lots of green. Plants lined the back of the compartment, blossoming vines spread up the walls and around the corners. There was a row of synthetic sunlight strips above them, flanked on either side by watering pipes. Droplets of water dripped from the nozzles. Cade reached in and began shuffling around the plants. His clawed paws tended to the plants with gentle grace. Branches were nudged back into place, dying leaves were snipped off.

On the compartment’s floor sat multiple leather pads. They were a dark shade of brown that mirrored Cade’s own fur. Next to them laid a handgun - contained in a leather holster. Five spare magazines were scattered around it. And off in the corner was a backpack propped up against the wall. Cade took a hold of it and set it down on the floor outside before continuing on tending to his garden.

Centralized amidst all the plants was a single flower, sat in a pot of its very own. Its pedals burned a bright red, a standout look amongst the green surrounding it. Cade investigated it with movements gentle enough not to wake a sleeping mouse. He pushed it around with as much ease as his paws could muster until finding a single wilting leaf on its stem. With a grumble, he snipped the leaf off. It fluttered down into a pile of dead plant matter gathering on the compartment’s floor.

Cade swiped a few bits of debris off the leather padding. A sigh escaped his lips as he took hold of the largest piece. It was a set of straps, ones that he fastened over his torso. They made up a belt around his waist and a slash that crossed his body diagonally. Another piece - surface marked with a burn - affixed onto the strap over his left shoulder. Cade stretched and flexed his body around, allowing the upper armor to slide into place.

The handgun and its holster clipped right onto Cade’s belt. Pockets stitched on the opposite end served as perfect housing for the magazines. And with that, Cade removed the last leather plate and hit a button on the compartment’s wall. Its door came hissing shut as it returned to an airtight seal with a satisfying little click, all the while Cade began on his way across the room.

The smaller of the doors opened as Cade approached it. Beyond it was a small cockpit. A whole array of windows lined the walls. Through them a planet could be seen straight ahead. Trailing wisps and puffy blots of gray filled the atmosphere and shadowed out the surface. A central chair swiveled itself around just as the door had finished opening.

Cade tossed himself into it, setting the chair off to turn back around and present its pilot with the ship’s controls. Display panels ignited with green light in response to the fox’s presence. Each screen was pure black with nothing but green text displayed on them. A central terminal beckoned Cade to begin inputting commands, but the fox instead opted to lift his right leg and rest it on the dashboard. The final leather pad fit snugly around his thigh. He gave it a little pat, lowered his leg and sat back up.

A keyboard was situated below the central terminal. Cade reached around the ship’s control stick and typed a command. A list appeared, a long one. Each entry was a string of random letters and numbers. Cade deliberated over the long list until settling upon one of the latter choices with a click of the enter key. 076-RDMPTN24.

The control stick’s position allowed Cade’s paws to slide right off the keyboard and take hold of it. Its ergonomic design slipped into one of his paws with ease. He flicked a switch on the base of it and then began tilting it forward. One of his feet applied light pressure to the rightmost of two pedals beneath the dashboard. His free paw reached off to the side of the cabin and flicked a handful of switches. The ship angled forward, ramping up the speed of its descent.

A small crackling sounded off beside Cade, prompting an ear to perk up and nearly push his hood off. He took his paw to a dial above him and began to twist it ever so slightly. The crackling came in and out, pulsing between loud and quiet. His movements became finer and finer until the sound had plateaued out into a consistent buzz. A voice was peeking through the haze, small glimpses given of something resembling words. Syllables struggling to coagulate into complete statements.

“W..elcome to…” A robotic twang drenched the voice. “BZZT… an industrial outpost… Now welcoming trad- BZZZZT… Quality index of- BZZT… Safety equipment… nearest arrival station- bzt…”

Silence. The signal died off with one last whimper of a beep. Cade attempted to twist the dial further, but got nothing but varying degrees of static in response. A small beep here and there maybe, but nothing of substance. A lost cause, he reasoned to himself as he gave his attention back to that which awaited outside the window.

Speed was building from Cade’s planetary approach. The white-speckled blackness of space vanished from the corners of his view, replaced by writhing clouds of gray. They only seemed to darken as his approach pressed on. Cade gave a check to the gauge cluster. Dials were increasing across the board, all except for planetary surface distance.

BOOM! 

A crack of lightning caused Cade to jump in his seat. Storms announced their presence with great booms and thuds. Cade tightened his grip on the steering stick and allowed himself a deep breath. As if in response, turbulence jutted itself into the equation. Cade reached for his central dashboard and turned up a slider that was jury rigged into the wall and labeled “compartment stabilizer.” with a piece of tape. The ship was putting up its best attempt to level out, though even its best could generously be described as rocky.

Rain began speckling the glass. Cade flipped a lever and a pair of wipers began swiping in vertical motions. Almost like it was fighting back, the rain grew stronger. It grew stronger to the point that the default wiper speed failed to keep up. Cade clicked the speed up a notch. Not enough. Two notches, getting there. Three notches - as high as it would go - and they were hardly keeping the windows clear, though they offered just enough downtime to see through. Not that there was much to see beyond the whirling gray abyss of storm clouds.

Cade reached across his seat, grabbed the seat belt, and clicked it into place. His ship rattled and creaked, its computer systems beeping and crying in distress. The control stick was jolting around, necessitating Cade wrap his other paw around it. Yet even the strength of both his arms wasn’t enough to keep the ship under control. A particularly close arc of lightning sent his ship careening to the side. Cade yelped, the seatbelt barely managing to keep the fox from being flung across the cockpit. It was more than enough to break his grip on the control stick, though.

The ship was sent into a spiral. Even a hearty set of internal gravity generators couldn’t save Cade from growing dizzy. He struggled to reach out with his body being wretched in circles over and over. His eyes put up a fight to stay open, the contents of his skull feeling more akin to a stew than a solid brain. And - as if matters couldn’t get any worse - the clouds began to thin…

Cade’s mind struggled to register the fact that he had broken the cloud layer. A spinning mass of gray had been replaced with a spinning mass of green. His head was caving in, a pounding headache giving way to his eyes shutting. One last desperate bid to grab the stick, one last strained reach of an arm, one last chance…

Synthetic leather, in his paw. A rejuvenating burst of energy pulsed through the fox. Through a scrambled mind he managed to wrangle the stick back into some semblance of control. Enough to thrust his other paw onto it. What little strength he had left was invested right into yanking the stick into place, opposing the terminal roll his ship had been sent into.

Spinning colors of the planet’s surface slowed. Hazy green and obscured blots of dark brown. Cade yanked harder, hard enough to have instilled fear of breaking the steering system in any other situation. The death spin began to slow. Cade’s eyes managed to pry themselves open and the pure adrenaline pumping through his veins gave him the final sliver of energy required to bring the ship out of its spin. Relief poured into Cade’s clouded mind.

And relief was blown away nigh instantaneously. Saving himself from the spin hadn’t changed a thing about the fact that Cade was hurtling towards the surface at a speed so high that the dials of his gauge cluster went beyond their highest numbers. The surface was close. Too close, so much closer than it should’ve been. With the same hold that managed to save himself from the spin, Cade tugged the stick back towards him hard enough to slam it into his chest.

There was a near-deafening screech. Both the ship’s engines and frame screamed in protest to the sudden motion. Cade clenched his sharp teeth. A metallic tearing sounded off somewhere from the rear of his ship. His foot came slamming down onto a pedal and he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Mere moments to spare, the ship managed to straighten itself out. The whole thing rattled as its bottom side clipped a rusty smokestack. Cade almost fell out of his seat again. Industrial structures flew by in a blur around him. Whatever was left of the ship’s momentum had been sent to hurtling it forward instead. It grazed between smokestacks and long catwalks, missing some by mere inches.

Adrenaline flowing like water through his veins, Cade’s sweat-laden hands struggled to keep hold as he weaved between metal structures. With his attention darting from side to side, he hardly managed to notice the wall of piping he was hurtling towards. But when he did, he screamed out a curse and instead directed his arms to pulling back up once more.

A metal plate flung off the ship and slammed into the wall of pipes as Cade managed to pull the ship up into clear sky. Or, as Cade would come to realize as he collapsed back in his seat, an especially cloudy sky.

Stretching for miles in front of him was a vast expanse of metal and haze. The air was thick, tainted sickly green. Rain poured down and ran through the fog as if carrying it down to the surface - where it coagulated into a thicker mist. Old factories expanded into a horizon rendered near by fog, a complex dwarfing all else in scale. Cade’s weary eyes danced across it all. Not a single smokestack seemed to be in operation - some had even broken and collapsed. Everything was packed so dense as to disallow any comfortable ship landings.

Ring-ring. A screen off to the side lit up. CALL FROM: MR. B. Cade groaned and hit the accept call button.

“Our contact saw that pathetic entry of yours, Cade. You’re making an awful first impression.”

“As if they could’ve done any better,” Cade grumbled. 

“You’ll be meeting them at clearing J-11,” Mr. B chugged on without skipping a beat. “It’s taken you long enough to arrive already. Get there quick, lest you taint the reputation of this organization even further. And clean yourself up, you look and sound like a mess.”

“Because our reputation is spotless as is.”

“Maybe it would be without inconsiderate units such as you.”

“Ouch, that burns,” Cade sneered. “Get your ass out here and enter an unregulated atmosphere through a pollution storm. Shouldn’t be a problem for a bird brain like you, yeah?”

“My job here-”

“Is to get me my money after I get this done for you.”

The hang up button received a hearty press. Bzt. Cade glanced around the area. From the edge of the fog, an abrupt cutoff in all the industry revealed itself. A big red sign jutted out from it, J-11. He directed his ship towards it.

It expanded down several stories. Down and down it went until terminating in a lengthy parking lot. Almost all of its spots went unfilled, minus the select few which held the corpses of long abandoned cars at rest. Coffins lined with faded white paint.

In the furthest corner stood out one vehicle in particular. A ship in pristine condition. Comparatively pristine, at the very least. Its design was sharp and bulky. A fighter. Wing-mounted cannons larger than a person and paint bearing its fair share of scorches and chips. There was a figure standing outside of it, doing some kind of work made unrecognizable by distance.

Cade reached to the side of his cockpit and flipped a lever down. With some loud cracks of opposition, the ship’s engines rotated to face upwards. “Hover mode engaged, landing gear deployed” was printed on the center console. A press of the left pedal ensued and the ship began to lower as Cade maneuvered it to hover a few spaces away from the fighter. He depressed the pedal with as much ease as he could, but then the ship’s engines sputtered a few feet from the ground.

The ship jolted and hit the ground. One of the legs of its landing gear failed to deploy. Cade grunted and stumbled out of the cockpit, his legs taking their precious time growing steady once more. He ran a double check over himself as he entered the main room. Gun, check. Ammo, check. Armor, check. Bag… Unchecked. Cade took a small detour across the living room, over to the holo-TV. His backpack wasn’t in the space he left it, instead having been tossed into the nearest corner.

He stepped over and kneeled in front of it. Inside was an array of little devices, gadgets and rations that he shuffled through. Though their arrangement had been scattered, none of them had broken. Cade breathed a sigh of relief, shut the bag and slung it over his back. But as he stood, a sudden flash of panic lit upon his face. He turned to the wall compartment and its door, flush with the surface around it. A step was taken towards it when-

Clang-clang!

Knocking on the ship’s cargo bay door. Cade looked back at the compartment only for the knocking to sound off again. Clang-clang-clang! Even harder that time. He bit his lip, cursed under his breath and took off towards the cargo door. An empty noodle cup caught itself under his foot and put him into a stumble, one he only stopped by reaching out and catching himself on the wall. One of his paws had hit a panel next to the cargo door, causing it to begin lowering.

A rush of noxious air came flooding in. Its presence spurred a cough out of the vulpine the instant it came in contact with his windpipe. His lungs were made ten times heavier in the blink of an eye. He fell forward against the wall and propped himself up with an arm. Tears welled up in his eyes. There was a knock on the outside of his door that only barely registered to his ears.

“You’re late.” A gruff voice, clouded behind a digital filter. “Didn’t even listen to the arrival broadcast, did you?”

Cade looked up through tear-filled eyes and bore witness to a tall, human man. Face concealed behind a bulky gas mask and body clad in heavy metal armor, he was near double the size of the small fox. Another gas mask hung from one of the man’s hands. It wasn’t as bulky, seemingly a standard model lacking in any advanced additions.

“Boss didn’t-” Cade tried to speak, but was wracked by another coughing fit. “...Didn’t warn me about this air, fuck!”

“Your eyes should’ve.” The man tossed the mask over to Cade, who fumbled and nearly dropped it. “Call me Steel.”

With shaky hands, Cade shoved the mask over his face. A deep breath through its filters allowed a wave of relief to wash over his lungs. The mask was loose on his face, though a seal around its edges adhered to his fur. Fresh air gave Cade the energy needed to regain his posture and step out from his ship. Rain pelted against the top of his hood as he did so.

“One hell of a name,” the fox said. “Real subtle.”

“Codename, smartass. What’s yours?”

“Cade. Something that sticks to the whole ‘normalcy’ shtick. Not tryin’ too hard to sound all tough-”

“Shut it.”

“Pfft. Struck a nerve there, huh? Noted.”

Steel gave nothing more than a growl before facing himself towards the open space beyond the lot. A train station stood a short distance away. Holes in its walls revealed that a passenger train - though rusted - remained idle within. Perpendicular to the tracks stretched a vast expanse of what used to be roadway, now reduced to mere fractured chunks of color-bleached concrete.

Alongside the road was a whole forest of dead trees, their colors muted to a similar degree. A good lot of them had been felled. Those that remained standing were either stripped bare or covered with dead branches like veins that clawed towards the sky. Deeper and deeper into the fog the road winded, the only sense of termination provided by a large structure obscured in fog. 

“Ship’s out there,” Steel said. “According to my trackers.”

Cade nodded. “And is there any particular reason we had to land all the way out here, or was it just to get your steps in for the day?”

“Locals.”

“People live on this shithole?”

Steel let out a sigh. “The fuck did I just say?”

“It was a rhetorical question. Hell, you really are what it says on the tin.”

“That being..?”

“Dense.”

Though the lenses of his mask were tinted to the point of acting as shiny black walls, Steel’s glare burnt a hole into Cade. The fox opted to laugh it off. Steel, though unamused, directed the fox to follow him. Cade bent over to grab the door of his ship and slid it shut. It hissed as it sealed itself.

The duo set out on their way down the road. Steel drew a weapon from his back, a lever action laser rifle. Cade’s eager eyes affixed right onto it and he fell a pace or two behind. Slick black metal ending in sharp corners, its form invaded with duct tape and bundles of wires. An ejection port and feeding tube were present, though the latter had a charge package taped and welded into it. A rack holding three extra charge packs had been affixed to the side of the weapon.

Cade glanced down at the handgun on his hip and grumbled to himself. Instead of letting his eyes lock onto the other weapon once more, he forced himself to take a gander at the scenery. What little of it there was, at the very least…

Every now and then a road would splinter off and venture off into parts unknown. Or there’d be a road sign, or a billboard. Cade gave the billboards particular attention. Most had been worn by the elements to the point of illegibility. There were a select few that managed to stay just barely on the cusp of being comprehensible, though.

NixCo Cybernetically Enhanced Lungs!

Breathe better, live better with NixCo!

Ask about your local installation clinic today!

Bright colors - though dimmed by the elements - and a peppy cartoon human taking a nice, deep breath of air drawn so fresh Cade could almost feel it in his lungs. The pulsing inhales and exhales of the fox’s gas mask grounded him right back into reality, out of the ad’s own imitation of it. The reality where even reading the ad’s fine print was somewhat difficult from the noxious fog in the air. A shiver tickled his spine…

Miles dragged by. Steps faded into each other and became a blur of forward movement into swirling clouds of death. Steel hadn’t a word to say, and Cade’s head was still throbbing just enough to dismantle the idea of casual conversation. All their ears had was the booming of thunder overhead and the steady drone of rainfall. Their boots splashed in cloudy puddles of water. The monotony of it all kept Cade’s mind just as fogged as the planet he had found himself on.

“Snap out of it,” Steel barked, his voice shattering the glass of Cade’s focus like a hammer. “We’re just about there.”

The fox blinked and shook himself awake again. His paw pads were sore and his mouth yearned for a drink from within the confines of his mask. But one sign of tangible progress crammed itself into the forefront of his mind, pushing all else aside in the process.

Great walls of scrap metal. They were fashioned around something, but were tall enough to obscure vision inside. Light emanated from behind them and peeked through unsealed holes in the aged metal. Dotted along the walls were a handful of watchtowers. Spotlights shone down from them, swaying from side to side in rhythmic fashion. Banners had been hung atop each of the towers. They were tattered near the bottom, colored in a faded purple. Some royal-looking golden star was planted in the middle. There were stitches across each of the stars, the pattern of them uniform across every banner.

Cade stopped in his tracks. Steel kept walking a few paces forward before taking notice - at which point he too stopped. The man gave Cade an annoyed grunt. Cade grunted right back, only in an exaggerated mock fashion.

“Hold your horses, jackass,” Cade said. “How about we don’t walk right up to their front door?”

“Are you tired or something, wanna set up a picnic back here? Make the boss wait even longer for this godforsaken job to get done?” Steel bit back. “Hope you packed some sandwiches then, because I didn’t pack for a pleasant afternoon getaway.”

“No, I wanna make sure we know what we’re getting into before we go storming in.”

Steel huffed, but stayed in place. Cade shook his head and removed his backpack, placing it on the ground in front of him. He rummaged through it for a moment and took a pair of binoculars out. They were a bit awkward to press against his mask and didn’t provide the best view of things, but he made it work just enough to observe the towers ahead.

Within each tower was an armed individual. All of them carried aged bolt-action rifles. Too old to be laser weapons, Cade reasoned. Scrap metal armor adorned their bodies, painted a knightly shade of silver. They weren’t operating the spotlights, those moved on their own. Cade trailed the binoculars downward with the beam of one, down to the base of the walls. The main entrance was hard to miss. A large set of double doors. About as ornate as scrap possibly could be. Guards stood post outside it, armed with… swords?

Cade removed the binoculars from his eyes. “Lots of guards.”

“Lots? Let me be the judge of that.” Steel snatched the binoculars from Cade’s paw and began examining the place. “Hmphf, odd choice of weapons this lot uses.”

“Old ones, doesn’t seem like they get out much.”

Steel held the binoculars down, but didn’t gesture them out towards Cade. The fox took it upon himself to swipe the pair back for himself, tucking them in his bag right away. Steel responded by drawing his rifle and aiming it towards a tower.

“I’ll take out the guys in the towers, you move in and-”

“That’s stupid,” Cade interrupted. “Are you stupid? Shoot one of ‘em and the rest can trail that laser back here and shoot us both, bonehead.”

“Not if we take them out fast enough.”

“Okay, yeah. You’re stupid.” Cade sighed. “How about this; you stay here and cover me. Just - get behind a tree or something. I’ll head in and talk to those guys at the gate, see what’s goin’ on. And then, if they shoot me, you can do all the blasting your little heart desires, yeah?”

Steel groaned. “Gotta make a problem out of everything… Fine. But let it be known I’m not risking myself to save you if you get in over your head, fox.”

“Trust me, big guy,” Cade teased. “I got this~”

[Stay tuned for Chapter 2, hopefully coming within the next few weeks. Feedback is welcome & encouraged, this is my first time ever posting an original story I've written :3]

[burnyanocs]

Finally, the 3rd and final trio to show the Robot Guardians! Robots that help with a certain set of npc robots. They also serve to teach the player about the mechanics of the game (as we know some could use a lesson from them /j)

First, we have R3AP3R, also known as R3A. Made to be an admin of the server made to serve as a sort of afterlife to the ghost robots as they can't rest peacefully due to being unnatural. The other design is a rare skin, R3AP3R's casual form, and the form normally used in the digital world.

Next is Rebol, a robot that refused to be decommissioned and went to the scrapyard as a result. He improved his body with scraps and led a group of robots that refused to go down in the same fate, known as the Scrapyard Robots or ScrapBots for short. He comes with a free skin where he wears his cape (similar to hat Mortis.)

Finally, we have a familiar face. It's the robot destroyed by Sam! He's somehow back, now known as Bolter, and takes charge of the robots, also having one goal in mind, destroy Sam Bronson!

Now about the thing I mentioned in the beginning, each one will teach you about a certain mechanic of a brawler. R3A teaches Gadgets, Rebol: Gears and Star Powers, Bolter: Hypercharge, as seen in this chart below. Their Starting Bralwer class is due to their unique unlocking condition, though I guess they aren't really a "starting brawler", huh?

For older players, the quests the unlock them will appear based on the highest Power Level they have. Also I like the idea there would also be an improved training room that helps showcase some things unable to be showcased in the current training cave (Eve going over water, anything with allies, etc.)

And that's all the brawler concepts, I have some reworks and redesigns planned for later this month, so stay tuned!

[thevoidlookedback]

Sometimes I think about putting my essays on substack or something but the idea of getting no views while actively feeding the ai scrapbot makes me want to

So.

[loreetperso]

I know having your ao3 fic being use by an ia or whatever kinda feels like shit but you have to remember :

You are writing fan fiction. The very basis of fan fiction is making a joke of the concept of intellectual property. I don't think being author of a fic should mean be entitled to it or its characters. Knowing the authors of fics is merely a tool for readers to know were to find other fic by the same author because they are likely to like those as well. What do authors of fanfic have to lose by not locking their fic ?

But most importantly if we lock fics too much it will end up arming fanfic sharing sites. What use is ao3 if all the fic are locked ?

Just to be clear, i hate scrapbot as much as any other fanfic writer, but we have more to lose from locking our fic than by letting them scrap our fic.

[tornrose24]

If Emperor Boris and His Army Called the ScrapBots Appeared in Season 3,What Would you Think?

I have no clue who you are talking about. Also is this still TGAMM related?

[avita-anarchy]

And then Jewel would bring Rouge, who would bring Shadow and Omega. She'd bully or blackmail Shadow into coming, and he'd probably spend the whole ceremony making sure Omega doesn't massacre the scrapbots.

I imagine if there's ever a vectilla wedding, the planning would be absolutely fucking bonkers since we got people like Amy, Sonic, and Charmy probably going on a shenanigan-filled subplot with most likely an unwanted appearance by vanilla's ex if the askblog is anything to go off of.

and that's before asking about how their going to secure funds for this.

It’d be the definition of a shitshow, for sure.

You have to factor in all of Amy’s girlfriends. Surge’s start a riot, Blaze would never approve of Vector marrying her real mom, Trip’d ball her eyes out. Belle, being close to Vector, would bring all the Scrapniks, and I mean ALL the Scrapniks. Tangle would be invited by being Sonic and Tails’ true sibling. She’d bring Whisper, Jewel, their parents, Bean, Bark, Lanolin, who herself would bring Mighty and Barry, and Pygmino and all his coworkers. Dave’d be there and cause chaos, surely. Tikal would bring Chaos himself, another shitshow in it of itself.

It. Would be. Madness

[rupertbbare]

Butcher by Longque Chen

[flufflepantsart]

Pic 1: The forced perspective I needed to make Ferrite's arm gun look big enough

Pic 2 & 3: Test renders - figuring out posing and lighting

Pic 4: Final pose, to be edited in clip studio

Pic 5: Edited final render, on card without effect text

[is1of1]

Today, I go into Black Rock Depths again. Looking for a Schematic for my engineering which will lead eventually to making the best repair/vendor bot ever.

I was able to just buy everything on the Easy Server for it. Now I have to put in the work. First, I must construct Field Repair Bot 74Ax2 - the recipe for which is in BRD......................

Then I must construct Field Repair Bot 110G x10 - the recipe for which is in Blade's Edge Mountains (Outland) from a specific piece of trash (literally).

Then I must construct Scrapbot Construction Kit x 20 - the recipe for which is a quest reward for an area that I have been avoiding like the plague so Im not super excited about that.

After that, Step 2. Mostly its a pain to farm the schematic itself for Jeeves in the first place. Im sure I shall spend thousands of gold out of laziness.

75 kills later and the damn thing finally dropped and now my Look is complete. I am never going into Black Rock Depths again!

[heavymetalrobotics]

ARC Scrapbots Event Report Part 1

It's time to get started on our event report from ARC Scrapbots Challenge! This was a very unique event unlike anything else in robot combat so this report is going to be a little different than usual. In this part I'll explain the event format a little bit and go through the first stage, and then in subsequent parts I will go through each of the fights in detail.

In most robot combat events, competitors arrive with their custom made fighting machines that they've spent hundreds or thousands of hours designing, building, testing, and engineering to be at peak performance in the fighting arena. Scrapbots Challenge is quite literally the opposite. Every single robot that competes must be built at the event, in 3 hours (roughly). Competitors are provided with a common, basic electronics kit consisting of motors, electronic speed controllers, and a battery. They are then tasked with constructing their robot using nothing more than what can be found in a large pile of household junk. The format is based on the old TV show Scrapheap Challenge (called Junkyard Wars in the US). That was once one of my absolute favorite shows, and I have long talked about wanting to try a similar thing in combat robotics. When the opportunity came up for me to participate in ARC's version I jumped at it immediately. Silly combat robots are my favorite kind and here was an event consisting entirely of silly robots!

The event took place at a makerspace, so there were plenty of tools freely available for use to build our robots with. Upon arriving, each competitor was instructed to add their own household junk to the pile on the table, and then given a small numbered token. The pile was quite small when I arrived but had nearly doubled in size by the time the event began. All manner of random objects could be found in the pile: disposable cutlery, plastic food containers, VHS boxes, old cell phones, computer speakers, broken children's toys, bits of rubber, old 3D prints, lego pieces, aluminium drink cans, and much, much more. Anyone could pick what they wanted from the pile, so there was no guarantee that something I could see early on would still be there when it came time for me to pick the scrap for my robot.

The numbered tokens were an important part of balancing the difficulty curve of the event. People who were new to combat robotics were drawn into groups 1 & 2, while those with experience were placed in groups 3 & 4. When it was finally time to begin, the groups were each called one at a time in numerical order and given 3 minutes to pick 5 items from the pile to use for their robot. This ensured that the less experienced competitors had the best selection of pieces to choose from, and more time to work on their robots while the later groups were still picking through the pile. I ended up in group 3.

Rather than waste precious time sitting around while the first two groups were picking their parts, I had a look over the electronics kit and began to lay them out so I could begin planning my robot. After all, there was no sense in picking out pieces that would be too small to hold everything. In addition to the electronics, there were also 3 different sizes of 3D printed hubs to make it simpler to attach things to the motors. I had one of the "spinner" kits (the other kind was a "lifter" kit) which meant I would need to also plan for a spinning weapon for my robot.

When my group was called to the scrap pile, I had a difficult time finding suitable parts. Many of the good pieces had already been taken by groups one and two, and I quickly ran out of time before finding what I wanted. Once every group had their chance to pick through the pile for their initial parts, it was opened up for anyone to go in and get more pieces whenever they wanted. I ended up spending a LOT of time going back and forth looking for more parts, something I definitely need to improve on the next time I try an event like this again.

What I ended up picking the first time around were two bottle caps with holes in their centers, a clear plastic bowl, a giant googly eye, and a sheet of thin green plastic that was very flexible, similar to the material that file folders are made from. I was hoping to use the bottle caps as wheels, the plastic sheet as a base plate, and the bowl as a shell for the robot. But everything else the robot needed I had no idea for and had to figure out as I went.

I didn't have much of a chance to take photos during the building process because of the limited amount of time available. Pictured above is what I constructed for the base of my robot. I cut a square out of the green plastic as a base plate, then cut small rectangular recesses in the sides to mount the drive motors in. I spent probably far too long cutting up an aluminium drink can (from an energy drink I think) to fold into motor mounts. While I knew I could simply hot glue the motors into place, I was anxious about the risk of the glue getting into the exposed gears and locking them up for good. Further, glue doesn't help much to resist torque, so I wanted a direct mechanical connection to take that load. I ended up folding the aluminium into a roughly omega shape (Ω) so I could fold the "wings" under the base plate and glue them in place. Some creative slots cut in the aluminium also meant I could slide them into the recesses in the base plate, further adding to the mechanical strength of the connection. This was honestly my favorite part of the whole build. It's been a VERY long time since I have tried to work with joinery techniques, and also quite a while since my brain has gotten a good creative workout like this.

Knowing that traction would be a problem with bare metal wheels, I found a small strip of foam rubber, cut it up, and glued it to the outside of the bottle caps as a wheel tread. I then used the smallest of the 3d printed hubs provided (which I cut down further) to mount the bottle caps to the drive motors. Several times the glue holding the hubs to the caps came loose, probably because of how smooth the metal was, so I ended up scratching up the inside of the caps to add texture for the glue to adhere to better.

By this point I had decided to build a robot type called a Shell Spinner. So to mount the weapon motor vertically, and keep it stable so it wouldn't come loose, I hot glued a Lego Technic piece down the center of the base plate and press fit two wooden dowels into it. Then I duct taped and hot glued the weapon motor between them. Keeping this as close to vertical as possible at all times was super important because the clearances between the chassis and spinning shell would be quite small.

(Forgive the post event photo, I didn't get a good picture of the finished chassis at the event.)

For the rest of the chassis, I found a metal bracket that just happened to be the exact shape of one side of my robot, so that got duct taped as the front wall. Not able to find any other scrap that was particularly suitable I dug out some foam board from the pile, cut it up, and used it for the back and sides of the chassis. At this point I was running out of time. I think I only had 45 minutes left when I started working on the chassis walls, and I didn't even get around to the shell yet! To cover over everything I picked out a plastic lattice that had once been part of a model kit and had all the pieces removed from it. I thought that it would be pretty cool and unique to have a sort of "cage" over the top of the robot rather than a solid opaque lid so that the electronics could be seen through it.

With the chassis mostly finished it was time to work on the spinning shell weapon. At first I thought about securing the "teeth" to the sides of the bowl by running them through it, but the first attempt at puncturing it resulted in the bowl cracking. Not having enough time to sort out alternate solutions, I simply hot glued the pieces directly to the outside surface. This was very tricky as I needed to hold everything at an angle to a curved surface while the glue set and cured. Somehow I managed to get them attached the way I wanted, with one piece supporting the other so they wouldn't just break off the first time they hit anything. I ended up using the handles of disposable razors because they were orange. At the time I was thinking about theming the robot based on one of my old designs from video games (which was orange) but ultimately I decided against it, and by this point it was too late to change things.

You may be wondering why I used the handles of razors instead of the sharp blades themselves for the weapon teeth. The answer is simple. If I included anything as sharp as an actual razor blade I would also need to make a safety cover for them so that nobody would get injured while handling the robot outside the arena. Time was rapidly running out (I think I had maybe 10 minutes left at this point) so that wasn't an option.

With the remaining few minutes I glued the cut-off parts of the wheel hubs from earlier to the bottom of the robot to keep it from tilting forward and back too much. Then it was decoration time! Shell spinners are not a particularly appealing shape (they are round almost by definition) so I felt I needed to do something to make it look nicer. A few small googly eyes around the top of the shell and a plastic egg in the center did the trick. I had initially thought about the big googly eye going on top but it was larger around than the shell and blocked the view of the chassis inside. I'm pretty sure one of the other builders at my table ended up using it in the end. Lastly, I happened to find blue, pink, and white straws in the pile, so those got glued to both sides of the shell to add some more color while it spins around.

I don't have any photos of this next part so have one of the makerspace as it was set up for Scrapbots.

Not long after I finished the decorations, time was called. At this point it was mid-day, and the event had a 1 hour break for lunch. However, we were all permitted to spend our lunch break however we saw fit. Those who had finished their robots went out to get food, while many kept working through the extra hour to get their robots finished. I was one of those who kept working.

First up was testing to be sure the controls worked properly and the shell would actually spin. To my surprise, I had mistakenly calibrated the fail-safe in the radio system incorrectly. I had assumed that a single direction spinner would use the throttle stick on the transmitter from zero percent at the bottom to 100 percent at the top. However, the electronic speed controllers provided were bi-directional which meant that they treated the middle point as zero, and the bottom as -100 percent throttle (full speed reverse). So when I tested the fail-safe by shutting off the transmitter, the weapon turned on at full speed in reverse. Oops. I eventually solved this by moving the weapon control from channel 3 to channel 4 on the radio, which meant that it was controlled by moving the throttle stick from side to side. This not only was already set to fail-safe correctly, but it made it easy for me to control the weapon. I could simply let go of the stick and the spring would push it back to the center zero position to shut the weapon off.

The bigger issue though, was that the weapon didn't actually spin! The clearances between the chassis corners and the inside of the shell were too small, and at some points in the rotation they would rub against each other. Essentially the chassis was acting as a brake. I spent most of my lunch hour cutting and grinding away at the corners of the chassis to try to free up the weapon. In the end I made it work, but there was still some slight rubbing which would occasionally stall the weapon out during fights.

Finally, before fights were to begin, we had to weigh our robots. Normally ARC runs robots in the 150 gram weight class, but for Scrapbots the weight limit is increased to 250 grams. Part of the reason I chose to make a shell spinner is because of how challenging it can be to keep those designs within the allowed weight. The shells are usually really heavy, and so the chassis needs to be small and compact to account for that. Well, it turns out I did too good of a job on that front. My finished robot only weighed 157 grams! Without the decorations it would be completely legal to run in the normal 150g antweight class. Next time I try a competition like this I plan to make a larger robot that uses the full weight limit.

That brings us to the end of the building portion of Scrapbots! Up next will be the fight reports from each time my little robot was put into the arena. Everyone got 3 fights to qualify for a knockout bracket, so there was plenty of robot fighting action to be had. Tune in then!

[demosifos]

Scrap Bot 5-1

[lynnbecks-gaming-sideblog]

The first Mechanos robot, it's the Scrapbot! These little guys roll around, breaking down metal and machinery and turning it into Scrap Blocks. Why do they look so sad? Well, wait for the beta release to learn the lore™!

Top to bottom:

Idle

Random alternate idle (more on that below)

Walk

"Swim"

Death (including a brief minesona cameo, albeit a robotic version)

This is the first mob I've done for the mod that has an alternate idle animation; the way I hope it'll work is that, every tick, there will be a very small chance that the animation will play.

Bonus flapless death anim below, to show how the gibs work.

[lynns-mods]

Even though I'm not currently working on the Solar System Mod, I am fiddling with mob models and textures, including updating the developer-cameo in the Scrapbot death animation to match my current skin.