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Patti Mayonnaise
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Post by Pensacola Tableheads on Aug 30, 2018 11:02:42 GMT -5
Fight card has been announced for the USA vs. The World show. Blacksmith vs. Warhead Captain Shrederator vs. Vanquish Kraken vs. Red Devil Hypershock vs. Reality Sawblaze vs. End Game Plus, the Science Channel extra will take a look at robot competitions around the world. With them on the same channel, any chance they show Robot Wars? Awwwwwwwwww, no Four Horsemen? That aside, I think this is pretty much the last chance for a couple of these to make a serious impact with the selection committee (LOOKING AT YOU, END GAME!). Going on a limb with the predictions, I'll say Warhead, Vanquish, Red Devil, Hypershock, and End Game.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Aug 30, 2018 13:41:49 GMT -5
Fight card has been announced for the USA vs. The World show. Blacksmith vs. Warhead Captain Shrederator vs. Vanquish Kraken vs. Red Devil Hypershock vs. Reality Sawblaze vs. End Game Plus, the Science Channel extra will take a look at robot competitions around the world. With them on the same channel, any chance they show Robot Wars? Awwwwwwwwww, no Four Horsemen? That aside, I think this is pretty much the last chance for a couple of these to make a serious impact with the selection committee (LOOKING AT YOU, END GAME!). Going on a limb with the predictions, I'll say Warhead, Vanquish, Red Devil, Hypershock, and End Game. Battlebots’ Facebook page said these fights won’t count for Sweet 16 consideration. This is just a for fun thing.
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Pensacola Tableheads
Patti Mayonnaise
Metal Maestro: Co-winner of the FAN Idol Throwdown!
Acknowledging the Tribal Chief since 2012
Posts: 38,378
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Post by Pensacola Tableheads on Aug 30, 2018 17:41:57 GMT -5
Awwwwwwwwww, no Four Horsemen? That aside, I think this is pretty much the last chance for a couple of these to make a serious impact with the selection committee (LOOKING AT YOU, END GAME!). Going on a limb with the predictions, I'll say Warhead, Vanquish, Red Devil, Hypershock, and End Game. Battlebots’ Facebook page said these fights won’t count for Sweet 16 consideration. This is just a for fun thing. They mentioned that on Twitter too, but I didn't see it until after my post.
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Patti Mayonnaise
Metal Maestro: Co-winner of the FAN Idol Throwdown!
Acknowledging the Tribal Chief since 2012
Posts: 38,378
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Post by Pensacola Tableheads on Sept 1, 2018 1:05:47 GMT -5
International Fun Time. Woo.
Unsurprisingly, Warhead had to use the jaws against NUCLEAR BLAST-SPONSORED Blacksmith. Easily the best Blacksmith has looked and I honestly thought they won. So did Team Razer, and they seemed surprised that they took the split.
Vanquish was doing fairly well until that hit from Captain Shrederator took out a wheel. AND THEN ALMOST KNOCKED ITSELF OUT ON A REBOUND!!!! Captain Shrederator is so terrible. Yes, Vanquish is pretty much the kind of bot that should be able to win simply by tanking all those shots, but come on, SHREDERATOR ALMOST LOST TO A BOT THAT GLUED GOOGLY EYES TO THE WEDGE.
Speaking of terrible bots, it's Kraken! And... holy shit. Kraken absolutely manhandled Red Devil. I do have to ask, the editing on the match was more like a regular season match and not really supposed to be part of the USA vs. The World special. Am I the only one who thinks they just threw that one in for some reason?
Hypershock hitting Reality weapon-to-weapon probably was not the best idea. They managed to stop the drum but one of their wheels got f***ed and then everything died on them. It's a great bot when everything is working, and when everything isn't, Bite Force guts it and Reality sneaks away with a win.
If that was the last time we've seen End Game this season, they went out on a violent note. Another close fight with Sawblaze, and I felt it was too close to call. Too bad End Game's final fight this year may have been that loss.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Sept 1, 2018 2:45:29 GMT -5
So this episode had two really close matches that went to the judges.
Here’s how I saw the judging most likely going down.
In Blacksmith vs Warhead(which was insanely close), Blacksmith clearly takes the aggression category because it just kept swinging away constantly while Warhead would do a bite every now and then. However the reason Warhead didn’t do many bites is because they were absolutely controlling the fight, so control goes to them. Blacksmith may have constantly been wailing on them but that was partially because Warhead was clamping on them in a way that allowed them to keep swinging up close. Strategy is close to call because honestly both of their strategies were working, Blacksmith’s strategy is solely to swing away and they absolutely did that, but Warhead’s was to corral them and move them all over the box, and let’s be honest strategy usually goes to the robot that wins the control battle, which as I already stated was Warhead. So that’s 1-1 for sure with it bein 2-1 Warhead in most scenarios. So now we get to those 2 damage points.
For the most part neither robot took any obvious damage on the outside. Sure Warhead’s Dino head wobbled around a lot(which, btw, I’ll never tire of, we need more hammer robots for Dino-headed Warhead to fight, please), it it didn’t take lasting damage. It wasn’t warped, welds weren’t cracked in the head. From that mid-commercial footage it seems like Team Razer made it sound like they entered match partially damaged with the only damage they said their robot had was one of the shoulders were damaged but it wasn’t damaged during the fight? So the judges had to give those 2 points to someone, and they might have even given them to Blacksmith because of all the blows it landed, until...Blacksmith started smoking. Then it made it obvious which robot actually was damaged, and that was Blacksmith.
Something was wrong internally in the closing moments of the fight, and even their hammer started going limp, weakly swinging forward. So again Blacksmith was definitely the more aggressive robot, but much like the Skorpios vs Icewave fight where Kenny was all, “But muh damage!!!”, aggression isn’t the only thing that matters in the fight. When it goes to the judges it is one of four categories you have to worry about, and you can be the most aggressive thing in the verse, don’t matter much if you are being pushed to and ‘fro, your many blows ultimately don’t do anything, and you start smoking out and dying.
As for SawBlaze and End Game, that was much easier to explain. End Game did a lot of obvious damage(chewing one of SawBlaze’s wheels up, curling two of the dustpan pontoons up, practically peeling the middle one in two), but for the back half of the match End Game had at first lost its left side drive(and basically crab-walked the rest of the fight, when they even had a chance to drive), before completely losing drive altogether in the last 10 seconds.
So they likely split the damage points, as End Game did do a lot of damage to SawBlaze, some of which actually ended up affecting their functionality(which I’ll get to in a bit), but End Game, you know, freaking died in the end and was severely crippled for half the match on the whole. So 1-1 as we head into the other categories. Aggression and strategy is likely where the judges split up on, because control was clearly for SawBlaze. You ain’t losing control when you have the other dude pinned on the wall for like a solid minute of match time.
Aggression being the likely bigger dividing point, as End Game actually did get more hits in with its weapon, but aggression also considers attempts to use the weapon as well, and this is where the damage to SawBlaze’s middle pontoon comes into play. It was bent up in such a manner that it prevented SawBlaze from actually being able to bring its saw to bear, stopping it just shy of making contact with End Game while the saw was still working(I think the saw might have died towards the end though?). If SawBlaze managed to get some nibbles in this decision becomes quite a bit easier to understand, I feel.
Finally strategy, which, again, is a tale of two halves. End Game’s strategy incorporates the armor additions they made for the fight. They added two grates of metal on the top to protect from the saw in addition to four lexan wedgelets to help get under the front of SawBlaze’s pontoons. And this worked perfectly! At least the wedgelets(we’ll never know about the top armor grates, because, well, the saw never made contact), while End Game had full drive. Once their drive started acting up, Jamison Go saw the opening he needed and started to implement his strategy, which was to box End Game into corners and against the wall, and at least attempt to bring the saw down on him, and when that was clear that wasn’t going to happen without somehow getting End Game onto one of the pontoons, he starts belching flames hoping to help further mess up whatever was going wrong inside End Game.
So basically unlike Blacksmith and Warhead which was back and forth until its closing seconds, this was very clearly a match where one robot dominated the first half and the other dominated the second half and it just came down to if the robot dominating the second half was able to overcome how much they were dominated in the first half.
Honestly though, despite simply being “for fun”, I could see both of these fights being used as other examples of reasons Battlebots should go through with the idea they put forward on Facebook in response to the Yeti vs Bombshell fight where in future seasons they might allow the judges to request a movement test at the end of a match that went 3 minutes to see if a robot is KOed before they go to the judges, to prevent being “saved by the bell”.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2018 8:14:03 GMT -5
Interesting episode to watch. I'm sure we'll see a lot of these bots moving on to the round of 16. Maybe we might get to see a rematch at one point? Next week, back to regular matches, but the international battle continues in the main event. One bot is currently on the outside looking in, and if it's not going to the tournament, it's gonna take his opponent down with him. {Spoiler}Minotaur vs. SubZero
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2018 14:49:14 GMT -5
Fight card for tomorrow's action: Whiplash(2-1) vs. Warhead(3-0) Reality(1-2) vs. Mohawk(0-2) WAR Hawk(2-1) vs. Free Shipping(1-2) Overhaul(1-2) vs. Witch Doctor(2-1) MAIN EVENT: SubZero(1-2) vs. Minotaur(2-1)
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Patti Mayonnaise
Metal Maestro: Co-winner of the FAN Idol Throwdown!
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Post by Pensacola Tableheads on Sept 8, 2018 1:07:46 GMT -5
So this is the next-to-last fight night card before the tourney, and that means every fight is crucial in trying to snag a spot in the 16.
WARHEAD!!!! Presumably they're already in, but going into the tournament unbeaten would have been great. Unfortunately, Whiplash was the perfect bot to spoil those plans and likely secure a spot of their own. That fight with Warrior Dragon may have ruined any chances Warhead had of making a good run in the 16 because the configuration they have now will leave them absolutely f***ed against any flippers.
And a fight between two not-very-good bots. Mohawk was definitely a joke to begin with and Reality tore up the front forever before finally flipping it. Not sure if 2-2 is enough if there are that many 4-0 and 3-1 bots after tomorrow night, though.
Free Shipping vs. WAR Hawk may have been one of the most one-sided and destructive fights this season. Kudos to Gary Gin for doing everything he could to get something going but that was an outright massacre. WAR Hawk is likely in the 16, again assuming the majority of the 16 are 4-0 and 3-1 bots.
Witch Doctor needed a win against struggling yet dangerous Overhaul, and that was exactly what Andrea Suarez got. That bot has gotten better and better as the season has gone along, which makes me think it could be a dark horse in the 16.
Minotaur FINALLY gets the knockout in a fight it was already winning handily but Sub-Zero is a tough, tough bot. Assuming Tombstone, Bite Force, and Bronco are the top three, Minotaur possibly is #4?
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Sept 8, 2018 5:17:19 GMT -5
A rather predictable episode in that the robots you’d expect to win all won.
I saw someone sum up the episode pretty nicely though, vertical spinners winning against a bunch of weird shit.
I will say, god damn Gary Gin. God. Damn. You may not have been able to perform to your best level because you couldn’t just enter Original Sin due to the weapons rules, but you did what you could and ultimately gave us four highly entertaining matches. I agree with Kenny, I enjoyed seeing you lose, because you always put on a bona fide show filled with damage, great driving, and the most flames, just all the flames, saving the biggest bonfire for last, going out in a true blaze of glory.
The fork lift falling off, being held on by only one of its chains, leading Gary to go, “Screw it, I’m a thwackbot now” is bar none one of the best moments of this season.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2018 8:09:32 GMT -5
With the way they were advertising SubZero in the fight, I just knew Minotaur was gonna take it apart piece by piece. Next week looks to be the last episode before it goes to the tournament, as next week is advertised as the "Last Chance Rumble". I'm not sure how many bots are in that battle, but the guide lists {Spoiler}Brutus, End Game, and WAR Hawk (despite being 3-1) And another fight that's said to be on the card is one that looks like it could be the main event: {Spoiler}HUGE vs. Ice Wave
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2018 6:10:54 GMT -5
Fight card for tomorrow's action, the last before the main tournament: HUGE vs. Ice Wave The Four Horsemen vs. Gemini Hypershock vs. Skorpios Vertical Spinner Battle: WAR Hawk vs. End Game vs. Brutus Last Chance Rumble: Bombshell vs. Valkyrie vs. Gigabyte vs. Red Devil vs. Lucky vs. DUCK!
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Sept 13, 2018 6:41:39 GMT -5
Fight card for tomorrow's action, the last before the main tournament: HUGE vs. Ice Wave The Four Horsemen vs. Gemini Hypershock vs. Skorpios Vertical Spinner Battle: WAR Hawk vs. End Game vs. Brutus Last Chance Rumble: Bombshell vs. Valkyrie vs. Gigabyte vs. Red Devil vs. Lucky vs. DUCK! Apparently one of these matches has a historically bad judges decision result. As in the crowd rains down boos and all the competitors watching from the pits go, “What the hell?!” I for one am morbidly curious to see which one it is. I doubt it is the multibot gimmick match. HUGE vs Ice Wave should be a definitive result, I’m thinking KO, either because HUGE gets its wheels chewed up or Ice Wave has the motor ripped off and the top feasted upon. HyperShock literally hasn’t had a match where something didn’t go wrong(even their win over Battle Royale they had issues spinning up at times), so Skorpios should win. It is one of the rumbles I think. Which will have huge implications because they are both play-in matches for the Sweet 16. The Last Chance Rumble is self-explanatory, but the triple threat, well one of the teams behind one of the three robots said the committee who picked the Sweet 16 couldn’t choose between these three vertical spinners so decided to let them decide it for them in the arena.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 14:05:32 GMT -5
So before the Top 16 is completed, I decided to put down how I think the final 16 will look. I haven't done seeding because the final 2 matches will determine that part. Anyway, here's how it looks to me:
Lockjaw is officially in due to winning the Desperado Tournament. Tombstone, Bronco, and Bite Force will get in for going 4-0. HUGE will be in, regardless whether he wins or loses tonight. 3-1 bots that will get in will be Minotaur, Sawblaze, Witch Doctor, Son of Whyachi, Monsoon, Warhead, Yeti, and Whiplash. Icewave will get in if he beats HUGE tonight. Otherwise, it'll go to ROTATOR, who amazingly is 3-1 this season. The winner of WAR Hawk, End Game, and Brutus, as well as the winner of the Last Chance Rumble will be in.
So that's who I believe makes the field. Anyone like to debate this?
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Patti Mayonnaise
Metal Maestro: Co-winner of the FAN Idol Throwdown!
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Post by Pensacola Tableheads on Sept 14, 2018 17:31:13 GMT -5
So before the Top 16 is completed, I decided to put down how I think the final 16 will look. I haven't done seeding because the final 2 matches will determine that part. Anyway, here's how it looks to me: Lockjaw is officially in due to winning the Desperado Tournament. Tombstone, Bronco, and Bite Force will get in for going 4-0. HUGE will be in, regardless whether he wins or loses tonight. 3-1 bots that will get in will be Minotaur, Sawblaze, Witch Doctor, Son of Whyachi, Monsoon, Warhead, Yeti, and Whiplash. Icewave will get in if he beats HUGE tonight. Otherwise, it'll go to ROTATOR, who amazingly is 3-1 this season. The winner of WAR Hawk, End Game, and Brutus, as well as the winner of the Last Chance Rumble will be in. So that's who I believe makes the field. Anyone like to debate this? Sounds about right.
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Patti Mayonnaise
Metal Maestro: Co-winner of the FAN Idol Throwdown!
Acknowledging the Tribal Chief since 2012
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Post by Pensacola Tableheads on Sept 15, 2018 1:17:34 GMT -5
The final Fight Night before the tournament begins....
HUGE WAS JUST CUT IN HALF. HOLY SHIT.
Multibots vs. multibots! Too bad The Four Horsemen couldn't pull it off. Not sure why Ian Watts keeps doing multibots since he doesn't seem to have much success with them (Creepy Crawlies in the final ABC season; The Swarm in Robot Wars).
ROTATOR's team cost Orion Beach forty bucks! Not sure I exactly agree with the split decision, however. I know damage isn't the be all, end all that it was in the final ABC season but even then I still felt Hypershock had the better fight for the majority of the three minutes. Maybe Lisa and Naomi thought Skorpios' aggression tipped the scales more?
SPINNER BATTLE FOR THE 15TH SEED! End Game killed both the minibot and damaged Brutus, only for WAR Hawk to flip them and finish Brutus off. Hopefully Jack Harker and End Game come back because that bot has a ton of potential.
Wow, what a lot of carnage in that Last Chance Rumble. Bombshell looked good early but then went dead and DUCK! took over big time. Bombshell got moving with a couple of seconds left but DUCK! did well enough to get the final se-
ARE YOU f***ING KIDDING ME?! DUCK! does the bulk of the work and f***ing winless, f***ing broken BOMBSHELL gets the f***ing win?! GIVE ME A GODDAMNED f***ING BREAK! THIS IS BULLSHIT!
So... *sigh....*
Here is what the bracket looks like for the Round of 16:
1. Tombstone 16. Bombshell (STILL SAY IT'S BULLSHIT.)
8. Son Of Whyachi 9. Lock-Jaw
5. Sawblaze 12. Monsoon
4. Minotaur 13. Witch Doctor
6. Icewave 11. ROTATOR
3. Bite Force 14. HUGE
7. Yeti 10. Whiplash
2. Bronco 15. WAR Hawk
And all I'll say is Tombstone had better hope that Lock-Jaw manages to beat Son Of Whyachi because otherwise, Ray Billings is headed home early.
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Sept 15, 2018 3:24:32 GMT -5
The final Fight Night before the tournament begins.... HUGE WAS JUST CUT IN HALF. HOLY SHIT. Multibots vs. multibots! Too bad The Four Horsemen couldn't pull it off. Not sure why Ian Watts keeps doing multibots since he doesn't seem to have much success with them (Creepy Crawlies in the final ABC season; The Swarm in Robot Wars). ROTATOR's team cost Orion Beach forty bucks! Not sure I exactly agree with the split decision, however. I know damage isn't the be all, end all that it was in the final ABC season but even then I still felt Hypershock had the better fight for the majority of the three minutes. Maybe Lisa and Naomi thought Skorpios' aggression tipped the scales more? SPINNER BATTLE FOR THE 15TH SEED! End Game killed both the minibot and damaged Brutus, only for WAR Hawk to flip them and finish Brutus off. Hopefully Jack Harker and End Game come back because that bot has a ton of potential. Wow, what a lot of carnage in that Last Chance Rumble. Bombshell looked good early but then went dead and DUCK! took over big time. Bombshell got moving with a couple of seconds left but DUCK! did well enough to get the final se- ARE YOU f***ING KIDDING ME?! DUCK! does the bulk of the work and f***ing winless, f***ing broken BOMBSHELL gets the f***ing win?! GIVE ME A GODDAMNED f***ING BREAK! THIS IS BULLSHIT! So... *sigh....* Here is what the bracket looks like for the Round of 16: 1. Tombstone 16. Bombshell (STILL SAY IT'S BULLSHIT.) 8. Son Of Whyachi 9. Lock-Jaw 5. Sawblaze 12. Monsoon 4. Minotaur 13. Witch Doctor 6. Icewave 11. ROTATOR 3. Bite Force 14. HUGE 7. Yeti 10. Whiplash 2. Bronco 15. WAR Hawk And all I'll say is Tombstone had better hope that Lock-Jaw manages to beat Son Of Whyachi because otherwise, Ray Billings is headed home early. And now we know why everyone was pissed and also why Battlebots uploaded a video explaining the rules of rumbles ahead of this episode. That is not a good finish. Bombshell shouldn’t have even been in the damn match. Once Valkyrie stopped the match should have been over. Literally all of the robots save for DUCK! was dead. Also man Skorpios got done in raw. They beat the god damn #6 seed and their only loss was to the #11 seed. The only possible explanation for Skorpios being left off that I can accept is the committee decided they were too much of a reliability if they were reduced to grabbing off the shelf hardware for weaponry. Edit: Also, we know thanks to the Twisted Metal giveaway that Icewave gets hit on their engine cover at some point as the piece of Icewave they gave away was a mangled chunk of the engine cover(from one of the sides that says “Icewave” on it), and if it wasn’t HUGE that did it tonight(a lot of people thought HUGE would win the fight because of that), then....guess that means RotatoR clips it with their top spinner.
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chrom
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Post by chrom on Sept 15, 2018 3:47:21 GMT -5
DUCK! got screwed over, it was the only one still functioning the whole time and had taken minimal damage the entire fight.
Could tell the driver was really ticked off and probably won't come back after how they did him
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Post by Koda, Master Crunchyroller on Sept 15, 2018 4:21:37 GMT -5
DUCK! got screwed over, it was the only one still functioning the whole time and had taken minimal damage the entire fight. Could tell the driver was really ticked off and probably won't come back after how they did him This was the only time all event Hal Rucker looked anything but a joyful man. After the rumble with Mecha-Rampage and Free Shipping? Smiles. After fighting Reality? Smiles. After fighting Bronco and Tombstone? Smiles. After this rumble? Beet red, stern look on his face, and just a combination of rage and sorrow. Major props to Valkyrie’s builder for hugging Hal after the results were announced. About the only thing anyone could do in the moment.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2018 8:27:38 GMT -5
#JusticeForDuck >=(
Also, no Warhead?
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Pensacola Tableheads
Patti Mayonnaise
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Acknowledging the Tribal Chief since 2012
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Post by Pensacola Tableheads on Sept 15, 2018 8:42:16 GMT -5
#JusticeForDuck >=( Also, no Warhead? That upset me too (naturally) but I wonder if having to settle for splits against the bumbling Chomp and the also-not-that-good Warrior Dragon hurt their chances.
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