For some time now I have tried to find this one game.
My friend had it on C-64 and it had some robots. Player guided a robot in a top view and tried to find something from a base of some kind. This base is filled with other robots and if you crash one you get into a battle. These battles are done by doing circuit switching. The better the robot the more you have switches. If you win you can change to that other robot.
I'm sorry, that I cannot give too much and too accurate information about the game since it's been like 20 years when I last played it. Does anyone have any idea what this game might be called?
A robot in a kind of base trying to find something makes me think of "Short Circuit". But the rest of your description (top view, changing to other robots) doesn´t match the game...