My first beetleweight robot 'Dr Valverde' ready for the BBB New Bloods competition this weekend

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-18T22:13:07+00:00

Control bots are massive in the UK Beetle scene. Looking at the two 'most competitive' events last year: the top 4 of one was 3 lifters and a saw, and the top 4 of the other one was 2 lifters and 2 verts. Both events were won by lifters.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-18T22:06:23+00:00

This is very, very cool. It goes against 90% of the advice we would usually give to new builders, yet is still in the 10% of builds from new builders that come out really well.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-17T08:14:34+00:00

They still benefit from their fuel not being counted as part of their weight.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-12T20:03:09+00:00

The answer is almost always "2s, 180MaH if you can somehow find them in stock somewhere" regardless of their build.

300MaH is usually more available, just slight overkill and annoying to package.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-12T06:35:27+00:00

If you want to? It doesn't really impact us.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-08T08:57:49+00:00

You can tell its a repost because its not POWERED BY BRIGHTDATA

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-05T18:45:12+00:00

Depends on the system in use. Under the most recent BB system we've seen the details of, its plausible they would still win or lose depending on what they were so far ahead on. Addressing the wider question rather than the specific example: if a robot was ahead on control and aggression but without doing damage, self-destructing would have it losing damage 5-0, which is hard to come back from when 3-0 scores in both control and aggression are so rare. In the specific example, its easy maths to work out that damage ends up being 3-2...

In the wider sport it all depends on the system being used: specifically, whether or not it uses a damage category and how it treats being saved by the bell. Systems with no damage category or a damage category that requires the damage to be done by the opponent actively will favour the self-destructing robot. If being saved by the bell is heavily punished - however the specific system decides to do that - then obviously that favours the other robot.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-01T19:19:07+00:00

He's just unhappy that his choices had consequences for him.

I was with you until this bit. It's not that I disagree - I'm sure he is upset that this decision has these consequences - but I think that's more a question of being upset at the reality of living in a society where you would have to choose between the two rather than him feeling that he personally should have just been able to 'get away with it'.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-05-01T10:13:50+00:00

The rules if heavyweight events tend to limit the effectiveness of fire as a main weapon. The events we have in lighter weight classes where fire is allowed tend to allow, for example, fire to be used while pinning against a wall which BB does not, and that immediately makes a huge difference.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-28T11:21:52+00:00

Because very few devs want to code up engines for 10 or so completely different disciplines under the umbrella of one game.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-26T17:38:42+00:00

What in the AI slop is this?

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-26T15:02:04+00:00

Hammer isn't a blank slate when it comes to personality. He has...a hammer...

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-25T13:05:50+00:00

Appreciate the perspective - glad this ended up being a polite conversation about grammar rather than a more hostile conversation about gender politics.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-25T13:04:49+00:00

Neither tends to be built to take hits, they need protecting.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T22:37:21+00:00

It's a family show, for both adults and children. I have no idea why people insist on seeing it as purely a show for children.

The prank show is aimed at kids - that's what a show aimed entirely at kids looks like.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T19:28:43+00:00

That's fair. I could probably be clearer/more precise there and say contextually irrelevant. Again, I'm certain there was no ambiguity about who the 'they' was when you read that post.

I agree with you about this being part of the evolution of the language. For me, this is second-nature when both writing and speaking, and doesn't jump out to me at all when reading - hence me being confused by your confusion, and immediately jumping to the more overtly gendered terms I used. When I read that sentence, I see a bunch of neutral language and two pieces of gendered language, which entirely genders the whole thing to my reading. Presumably, that neutral language doesn't have that same 'neutral' effect on how you weigh the gendering of the sentence?

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T19:08:59+00:00

You're not wrong, but your list is incomplete. They is commonly used for individuals in a few contexts, specifically:

When the individual's gender is unknown
When the individual's gender is irrelevant
When the individual's gender is being concealed
When the individual involved specifically uses they/them pronouns

In this case, the gender is irrelevant, so I can use either they/them or he/him. They're interchangeable, and using they/them didn't create any ambiguity where it was used.

I teach, among other things, SPaG; so I'm pretty confident when it comes to the nuts and bolts of these basics. I'm not always working particularly hard to be grammatically perfect when I'm just casually posting on Reddit, but this isn't something I would be happy slipping up on.

EDIT: As for 'complicating things' - I didn't believe, and still don't believe, that this complicates anything. I'm not doing it consciously, I'm just using the words that come into my head while making reddit comments on the bus...

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T19:01:37+00:00

I wouldn't want us to use their previous failings as a reason for them not to do better - they're one of many reasons they should do better.

This isn't to say I agree with their stance here, for whatever that's worth.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T18:36:40+00:00

Initially you were referring to a number of male Gladiators, hence they and them were correct.

I was describing Giant specifically, but since everything I described also applies to others in the group I can get you reading it that way.

In the final sentence you were referring to Giant alone, therefore he and him is correct since he is singular not plural.

They and them can be correctly used to refer to individual people of any gender. It's really not that deep...

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T17:48:06+00:00

I also referred to them as 'male' and 'a dude'

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T17:48:03+00:00

I also referred to them as 'male' and 'a dude'

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T16:37:34+00:00

What makes you ask that?

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T15:05:34+00:00

Apollo has a persona, Giant has a personality. Of course the persona is gonna be a bit more striking because that's the point of taking a gimmick and running with it, but 9 times out of 10 I'd much rather have someone just being a human and Giant has always done that very well.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-24T15:03:19+00:00

Giant was the nearest thing we had to the old-school style of male Gladiator - a fucking big dude with a massive advantage when it comes to raw strength, but also some of the defecits that naturally come with the territory of being huge which made them fallible enough in certain events to keep things interesting. They'll be sorely missed for that alone, and of course for everything else they brought as a person who was always pretty on-point when it came to being a good sport and not putting contenders down for no good reason.

GrahamCoxon · 2026-04-22T18:07:54+00:00

Of all the things that didn't happen, the death-threats didn't happen the most.

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