BBEANS AI Pack

You've seen them fight in the BBEANS tournaments; now it's your chance to face them yourself and see how you measure up. This pack includes all 125 bots that fought in BBEANS1, 3, and 5, now available as AI opponents, in addition to the following features:

• 25 never before seen bots that didn't make it into BBEANS because they were changed, updated, withdrawn, too late, or illegal.
• New and improved AI for all BBEANS1 bots and some BBEANS3 bots.
• All the arenas used for BBEANS tournaments, including the RA2T2 arena, the Small Arena, and both versions of the BBEANS Tournament Arena.
• Six new events in the Team HQ: BBEANS1, 3, and 5, both 1-on-1 and rumble versions.
• Five new music tracks for the main menu, team HQ, and botlab.
• Some of the DSL sound effects I used while recording stock matches.
• Some new menu graphics.
• The Stacked Supervolt and Nifty Power/Control tournament prizes. But keep in mind that having them in your bot lab is not the same as winning them. You still have to win these prizes in order for them to be tournament-legal.
• Some bonus easter eggs for whoever can find them.

DSL BBEANS AI Pack

You've seen them fight in the BBEANS tournaments; now it's your chance to face them yourself and see how you measure up... in DSL. This pack includes all 128 bots that fought in BBEANS2, 4, and 6, as well as the following extras:

• 32 never before seen bots that didn't make it into BBEANS because they were changed, updated, withdrawn, too late, or illegal.
• New and improved AI for many BBEANS2 and BBEANS4 bots.
• All the arenas used for DSL BBEANS tournaments, including the Electric Arena 2 and both versions of the BBEANS Tournament Arena.
• Six new events in the Team HQ: BBEANS2, 4, and 6, both 1-on-1 and rumble versions.
• Five new music tracks for the main menu, team HQ, and botlab.
• Some new menu graphics.
• Some bonus easter eggs for whoever can find them.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Two lightweights in the pack, The Hummingbird and What Shell Spinner?, use the "Trovaner chassis glitch" to make the chassis extra-thin. An unfortunate side effect of this is that the bots only work in battle if you perform a bit of finagling with the game's graphic quality settings. Please see complete directions for fixing these two bots in the Readme file. (Thanks to Sage for figuring out how to make the bots work.)

Firebeetle's Component Pack

A collection of additional components for you to put on your bot and mess around with. Firebeetle's Component Pack is not meant for serious fighting, but rather just for making unique, fun-to-use cheater bots. You should stick with the parts that come with the game for any bots you plan to share or use online.

Includes:

• Everything from the Test Garage except ramps, now available to put on your robot.
• Consolation prizes for lost tournaments, including Biggie Burgers and Fruit Punch.
• Super powered spin motor, burst motor, air piston.
• Clown Head Bomb - only 1 HP but very powerful.
• Outside mounted battery.
• Acid spike - powerful weapon.
• Loudspeaker - plays music during battles.
• Wildfire battery - compact, light, dishes out lots of power, but doesn't last long.
• Micro motor - smaller, lighter, and less powerful than the Reversible Angle Motor.
• Fortified Extender - more durable, damaging extender, but also heavier.

New to Version 2:

• Component styles work.
• Mega Adapter - Stack components, make stuff floating, mount batteries outside your bot, the possibilities are endless!
• Distortion Field - Blow the dimensions of ordinary components way out of proportion.
• Hammer Motor - Powerful motor that only rotates in a 180 degree arc for making hammer weapons.
• Ghost Wedge - Sinks into the floor but not other bots, making it impossible to get under!
• Sheet Wedge - Big flat wedge for making dustpans or armor plating.
• Neutron Star Piece - The heaviest component ever.
• Antimatter Neutron Star Piece - The lightest component ever. The only anti-ballast you will ever need.
• Refrigerator - Straight from the Robot Wars Arena, it makes an evil weapon.
• Fridgedy Motor - Crazily powered motor to move bots with Refrigerators on them.
• Crusher Motor - The most powerful drive/servo motor ever. It is pretty much unstoppable.

New to Version 3:

• Mini Magnet - A much smaller, lighter, more efficient magnet. Able to be stacked in columns to make ultra-powerful supermagnets!
• Mini Hover Engine - A much smaller, lighter, more efficient hover engine. Able to be stacked in columns to make rocket boosters!
• Infinity Piston - A powerful, tiny piston with extremely long range, not quite infinity but close enough. Burst and servo versions.
• Acid Spikes and Fortified Extenders have new models and skins.
• Clown Head Bombs are more powerful, adjusted attachment point, and an improved skin.
• Biggie Burgers smear ketchup and mustard on opponent's chassis.
• New music option for Loudspeakers.
• New connection points added on the sides of the Refrigerator and Spent Nuclear Fuel barrel for easier attaching.
• Most components have modified damage and hitpoints settings. Acid Spikes and Biggie Burgers now have frequency settings.
• Slightly improved look for Fridgedy Motor.
• And a few silly surprises as well...

New to Version 4:

• Monster Wheel - Huge, damaging monster truck tires that you can run over your opponents with.
• Rocket Wheel - Extremely grippy wheel that will move your bot with insane speed.
• The Sweet Tasty Grapes crate is useful! It is now a cannon that fires grapes that will never stop bouncing around the arena.
• El Tonno Eyes - Separate eye components for the special "El Tonno" style robots, available in four styles.
• HP Fridgedy Motor - Even more crazily powered than the standard Fridgedy for moving bots with more than one fridge.
• Empty Spent Nuclear Fuel Barrel - Lighter and more useable than the 1500kg barrel, but less powerful.
• Fortified Extender txt files fixed - the new model is now actually used.
• All components (except El Tonno eyes) were made non-standard to discourage their use in multiplayer.
• New in V4.1 - Grape Crate collision fixed, it can now be put on your bot.

New to Version 5:

• Fish - A big, floppy fish for slapping your opponent around with.
• Summon: Refrigerator - A small, light platform that will conjure a fridge out of thin air when activated.
• Laser Rifle - The name says it all.
• Mini Laser - Smaller but less powerful version of the laser rifle.
• Energy Spike - Powerful laser spike with almost zero mass, available in 3 colors and 3 sizes.
• Robo-arm - A powerful servo motor with a long arm for making appendages of any sort.
• Smart Zone Ballast - Heavy smart zones for weighting down your bot in unusual ways. Includes a 1,000,000 kg weight for making unstoppable juggernauts.
• Chicken Motor - Tiny motor that easily performs the chicken glitch. (For an explanation see RA2 Techniques)
• Rooster Servo - Servo version of the Chicken Motor.
• Updated cinder blocks with new textures and new connection points allowing you to stack them like a brick wall.
• The Neutron Star Piece is slightly bigger and less likely to make your bot explode in battle.
• Reskinned Ghost Wedges and a few other minor changes.
• 5.1 patch - fixes laser rifle firing problems.

New to Version 6:

• Rocket Jet - A rocket booster you can either attach to your bot for extra speed, or put on the ends of spinners to make them spin crazy fast. You can even fly with them.
• Shield Generator - Projects an immovable bubble that you can freely pass through, but other bots can't. Perfect for hiding behind and pummeling opponents with cannons.

BBEANS Prize Pack

This component pack includes all of the special components you can win in BBEANS tournaments, both stock and DSL. This is meant for your own personal enjoyment--just because you have the prize components in your bot lab, doesn't mean you can use them in official tournaments. You still must win awards in order for them to be legal. For pictures of the prizes and a list of who can use them, click here.

Hammer of Judgment

This is Hammer of Justice's "little" brother. Small enough to fight in most stock arenas, but Hammer of Judgment is still just as unstoppable as Justice. Features some other improvements as well.

Hammer of Justice Pack

This is it: the biggest bot ever made. At almost 40 meters long and 600000 kgs, no normal arena will contain this monster. Perfect for venting your anger and crushing that certain computer bot that's been beating you lately. The pack includes:

• The giant bot (Hammer of Justice)
• A special arena to fight it in (Empty Arena, game type Battle Royal)
• The custom parts used on Hammer of Justice (but hidden because they are nearly useless due to their size and weight)
• Custom sound effects more fitting with such a massive bot

Arenas

Containment Cube

A completely enclosed arena with no flip-out zones and some dangerous hazards to watch out for. The walls are lined with spikes that can seriously mess with horizontal spinners, and there is a hammer and a vertical spinning blade on two walls. Starting positions are also staggered to make box-rushing more difficult.

The official arena for BBEANS AI tournaments, second version. Like V1, this arena features a walled spinning blade, but it is now exposed after 1 minute instead of 1:30. After 2 minutes, the flippers in the corner will activate (after a 5-second warning), upping the danger factor significantly. The flippers are precision-tweaked to launch most bots directly onto the spinning blade for a devastating double-whammy. Other changes from the BBEANS Tournament Arena V1 include a slightly bigger fighting area, completely transparent and slightly higher walls, and the possibility of heavily damaged bots catching on fire.

The BBEANS Tournament Arena V2 does not overwrite any of the files for V1; the two arenas can both be installed at the same time.

WARNING

The BBEANS Tournament Arena V2 uses Madiaba's HazardsBlueRay.py. I have included a copy of this file for your convenience. However, if you have a more recent version of HazardsBlueRay, (check the Date Modified) then do not overwrite it.

All other files are safe to overwrite.

The official arena for BBEANS AI tournaments. A spinning blade hazard sits in the center, but for the first 1:30 it will be surrounded by walls. While up, the walls prevent box-rushing. After 1:30 is up, the walls retract into the floor, exposing the blade. Also features low boundary walls that bots can be flipped over.

This is, without a doubt, the most dramatic arena ever created in RA2. Bots duel on top of a high tower ringed with sinister parapets and torches, surrounded by howling wind, swirling clouds, flashing lightning, and booming thunder. There are no hazards aside from the possibility of being tossed off the tower, but you hardly need any hazards in an arena like this.

This arena was originally a secret easter egg in the BBEANS AI pack, but I figure it's been long enough that I can release it on its own so you can fight in it whenever you want.

Ported directly from the original Robot Arena, this detailed arena consists of a platform suspended over a nearly bottomless pit. An electric fence keeps you on the platform, but don't get too close--the shock damage increases the longer you are on the fence.

In this arena, bots fight on a platform suspended over a pit of glowing plasma that will heavily damage your bot as it shoots it into the air. Get flipped off the platform, and you're probably done for: even if you do manage to escape the death pit, chances are you won't be in any sort of fighting shape. In addition, the platform is surrounded by electric fences that will not only damage your bot, but also subtract points.

This arena is built on a smaller scale for fighting antweight, beetleweight, and lightweight bots in. It's an enclosed box with no hazards except for some heavy bumpers along the walls, which will do slight damage and could also hang up bots with low ground clearance.

The complete opposite of the Small Arena: a limitless arena without walls. Drive as far as you want; you'll never reach a wall or an edge of the floor. A bright light with radiating bluish lines is at the origin, and the sky fades from white to black as you drive further out. If you get lost in the black void beyond, just follow the light to find your way back to the origin.

Originally used as part of an April Fool's joke, this garish arena features bright flashing lights, dizzying patterns, and some wonky cameras. WARNING: Not for the faint of eyes, and especially not anyone with epilepsy! It's not called the Seizure Arena for nothing! If you can't handle the flashing lights, you can turn them off by unchecking "Hazards On" in the arena select screen.

This arena was made for the All-or-Nothing Tournament #2. Features low side walls, spinning pyramid hazards, and unique death pits that will turn your bot into a fountain of debris instead of just eliminating it.

A plain box open on the top, this is the simplest arena you are likely to find. Useful for online play where lag is a big issue, because this arena is about the least laggy you can get.

Firebeetle's first arena. A spherical arena, vastly huge but surprisingly low lag. There is only one hazard, but it is a monster - a tall spinning shaft in the middle that will demolish and fling even the toughest of bots. Plays in-game music also.

AI Essentials

Ever since AI tournaments exploded onto the RA2 scene, making good AI for various bots has been an extremely important aspect of the game. Dozens of custom Python scripts have been written for almost every conceivable bot type. But where do you get these custom scripts? Until now, they've been scattered among various AI packs, individual downloads, and mods. Worse, many different versions of each .py file exist as they have been updated over the years, making it difficult for new players to get into AI'ing.

NO LONGER. The AI Essentials pack contains 15 of the most useful custom .py files, along with a handy list of templates you can easily copy and paste into Bindings.py. All of these files are the latest version as of August 2012. Here's a full list of all the .py files that are included:

• Omni.py
• InvertOmni.py
• InvertOmni2.py
• EcoOmni.py
• SpinupOmni2.py
• Popup.py
• VertSpinner.py
• FBS_2.py
• FBSPlus.py
• FBSInvertDir.py
• Flipper2.py
• BiDirRam.py
• ElectricHammer.py
• LaserguidedV2.py
• Thwack3.py
• Tactics.py (includes Rammer AI v3)
• __init__.py (needed for certain .py files to work properly, also makes AI not gang up on human players in 3- or 4-way battles)

Even if you don't know how to AI bots and aren't interested in learning, download this pack anyway: you should notice a significant improvement in the AI of any rammers or pushers in your game.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Rammer AI v3 relies on Collision Lines in the arena Python files in order to detect walls and know when to stop driving. If there are no collision lines in the arena, the AI will tend to crash into walls and stick there attempting to drive through them. All the stock arenas and all the custom arenas from Clickbeetle and Firebeetle have collision lines; however, some other custom arenas do not. In particular, Lu-Tze's RA2T2 Arena and the DSL Tourney Arena, two popular arenas for tournaments, lack collision lines. Because these arenas are so popular, I've made updated Python files that include collision lines so the Rammer AI v3 will work.

To install, simply paste the files into your AI folder, overwriting any older files. For the arena Python files, copy/paste and overwrite tourney.py (RA2T2 arena) or DSLTourney.py (DSL Tourney arena) in your Arenas folder. (Note that this Python file is by no means a complete arena; you must already have the rest of the arena first for this to work.)

RA2 Cheat Mode Pack

This pack adds Python scripts that enable you to enter new cheat codes in-game for various fun effects. The inputs you need to enter are greatly simplified and more user-friendly than the raw Python they are based on, so anyone can do it. Just press F9 to open the input window, type in "import cheats", hit Enter, type in "from cheats import *", and hit Enter again. Now you're ready to enter any of the following cheat codes. The cheats include:

• help() - comes up with a help menu listing all these cheats.
• clear() - This turns on the FPS again, clearing out this window. Enter clear(0) to turn the FPS off again.
• kill(ID) - Enter the ID number (0-3) of the bot you want to kill in the parenthesis. If left blank it will kill all opponents.
• fly(power, ID) - Type in the amount of power and the ID of the bot you want to fling into the air. Both are optional, you can enter fly() to launch yourself with 800 power.
• fly2() - Exactly the same as fly(), but it will launch you forward. Great for ramming.
• grav(x) - Enter a number to get that amount of gravity. -1 will be upside-down, 0.5 will be half gravity, 4 is super heavy, 0 is no gravity, etc.
• repair() - this will repair your chassis beyond its limit, making it near invincible. You can enter a bot ID in the parenthesis to give it to a specific bot too.
• turbo() - Repairs all of your components, giving you more durable parts and high-powered mechanics. You can enter a bot ID for this one too.
• score(points, ID) - give so many points to a bot. You can leave them blank and enter score() to quickly give yourself 1000 points.
• color(r, g, b) - enter decimals from 0 to 1 for the red, green, and blue to change the sky color, which determines the background color for your robot photos.
• time() - stops the match timer. Enter time(1) to start it again.
• hurl() - randomly throws around all the computer players at 1000 power. Enter a number in the parenthesis for a different amount of power.

The pack requires that you have the 1.3 patch from robotarena.com installed.

WARNING

For convenience, the Cheat Mode pack includes a modified ra2.cfg file that allows messages to be displayed in the F9 window. However, this has the strange side effect of making hidden components visible in the bot lab. If you have any game mods with a lot of hidden parts you don't want cluttering the bot lab (DSL, for example), you may want to edit ra2.cfg and change the line "AIHelpers = 1" to "AIHelpers = 0". This will fix the problem for when you're not using Cheat Mode.

Precision Blueprint Grid

Do you find yourself struggling to eyeball a quarter-box or a third-box when designing a bot chassis to shave off that last fraction of a kg? Then this graphic mod is for you. Each box on the chassis blueprint grid is subdivided into halves and quarters to make precision chassis adjustments a breeze. There are two versions: use the low resolution version if you play the game at 800x600 resolution, and use the high resolution version if you play at 1024x768 or above. Note that neither of these work at 640x480 or at custom widescreen resolutions.

To install, just place the file blueprint.bmp in Robot Arena 2/UI/botlab and overwrite the original file.

DSL 2.0 Sound Effects

DSL 2.0 features some cool new sound effects that will also enhance stock RA2 without affecting gameplay, so they are being offered as a separate download for convenience. This sound effect pack replaces all the impact sounds, the motor sounds, and the match start buzzer with new, more realistic effects.

Bot Lab Graphic Pack

This pack, originally included with DSL 2.0, adds gradient surface layers in 12 types and 12 colors, tint surface layers in 12 colors, and 3 new edge lines: chipped paint, warning stripes, and saw teeth. Extract the files to your Texture Library folder.

Tools

GMF Compiler Material Upgrade

This is a version of Dummy's GMF Compiler that Firebeetle edited in order to enable compilation of reflection maps, additive transparency, and self-illumination maps. The previous version could not read these settings and set them to the defaults when compiling. Just extract the zip file anywhere and run the .exe.

Collision Viewer

You may have noticed that some components collide differently than how they look (they have invisible walls around them). This 'tool' allows you to see what is used for collisions (the collision mesh) during the game. This allows for more precise bot building. The collision mesh for some components might surprise you, but that IS how they collide. Collision Viewer can be turned on and off. It will not affect gameplay in any way except the way you SEE the components. Easy to use and handy when a high degree of precision is needed.

Note: With the RA2 1.3 patch, pressing F12 will perform almost the same function as this pack. However, I am keeping this available because it is easier to see components attached to the chassis.