Topic: 1337

[VANGUARD]

I'm #6 on that, which sadly I knew for a while.

[Scyphi]

Sixth isn't so bad. You've got more posts than Techpro.

[Kaiaatzl]

I'm fourth  .

[Alieo]

Make it say "leet" from posts 1337 to 1399, then at 1400... I dunno... What's higher than platinum?

Actually... I think we should have them as PTMC robot rankings, newbies starting off as Class 1 Drones going up to tougher and tougher robots until you get to the D1 Level 27 boss,

[-<WillyP>-]

I like the idea of D1 bots! I don't know all the names, though. Make a list.

[VANGUARD]

if you do that and I end up with one of those "annoying" robot names, I'm going to take it personally 

[NUMBERZero]

Guide Bot

[Kaiaatzl]

Red Hornet.

If I can find my copy of the D1 Strategy guide it had a pretty good list of all 20 D1 robots by difficulty.

[VANGUARD]

Guide Bot

you know it's programmed to have the guidebot be annoying. When he fires a flare at you, it triggers a "sorry about that."

you take aim at the guidebot with a mass driver, "hey guidebot, there's something on your windshield" 'evil emoticon'

[SaladBadger]

medium hulk
medium lifter
"Spider" Processor
class 1 drone
class 2 drone
cloaked driller
cloaked medium hulk
class 2 supervisor
secondary lifter
heavy driller
gopher
platform robot
polyhedron
baby spider
fusion hulk
SuperMech
boss 1
cloaked lifter
class 1 driller
light hulk
advanced lifter
PTMC Defense prototype
final boss

[Alieo]

Okay, let me comprise a list, not necessarily in order of robot's appearance, but in order of "threat" level.

Threat level-wise, according to PTMC briefings, here's what I have:

NONE:
 - Red Triangle (Only appears in the Descent Mission Builder. Would be a good classification for newbies under 10 posts. The Red Triangle can represent the computer personality chip the newcomer will grow into.)

MINIMAL:
 - Class 1 Drone

AVERAGE:
 - Class 2 Drone

LOW/MEDIUM:
 - Class 3 Gopher Robot

MEDIUM:
 - Small Hulk
 - Secondary Lifter
 - Class 2 Platform Robot

MEDIUM/HIGH:
 - PTMC Defense

HIGH:
 - Medium Hulk
 - Medium Lifter
 - Spider Processing Robot
 - Class 1 Driller
 - Class 2 Supervisor Robot
 - Advanced Lifter
 - Large Hulk

VERY HIGH:
 - Class 1 Heavy Driller

EXTREME:
 - Fusion Hulk

EXCEPTIONAL:
 - Super Hulk (Level 7 Boss)
 - Ultimate Hulk (Level 27 Boss) [I've heard this being referred to as "End Hulk" on one website, can't remember which, but I think "Ultimate" is a better synonym for "End" especially when referring to this beast.]


Okay, now that they're ordered in a groups of threat level, let's see if we can, at the same time, classify them into better organized rankings. Some "less threatening" ones may surpass "more threatening" robots in the following list, but this is for the sake of keeping drones, lifters, hulks, drillers and bosses altogether:

 - Red Triangle (was this called something else?)
 - Class 1 Drone
 - Class 2 Drone
 - Class 3 Gopher Robot
 - Secondary Lifter
 - Medium Lifter
 - Advanced Lifter
 - Small Hulk
 - PTMC Defense
 - Spider Processing Robot
 - Class 2 Platform Robot
 - Medium Hulk
 - Class 2 Supervisor Robot
 - Large Hulk
 - Class 1 Driller
 - Class 1 Heavy Driller
 - Fusion Hulk
 - Super Hulk
 - Ultimate Hulk

Okay, so some of the hulks got separated, but who wants to go from Class 1 Heavy Driller to Small Hulk then all the way up to the bosses? It's gotta be somewhat linear.

Anyways, this list is of course up for debate. Let's hear your input. Is this a good ranking system order for robots?

[SaladBadger]

- Red Triangle (was this called something else?)

the code calls it the "polyhedron", while the bitmaps.tbl file calls it the "splitpod". I'm not really sure what it's supposed to be, honestly.

[Alieo]

Split Pod! That's right! I forgot what it was. Have you seen it in the mines? I put it in once. It has the robot noise of a Medium Lifter "see" and does nothing but float. It seems to have the AI of the lifter series and occasionally charges you. Well, it doesn't really charge you, it just goes right up to you and does nothing. And they flash red if I can remember correctly. Worth 100 points. Could be an excellent newbie robot designation.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I omitted the cloaked bots because those can be seen as the same robot with a cloaking device power up.

OH! And what is "SuperMech?" Is that one of the bosses, or even Fusion Hulk?

[Kaiaatzl]

SuperMech is what the D1 FAQ and the level editors called the red hulk.  I just call them heavy hulks or red hulks, and some call them large hulks.  They definitely are hulks .
Incidenatlly, did you notice the colour scheme on the three 'main' hulk bots?  Small hulk is green, Medium hulk is amber brown, and the heavy hulk is red.  Remind you of anything?
Also I believe the D1 strategy guide called the final boss the end hulk.  I'd check but the pages for the level 27 walkthrough fell out of the book years ago.

I'd classify the heavy drillers as about the same difficulty as the normal drillers.  Their weapon is powerful but it's pretty easy to dodge in most places, and they have heavy armor but they stun easily.  In fact I say they're slightly easier than the regular drillers because they're so easy to dodge (for me at least).  And they're only a little harder to hit than the regular drillers.  And they're never cloaked.

[SaladBadger]

Oddly enough, the split pod is supposed to have a projectile attack -- it's set to use the robot blue laser and it's melee flag is not set -- it simply never fires, however, as it has no guns defined. I believe that the red homing missile guy is also called the Supermech in the source.