Post Reply to [CF2025] Bot Arena 3 Single Robot Challenge

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Thread Review (Newest First)

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 07:02 AM

Welcome back to the Bot Arena!
"What happened? It feels like I've been switched off for a year!"
Uhhh, procrastination happened. Sorry.
"Who the hell procrastinates on something for an entire y-"
AAAAANYWAY, today's match is against Pulse and Surge of the Vulcandome arena! With some light cheating again.

"Whatever. Just put me back in the arena before I get rust in my- is that a fucking drill"

Yyyyyup, that is, in fact, a drill. Pulse and Surge are both equipped with the Circes XT, a powerful plasma weapon that isn't available to us in the shop yet.

"Oh. I didn't realize there were weapons like that. Scary..."

Like many of the other weapons we've seen so far, the Circes XT has a minimum firing distance of 50 units, and since it does way more damage than we can ever hope to do with any of our other weapons...
"Goddamnit not the jackhammer again."
Well, no. Technically Schmoo will be using a power drill I cheated in for this purpose, which uses the sprite of a weapon we won't be seeing until the end of the game, and reuses the drill sound that plays in the shop when you attach parts to a robot. But she'll be using the exact same technique as before, where she stays close enough to her opponents that they can't fire on her.

"Wow, a sprite and a sound effect to match? Someone's getting more creative with their custom weapons."
And someone else is getting a little too self-aware for my taste.

Let's take a quick look at Schmoo with her new weapon equipped...

And let's see it in action! Skip to 2:56 for the winning attempt.

See you next time! It will not be another year, I promise.
"It better not be."

...Oh yeah. I completely skipped over one of the chassis you would normally have access to at this point in the game, and after completing this fight, you immediately get access to another one. This is the Khacor Electron, which I won't be buying since I now have access to another, better chassis. Whoops.

"I could have had an extra 150 points of shielding that entire time?"

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:59 AM

Welcome back to Bot Arena! Today's match is against Sabre, Rapier, and Cutlass of Skirmesh, but before that, we need to go over one of the new additions to the shop.

"Aaand just like the weapons they're named for, they all look like they belong in a museum."
Schmoo! Rude!

Newly added to the shop is the Porantis R33, a heavy-duty cannon with a low rate of fire and a massive damage output. Its appearance, firing distance, and overall role in combat make it essentially an upgraded version of the Raptor-class weapons we saw way back in the first few matches.

"It's... beautiful..."

[Image: 3_24_07_25_11_11_40.jpeg]

"I'm going to explode so many things with this gun."
...Aaaaaand I'm going to triple-check the safety anytime you're not in the arena.
"What, I can't be excited?"
It's a bit scary when the thing you're excited over is a high-powered cannon that fires ball bearings the size of oranges.

No, seriously, listen to the sound this thing makes when it fires. It's the only weapon in the game to use this sound effect, and it sounds menacing.

As Schmoo mentioned earlier, these robots really aren't that intimidating. Sabre and Rapier can barely scratch Schmoo with their Raptor-class weapons, so the strategy is to focus on eliminating Cutlass first- which is easy, since they have the weakest armor of the trio. I completed this match in my first attempt, so no skipping ahead required here.

See you next time... Assuming I haven't just given Schmoo the power to wipe out all of humanity.
"I would never. Who would manufacture more ammunition for all the different weapons I'd own?"

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:59 AM

Welcome back to the Bot Arena! Today's installment is going to be a bit shorter, as we really only have one new item to cover. Today's match is in The Colosseum against Asklepios, Nemesis, and Hephaistos.

"Jackhammers? Seriously? There's so many better weapon options at this point..."

As you can see, Nemesis and Hephaistos aren't anything too special, but Asklepios is using a weapon we've never seen before- in fact, it's technically not a weapon at all! The Zeni PRS is a molecular distributor that can restore structural integrity to robots by rearranging the molecules on damaged parts, slowly bending them back into shape. Similar tools are used in most workshops outside of matches, but this is the first time we'll be seeing a portable unit in the arena itself.

The redistributor is mounted on the weapons platform of a robot, and it cannot be used offensively- meaning that any robot equipped with one of these will be completely unable to attack opponents. Obviously these aren't going to help us at all, since there's no one else for Schmoo to heal and she'd be completely defenseless with a distributor equipped, but they are going to appear in a few upcoming matches.

For this match we'll be giving Schmoo the Torrika KR-2. Since Nemesis and Hephaistos are both using jackhammers, there's no need for specialty long-range weapons here. Staying out of range of Nemesis and Hephaistos will be the easy part here- the hard part will be making sure to damage Asklepios. Any robot with a distributor equipped is smart enough to avoid enemy robots entirely, even attempting to hide behind teammates when they can, and while we can kind of control Schmoo's movement, there's no way to control her targeting system- she'll always fire at the closest target regardless of what orders she's given. So the difficulty in this match lies in maneuvering Schmoo in such a way that she's able to deal damage to Asklepios without getting hit too much by Nemesis and Hephaistos in the process. Once Asklepios is destroyed, Schmoo will be home free- without a healer, Nemesis and Hephaistos will both go down fairly quickly.

On our first attempt, the enemy team was able to trap Schmoo in the corner, completely negating her range advantage! This level of coordination on the part of the enemy team is extremely rare, so I'm honestly more impressed with them than anything. Regardless, it does mean you'll have to skip to 1:18 for the winning attempt here.

"I'm glad one of us is happy about that. My head is still ringing from that absolute dumpster fire of a match."
You don't have a head. Or ears. Or the capacity to develop tinnitus.

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:58 AM

Welcome back to the Arena! At Schmoo's insistence, we're going to start today off with a rematch against Paradigm and Singularity of The Workshop. I realized after last time I made the custom weapon a little too powerful, so I went back into the ActionScript files and made some adjustments.

Here's the original version of the weapon:

And here's the new, downgraded version:

The damage per shot has been lowered from 140 to 125, the rate of fire has been lowered from 59.4 shots per minute to 49.5 shots per minute, the maximum firing distance has been lowered from 200 to 180 units, and the weight of the weapon has increased from 10 to 12. All this means that we should have a much harder time beating the Workshop with this weapon, bringing this arena more in line with the difficulty of the rest of the game. The increased weight means we're forced to equip Schmoo with weaker armor for this fight, which happens to be the snazzy black armor she was whining about not getting to wear earlier.

"I was not whining. Whining is what robots do when they have too much dust in their ventilation systems."

With that, let's get into the match! Be sure to skip to 2:34 for the winning attempt.

"That's more like it."
I thought you didn't like how difficult the arena was getting?
"Yeah, but that was before I had a reality-bending god gifting me new weapons. If I'm going to cheat, I want it to be at least close to fair."
Okay, I'm not actually a god, just- whatever. I'll explain it to you later.

Now that we have our consciences clear(er), we can talk about the real match for today- Scraptoria 2059! We've also got another chassis upgrade to perform, so we'll cover that as well.

"Why'd the two Slayers get thrown in here with the weakest weapon and third-weakest armor on the market? Did someone just run out of money?"
They're probably decoys, to distract opponents while Reaper does all the damage.
"Horrid. I hope they at least rotate who has to be the cannon fodder."

The new chassis we'll be purchasing today is the Xeroi CLR-2050, its increased weight limit allowing Schmoo to equip some much better armor.

"Okay, this one just looks like a mess. Glad that'll be on the inside."

This chassis in particular is a drastic improvement from the previous one. Even with the latest armor and weapons equipped, there is still a generous amount of room for heavier equipment. If the arena rules allowed, we could even fit two guns on her.
[Image: 3_18_07_25_12_34_03.jpeg]

With that out of the way, Schmoo's ready for her match!

See you all in the next installment!

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:57 AM

Welcome back to the Bot Arena! Today's match is against Singularity and Paradigm of The Workshop. And let's just rip this band-aid off right away: We're going to have to cheat again.

"Aww, only two of you this time?"

As you can see, Singularity has the same armor as Schmoo currently does, as well the Torrika KR-2, a nailgun that essentially functions as an upgraded version of the Darsij. It has a higher rate of fire and deals more damage per projectile, giving it a far higher damage output. Its firing distance is very similar to the Darsij, having a maximum firing distance of 140 and a minimum firing range of 30. Unfortunately, that means that much like the Darsij, we can't beat this thing by getting too close- so that just leaves long distance as our only option. The weapon we originally cheated in for this purpose, the Raptor DT-03, only has half the total damage output of the Torrika, making it far too weak to be a viable option.

"Oooh, I like this one too. This looks fun."
Yeah, well... maybe later. I just finished explaining why you can't use it this match.
[incoherent robot grumbling]

The Torrika KR-2 is available to us in the shop, but that would leave Schmoo with an identical loadout to Singularity, which means that she only has a 50% chance of winning a one-on-one engagement with them, and she wouldn't have any health left over to tackle Paradigm with. Sooooo we need to cheat in another sniper rifle.

"Oh that's a big gun. Are you sure that's okay for me to have right now?"

This rifle normally appears a bit later, but I added the word "prototype" to the name and I cranked the damage down significantly. As you can see, while the range is easily enough to stay outside of the Torrika's range, the damage per minute is significantly lower, making this a... hopefully reasonable option for this stage of the game. Let's see how Schmoo looks with her new less-than-legitimate weaponry!

"I dunno, dude, this still feels pretty powerful to me..."

And with that, we're ready for our match!

Oh. I just... did it on the first attempt. Maybe I went a bit overboard with the stats on this thing. Oh well, a win is a win, and I can go back and refine things later if I want. See you all next time!

"Told you."
Quiet.

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:56 AM

Welcome back to the Bot Arena! Today's match is against Chaos, Beauty, and Splendour at the Gaiacorp Promotion. We'll also be performing another chassis upgrade, as there's a new one available in the shop.

"Wow. What a team setup. Did Spade copy Gaia's homework or something?"
Might be the other way around. But yeah, it looks like it.

The new chassis we'll be upgrading to is the Khacor Smartmove, our first heavy chassis. Like the one before it, this one comes with an improved carrying capacity as well as weighing more on its own. Don't worry, though, we're still nowhere near the weight limit for any of these battles, and we won't even get close with only a single robot.

"Oooh, this one has red blinking lights. That's a plus."
You mean the red lights are a positive development or the steel frame is literally shaped like a plus?
"Yes."

Here's a quick look at how Schmoo's carrying capacity has improved...
[Image: 3_10_07_25_4_35_52.jpeg]

And here's Schmoo all kitted out with her favorite machine gun and a new set of armor.

"What gives? You skipped over the cool black armor and left me with the football getup again, only this time it has rivets."
Sorry, fashion is secondary to combat effectiveness. You can dress up however you want when we're through with the arena.

As Schmoo mentioned earlier, the Gaiacorp team is pretty much identical to Spade's team, the only difference being the weapon distribution and the improved armor. This means our strategy will be basically identical to last time- isolate and pursue a single target while avoiding the others, and exploit the 50 unit minimum firing distance shared by all Raptor-class weapons. Simple enough. This match only took two attempts in total, but if you want to skip to the winning one, go to 0:55.

Don't worry, though, the next match will be significantly more difficult.
"Oh, yeah. I was so worried I'd be facing reasonable odds for once instead of overwhelming ones. Thanks for the reassurance."

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:56 AM

Welcome back to another exciting installment of robot combat! Today's post will be a bit shorter, as there aren't any new weapons or armor appearing in this arena, but our match today is against King, Queen, and Jack of Spade's Battle Royale!

"Seems like someone's got a motif. I'm surprised we're not on a green velvet floor with like, roulette numbers or something."
Do you know how expensive a velvet floor would be to maintain?
"What, have you guys not invented bulletproof, fireproof, explosion-proof velvet yet?"

As you can see, the strategy here seems to be quantity over quality. While the weapons King, Queen, and Jack are packing aren't anything too special, the fact that there are now three of them will make it even more difficult for Schmoo to implement her usual strategy of isolating a single target. The good news is, though, we won't have to cheat for this fight! All three of our opponents are using Raptor weapons, which, as we know, have a minimum firing distance of 50 units. The Darsij, which we saw Sabertooth using last time and which is now available to us in the shop, has no such weakness. As long as Schmoo stays close, she'll be safe from retaliation.

"Yessssss, give me the machine gun..."

Of course, this won't be an easy feat, as she'll still have to maneuver around two other opponents while maintaining a very close distance to the first one, but at least there's a path to success here. This'll take us a while, so skip to 5:50 for the winning attempt. As you can see, our primary method of avoiding fire is to simply arrange the enemy team in such a way so that they block each other's bullets, and take cover behind their bodies after they've been destroyed. This reduces the amount of damage Schmoo takes from the other two robots while she pursues one, exploiting the gap in their firing distance.

See you next time!

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:55 AM

Welcome back to robot combat! Today's match is going to be against Sabertooth and Mammoth of Metalmash 2059. Presumably this is the year the game takes place in? I don't know, you tell me! This game is extremely light on lore.

"Again with the football player getup? I know I saw new armor available in the shop!"

But first, let's address the third and final component of a combat robot- the chassis.

The chassis is the main body of a combat robot. You'll never see one in the arena, since they're always covered by armor, but the chassis is the functional part underneath that makes robots tick. Here's the chassis we've been using for the first three matches:

"Uncool. How would you like it if I removed your skin and posted a picture of you online?"

And here's the chassis we'll be upgrading to:

"Who wrote this shop description? Bot Arena has an N in it. And a space, I think."

As you can see, the new chassis, while more expensive, has a higher maximum weight load. It also has a higher self weight, which is important when considering the weight of your overall team. Different arenas have different weight limits that your team must stay within, but since we only have the one robot, it's basically never going to be an issue for us. The important part is the increased capacity for armor and weapons.
[Image: 3_07_07_25_8_07_26.jpeg]

"Wait. Is that a new robot??"
No, it's-
"After all I did for you, you're going to throw me in the garbage?!? Just like that?!?"
Schmoo, listen-
"You cold-hearted, no-good, sniveling-"
SCHMOO!
"What?"
I was going to remove your memory chip and transplant it into the new chassis. You're not going anywhere.
"...Oh. That makes sense. Why didn't you just tell me that?"

ANYWAY, we can see from the inventory screen above that Schmoo's old chassis had a carrying capacity of 11, while her new one has a carrying capacity of 14. This is a small improvement, but it's enough for Schmoo to have some armor/weapon combinations she couldn't before, like the Overwatch and the Torrika, for instance.

With that out of the way, let's talk weapons. Mammoth only has a DT-01, so they're not too much of an issue, but Sabertooth very much is. They're wielding the Darsij A101-1, a medium-caliber machine gun with a much higher damage output than anything Schmoo has available to her. This is our first instance of the opponent robots having access to weapons that we don't.

"...I want ten."

Unfortunately, this weapon's firing range covers both close-range and medium-range targets. Even with the pneumatic hammer from earlier, Sabertooth would still be able to retaliate, and their machine gun does more damage anyway. We also can't exploit their maximum firing distance, since the DT-02 only has a maximum firing distance of 140 units, and 10 units is just too narrow a margin to reliably maintain. Besides, Mammoth can do the same to us with their DT-01, which has a maximum firing distance of 150 units.

So we can't win by going for melee, and we can't win by staying at range. What can we do? Well... I hate to say it, but we're going to have to cheat.

"Okay so all that stuff I said earlier? Taking it back. You are a worthless flesh sack."
Wouldn't that be taking it forward again? You already took it back when I told you about the brain transplant.
"Shut."

"So it's all code... That honestly doesn't surprise me too much."
Yeah, a human would probably have an existential crisis or something seeing this, but I imagine you're pretty much fine.

To be fair, this game was never designed to be played this way- it expects you to be using two or more robots. I feel like I can cheat a little bit, occasionally, as long as I don't do it too often. Anyway, by editing the ActionScript files of the game itself, I can edit pretty much anything about the game. Weapons, armor, even the enemy encounters! But I'm going to keep things as reasonable as possible. What I'm going to do is create a new weapon for Schmoo to use, one that allows her to win this specific matchup without being unreasonable compared to other weapons available to us. Behold, the Raptor DT-03...

"You just... took the DT-02 and upped some numbers."
Literally yes.

Now obviously, I could just make this weapon deal a million damage and cover the entire arena, but that wouldn't be any fun. I've only slightly increased the maximum range, and given it 10 more damage per shot to keep it on par with other weapons at this stage in the game. It still does significantly less damage than the Darsij, and the weight increase means that Schmoo will have to go back to using the Overwatch R200 rather than using the shiny new armor we just unlocked. Rest assured I'm doing my best not to make this too easy on myself, and I promise I will only do this when absolutely necessary. I tested several different weapon/armor configurations rigorously, but Sabertooth just does too much damage for Schmoo to properly respond- even if she could take out Sabertooth in a one-on-one confrontation, she wouldn't have enough health left over to deal with Mammoth. She needs a situation where she can deal damage safely.

With all that said and done, let's watch the battle! Skip to 2:31 for the winning match.

Yes I'm a dummy and forgot to equip the DT-03 until the third attempt. Give me a break they use the exact same sprite

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:54 AM

Welcome back, robot enthusiasts! Today's match is against Pyron and Manixx at the Chromotex Rally, and boy howdy, is this going to get a lot more difficult.

"Wait. Why'd you give me a jackhammer and not a gun? Did your logic center glitch up or something?"

Well, Schmoo, to put it simply, you just can't beat these guys with a gun. As you can see, Manixx is equipped with the Overwatch R200, which is still the best armor available at this point, and Pyron has the Raptor DT-02, an upgraded version of the weapon from the previous post which we'll take a quick look at now.

"Yeah, that looks cool! Why am I not using that?"

The DT-02 does slightly more damage than its predecessor, at the cost of 10 units of firing range. However, it also has the same weakness as the DT-01, the 50 unit minimum firing distance. Once again, this weapon cannot fire on targets that are too close.

We could just give Schmoo the R200 and the DT-02, since those are the best armor and weapons available to us at the moment, but even those won't be enough to handle the Chromotex gang. Pyron and Manixx are just too close to Schmoo in terms of damage output and health for her to be able to win with this loadout. If she were using the same type of weapon as Pyron and Manixx were, she would be guaranteed to take damage every time she dealt damage. This was fine in the previous two matches, when she was able to isolate targets and outclass the robots individually, but even in a perfect setup where one of the enemy robots waited patiently in the corner while Schmoo dealt with the other one, winning the first fight would still mean losing enough health that the second fight would become impossible. We need to find a way for Schmoo to deal damage without losing health.

"I can see where this is going..."

The Torrika KJ-557 is a repeating pneumatic hammer designed for use as a melee weapon in robot combat. Its maximum firing distance is 50 units, and it has no minimum firing distance, meaning that while Schmoo is in range to deal damage with her hammer, Pyron and Manixx will be unable to target them at all. Of course, maintaining this distance is going to be extremely difficult since all robots have the exact same movement speed as I mentioned earlier, but this is a small price to pay for a setup in which Schmoo deals damage to the target and not the other way around.

But there's another problem.
[Image: 3_06_07_25_8_46_49.jpeg]

The combined weight of the R200 and the Torrika is too much for Schmoo's chassis to handle.

Every robot has a weight limit, which determines the type of armor and weapons they can hold. Heavier chassis have higher weight limits, which means better gear, but we only have one type of chassis available to us right now. So in order to use the Torrika, we're going to need to swap Schmoo's armor out for the previous one we used- the Chromotex Light that she had all the way back in the first post. This armor only weighs 4 units (again, no further information given in the game) which gives Schmoo just enough capacity to handle the jackhammer.
[Image: 3_06_07_25_8_47_09.jpeg]

"You're kidding me, right? You want me to go in there with zero range and less armor??"

Fortunately for her, this will only be a temporary arrangement, as we will unlock the game's second chassis after we beat this match- and this one will have a higher weight limit on it. For now, let's take a quick moment to look at our very upset robot.

"This is a bad idea. I can't believe you're making me take a jackhammer to a gunfight."
Well, it's definitely not a good idea...

Oh yeah- I forgot to mention that both of the previous videos consisted of all of my gameplay from start to finish- I just managed to beat the first two arenas on my first try! If you don't want to sit through several minutes of Schmoo getting blown up (she gets better) I'd suggest skipping to 7:04.

Tune in next time when we cover chassis upgrades in a bit more detail! And don't expect this to get any easier, either...

"Shit."

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:52 AM

Welcome back to the robot combat zone! Today we'll be fighting Crash and Burn of Tory's Junkyard, but first we've got to cover some new additions to the shop. After every match, the shop will update with new chassis (more on those later), armor, and weapons for your robots to use. It's generally a good idea to keep your robot up to date with the latest parts, especially if you've only got one of them.

The only new item in the shop we need to worry about is the Overwatch R200 (no relation, this game released well before the other one you're thinking of).

"Ooh, this one has lights on both sides. Truly an innovation in engineering and design."

Armor in this game isn't that exciting, so we won't be covering it too often. All it does is determine how much shielding a robot has, which determines how much damage it takes from attacks. The better armor you have, the longer the bot lasts. There's no other effect you get from armor- all robots are the same size and move at the same speed. The only other thing you have to be concerned about is your chassis' weight limit, which we'll be covering in the next installment.

Here's what Schmoo looks like with the new armor installed.

"I don't like it. I look like an American football player."

Now let's talk about the robots she'll be facing- Crash and Burn. Crash isn't anything too special, they have the exact same weapon as Schmoo, but with weaker armor. Burn has the same armor as Crash, but their weapon is a bit more interesting- they're using the SPKL-D4, which has technically been available to us the whole time, but I haven't bothered using it. We'll see why in a moment.

"You know what, actually, I'd rather look like a football player than have a trash can for a face."

While this weapon looks intimidating at first, having a higher fire rate and damage per minute than the Raptor DT-01 that Schmoo has, the real story lies in the firing distance. Unlike the DT-01, this weapon has no minimum range and a maximum range of 120 units, making it ideal for close-range combat. However, you'll recall that the DT-01 has a maximum range of 150 units, giving Schmoo a generous 30-unit window where she can deal damage to Burn while remaining completely safe. Another crucial detail that isn't mentioned in the stat screen is the weapon's accuracy. All weapons in this game have a slight firing arc, meaning the bullet will deviate slightly left or right from its intended path. Most of the time this isn't very noticeable, but with this weapon in particular, the firing arc is extremely wide, making it miss around half of its shots. This means that the damage per minute calculation in the stats screen is a bit misleading- it assumes that every shot will connect, which doesn't always happen.

With all that in mind, the main strategy here is to just stay out of Burn's reach. Crash is easy enough to handle since Schmoo has more health. As long as Schmoo doesn't take too much damage from Burn, this match should be fairly straightforward.

"...That was even easier than the first one. Are they all going to be like this?"
...No. Definitely not.

Posted by knux400 - 08-29-2026, 03:52 AM

The following posts were originally posted on the Creaturefest 2025 thread, a month-long event where many different members of the Morbit community would play through various games and share their experiences with others! Go check it out, there's a lot of neat stuff in there.

Anyway, I recently had the urge to continue this playthrough, but given the thread has been inactive for over a year now, it seemed a bit weird to hijack that thread just so I could get off my ADHD-having butt and revive an old project out of nowhere. So instead, I'm copying all the existing posts to this thread and continuing from there!

Hey everyone! It's the local robot enjoyer here.

I was racking my brain trying to come up with a game to play for Creaturefest, since I don't really play any "pet" games. After thinking about it, I realized this was an opportunity to revisit a beloved series of flash games from my childhood, the Bot Arena series. For those who don't know, the Bot Arena series is a trilogy of flash games made by Luke Haillay that involves building, managing, and upgrading a team of roombas with guns highly sophisticated combat robots. The gameplay is very simple, and the reason I chose it as a "pet" game is because you do not actually have direct control of your robots- you just equip them and let them loose in the arena against teams of increasingly well equipped enemy robots.

The game I'll be playing today is Bot Arena 3, as it's the only game in the series that gives you the ability to order your robots around, although this still isn't direct control. Sometimes your robots will misbehave, or do what they feel like despite your orders, but it's enough player input that I feel comfortable doing a challenge run of the game! The rules are simple: I can never have more than one robot in the arena at any one time. Having multiple robots in my workshop is fine (and I will be doing this since I'm playing ahead before I make the posts), but only one can be in the arena at once. The game is very much not designed to be played this way- you're expected to have two robots at minimum. This is going to make some levels extremely difficult or downright impossible, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Let's meet our robot!

"She/Them pronouns please!"

This is Schmoo, short for Schmoovement- which they'll be needing a lot of. Poor Schmoo is going to be constantly outnumbered and outgunned, and we'll have to work together to maneuver around and through the enemy team's defenses. Schmoo isn't always going to look like this, since I'll be upgrading them with better armor and weapons after each match. But they'll always have those flashy red highlights! Schmoo will roam around the arena on their own, but I can direct them to either move to a specific spot or follow a specific target. These two commands are essential to victory here, and will allow Schmoo to take down multiple opponents.

Our first match is at the Roxtan Park Arena, where we're greeted by the defending team, Wrecker and Steelheart.

"Oh, look at those baby guns. This should be a cakewalk."

Well...

While it's true that the weapons Wrecker and Steelheart are using do inflict less damage than Schmoo's, there's still two of them, and damage isn't the only important thing about a weapon. It's time to talk about FIRING DISTANCE.

Wrecker and Steelheart both use the Zintex LP, the cheapest and most basic weapon on the market. There's a lot of information here, but what we're concerned with is the firing distance, which in this case is between 25 to 170 units. I have no idea what these units actually are, since there's no name for them in game, but whatever. This means that if an enemy robot is closer than 25 units or further away than 170 units, the weapon will be unable to target them.

Now, let's take a look at what Schmoo's bringing.

As you can see, the damage on this weapon is far higher. But take a look at the firing distance- the range is actually a bit narrower than the Zintex! This is important because it means that there are certain ranges where Wrecker and Steelheart will be able to hit Schmoo, but Schmoo will not be able to hit them. If Schmoo is closer than 50 units away or further than 150 units away, the Zintex provides an extra 25 unit window that allows Wrecker and Steelheart to deal damage to Schmoo with no possible way for Schmoo to return fire.

Luckily, the enemy robots in this game don't have people like me driving them, so they very rarely know to exploit these gaps in firing range. But situations like these, where one robot is able to damage another robot while being safe from retaliation, are essential to beating these arenas while limited to just one robot. Even with the best armor and weapons, Schmoo will always be at a disadvantage due to being outnumbered (and most enemy teams will have the best armor/weapons equipped anyway), so she needs to create situations where the enemy team deals as little damage as possible to them.

With all that in mind, let's take a look at the match and see what we can learn going forward!

"I still don't get why you're making such a big fuss. That wasn't even that bad."
Schmoo you have a literal sliver of health left

As you can see, despite Wrecker and Steelheart's weapons being weaker, they still deal a significant amount of damage to Schmoo. This means that in order to avoid taking damage, Schmoo needs to isolate a single target. I direct Schmoo to go after Wrecker first, as their armor is weaker. While engaging with Wrecker, I make sure to keep Schmoo as far away from Steelheart as possible. Once Wrecker is down, I direct Schmoo to attack Steelheart, making sure to keep their firing distance in mind and avoid getting too close or too far.

One final note: You may notice that I have many of the arenas unlocked, and a bunch of higher-level items in my inventory. This is because I have no idea whether the game is even possible to beat like this, and I'm playing ahead before I go back and record footage. Rest assured that I'm not going into the arena with any armor, weapons, or chassis (more on those later) that I wouldn't have unlocked by that point in the game.

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