Robot Wars Lightning - First Single Fight - Higher Quality

[mattsdragons]

Brilliant battle, would be great to see lightning back in the arena again as you attended the 2011 champs as a static but it appeared all the internals are there, just need some new batteries and a change in radio frequency :)

[Calvertfilm]

@mattsdragons Yes you are correct. That is all it needs. But it does also need a couple of owners that want to do the circuit again, and for the moment the team has other things it is doing (not robot related). But who knows what the future may bring?

[iMacG4Guy]

I love Lighting! Lovely machine!

[Calvertfilm]

@iMacG4Guy Thank you for that :-)

[SeriousGamer2009]

Wow, lightning dominated o_O never really appreciated this robot much before, mainly coz my favourite robots are spinners and storm 2, but that's some fine engineering there =)

[thekingofcoolness1]

cool...you tied your very first fight

[Calvertfilm]

@thekingofcoolness1 We won it actually. All the other 3 robots were immobilised at some point. But the first two to be immobilised got knocked out. Hence one of them crept in by the skin of its teeth.

[2kpal10]

Lightning was a good robot but it needed another flipper other than the side one

[Calvertfilm]

@2kpal10 I think it would have been more effective with a Chaos 2 style flipper but the show didn't want any more wedge flippers. Lightning did have one like this at first before we got on the show. So we went for this more original design. I think we would have got picked for it but we won our qualifier anyway (against Barberous and 2 others - Lightning was the only one left running), and winners got on automatically.

[nooloo3000]

i wanna see gravity and chos2 fight

[SeriousGamer2009]

@nooloo3000 Gravity would annihilate chaos 2 in seconds.

[Calvertfilm]

@SeriousGamer2009 C2 is better driven though. It would be a good fight. I have driven C2 and it is such a well balenced machine too, years ahead of its time in series 3. But Gravity has the stronger flipper. It would be an exciting fight. I wanna see Hypnodisc v Razor.

[SeriousGamer2009]

@Calvertfilm Don't we all? =) Bigger brither stopped that though... =(

[robotbakugan]

did you make gravity



[Calvertfilm]

@robotbakugan No, just Lightning.

[mrfallout261]

Lightning was a cool robot, shame gravity was there B-l

[Calvertfilm]

@mrfallout261 Shame we had a flat tyre at the start. Some roboteers thought the fight would have been even closer....

[SteviiChin]

if ppl dont mind me asking, but y is lightning so important??

plz, any1 reply!

steviichin

[Calvertfilm]

@SteviiChin 'Cos it is my robot. I'm the team leader.

[ohargreaves]

About 0:54 "Wedge shaped, which makes self-righting difficult", JP was a great commentator but could spew rubbish like that.

[Calvertfilm]

True. We self-righted several time against Gravity. We just had no drive in that fight.

[Garfie489]

who was the over seen in this heat

[Calvertfilm]

What?

[Calvertfilm]

Only seed I know of was 13 Black - seed 7.

[Garfie489]

hey laurie when it says weakness:inexperiance in combat what do you mean you had the tag team, trainibg with steel avenger, the 7th wars qualifyers, and all the times you fought with previous robots aint that "inexperianced"

[Calvertfilm]

I put inexperienced on the form because this fight was about our 10th fight ever, and that included earlier versions of Lightning. It was this particular robots 3rd fight only, after the two tag team fights. We had a 'chase' with Steel Avenger in testing but that was it! A robot like Tornado had fought about 150 times at this point.

[ResettisReplicas]

Did you take any damage from 13 Black? For some reason it didn't seem as potent in this series.

[Calvertfilm]

Good question - yes we did. The most damage we have ever got. It cut through one of the side panels, and made a hole in the left flipper arm. But the TV didn't pick this up. Bit of welding later and it was fixed. It was all body damage.

[Garfie489]

hmm at 2:11 the alian seems to knock itself out thats the spot he stayed in from the on

calvert did the alian tell you what happened looks like they knocked their batterys out (thats happened to spinners even hypno disc before|)

[Calvertfilm]

Yes, I believe their own shockwave meant their removable link fell out. This happened as they smashed into 13 Black.

[Garfie489]

yes the removable link makes sense that gets removed game over

remember when hypno disc took outbulldog breeds removable link

brillent macth that was

shame though i liked theyre spinning hammer

[Garfie489]

on the lower quility version we was talking about 13 blacks self righting arm well on this i think i can see it at 4:29

[Calvertfilm]

You can just see it behind the aerial.

[Garfie489]

much better and i can read the stats now

ha it says 2 x flippers but it only has 1

[Calvertfilm]

You know I never noticed that before! After all these years. In Tag Team it had two but in this 7th wars it had all the power in the left arm only as you say. The right arm was bolted down. The weight had gone up to 97Kg as well - too many biscuits :-)

[Garfie489]

when you said too many biscuits it reminded me of when diatore had a vengance macth against sgt bash but a frying pan with onions and other cooking foods on top of it and can you guess the result

sgt bash won

diatore team had dinner

[Calvertfilm]

:-)

[Garfie489]

so say the left arm was damaged got hit by a flywheel or something could you unbolt the right arm and use that

[Calvertfilm]

Not easily because the angles of the ram inside wouldn't fit the other way. One of my responsibilites as the driver was to ensure I only fired the flipper when safe to do so. If I had mistimed it, the flipper could get torn off. So Lightning rams a lot, and only flips when I feel it counts.

[Garfie489]

sounds alot like a mixture of tornado and razer

we ram alot and only use our weapon when it counts

[Calvertfilm]

Lightning & Tornado is a great match because for some reason we have a lot of grunt, and both robots are fairly even in many ways when they have their shovel front on. Both fast, and controlled. Makes for a fierce fight. I admire Andrew their driver too. Along with a few others such as Ian Watts (Bigger Bro), Graham Bone (Firestorm), and a few more.

[Garfie489]

when you say for some reason do you mean that lighting was not meant to be powerful i mean he has good power good wheels you drive him like hes powerful and yep lighting vs tornado is what i want to see in robot wars now ive seen it at lakeside but the one thing lighting has over tornado is that side flipper as when near a wall tornado has to be very carful not to go onto it as lighting can impal him on it

[Calvertfilm]

I say 'for some reason' only because Tornado has 4 wheels and is built for pushing, and yet Lightning can push back. It seems the weight distribution (over the wheels) gives Lightning really good grip.

Tornado team did say Lightning was scissors to their paper (think 'Paper, Rock, Scissors game). Each robot is good against some shapes, poor against others.

For example how long would Razer have lasted against a heat full of spinners?

[Garfie489]

reminds me i once sore a combat chain (like a food chain) of what was good against what

it said wedges were bad against crushers and fast pushers

got one out of the way then

[Calvertfilm]

Exactly. But getting out of the way is easier said than done over a 5 minute fight. So your robot has to be able to take a punch and get back on its feet. Hopefully then it will give out more punches than it takes.

[Garfie489]

can lighting pull your car along then

[Calvertfilm]

Haven't tried it but it should be able to. It has 1.5 horsepower. Lots of traction.

[simav8r]

Cassius Chrome was never my favorite house-bot. He never really did anything.

I remember watcing Lightning fighting on TV here in The States. Great robot!

[Garfie489]

cassius chrome is only good when hes spinning on the spot which is not useful in a cpz only tome he was effective was in the later part of house robot rebelion (because at the bigging he was flipped over and they used the pit to self right him)

[Garfie489]

lighting is a great robot i used to have a tier system i made up for robot wars to explain it its like this for cars 5-supercars 4-sport cars 3-ok cars 2-bad but not complete failure cars 1-Ford escort XR3 i rated it as 4 as it was a great robot nice armor nice weapon and great diver only reason it did not get a 5 inexperiance in combate not getting to semi final and if lighting was upsidedown against a wall with flipper against wall not shore how it would self right

[Calvertfilm]

Well thanks for giving us a 4. I guess that is fair because it would do better with a high power frontal flipper like Gravity. It has the control, push, and everything else.

Against a wall it could self-right as long as the top side was against it. If it was angled with the bottom edge on the wall, it would get stuck, as it did with the Tag Team semi-final against Bulldog Breed.

[Garfie489]

yeah thats what i thought

lol didnt you notice what i put for 1 for cars

also i think 1 more war and a semi final result most (including me) would consider you a top tier robot i think its a great robot just needs the results to prove it know what i mean

anyway it is a high 4

[Calvertfilm]

Oh yeah, XRs a one! :-(

That ain't right.

[Garfie489]

lol i only put that in for a joke

[Headbanger142]

Such a shame 13 Black didn't do well in this season. It had a lot of good robots in its heat. Definately shows how they've improved. I want to see them back in America! Luck be a lady!