View Full Version : Alliance Selection Strategy
TheSoftwareGuy
23-03-2013, 00:13
My team is in the fortunate position of possibly being a top 8 team at the Bayou regional, and we would like some tips on how to you guys make your lists for Alliance selection?
Many thanks.
themccannman
23-03-2013, 01:21
Scouting, if you guys don't already have a scouting system set up I would just use OPR data to select teams. Also start researching how to make a good system for scouting for next year as it is one of the most important things your team can have. There should be plenty of threads on here with teams explaining how they do scouting. Our team records all offensive data of every robot then uploads it to MS excel and makes a ranked list of all the teams based on offensive performance. We also have 2 other "super-scouts" (I'm one of them) who record subjective data about robots that the statistical data doesn't tell us. Most of what the super-scouts record is information about robot's defensive capabilities, speed, and driving ability. The offensive data is most important for making your first pick and the subjective/defensive data is what we mostly use for making our second pick as we have usually seen that the best alliances are 2 offensive robots and 1 defensive robot. Hope that helps.
Scouting, if you guys don't already have a scouting system set up I would just use OPR data to select teams.
I would start by throwing OPR into the nearest trash can. Skipping over the whole "setting up a scouting system" aspect, which should definitely be done at some point, here is what I would do:
1) Figure out what strategy will get you farthest in eliminations.
2) Compile a list of teams that have things you don't that will fit with the strategy (floor pickup, 30-point climb, full-court shot, etc.). You may need two or three lists, one for each feature.
3) Make sure you have a total of 24 teams at least; not all of them have to be in one category.
4) Consult your first pick as to preferred strategy/good second picks.
But before picking... Talk to some of the potential partners and see what would happen.
2789_B_Garcia
23-03-2013, 02:50
I would start by throwing OPR into the nearest trash can.
He's absolutely right. OPR is calculated with alliance stats in a match and the data can be very misleading about individual robots. Some people argue that the law of averages ultimately sets everything straight, but as the mentor of a predominantly defense-oriented team, I can tell you outright that it doesn't give you an accurate picture of individual robots, and it most certainly doesn't factor in the idea that this game is played with a three team alliance, and if all robots do the same thing, the alliance could easily lose to another alliance with lesser robots that are better organized around a more cohesive strategy.
Ideally, I would consider one offensive robot that plays the game differently from my robot and a good defensive robot...not an ok offensive robot that is put to play defense. One of the best parts of being a lower end picking seed is that you can basically get a decent offensive robot as your first pick and then choose the best defensive robot, but few low-end seeds actually do that.
As far as scouting goes, we keep a pretty extensive database on each robot at a regional and rank them based on their own individual merits. We didn't come up with this method on our own, though...we've asked for/stolen ideas on how to scout from the best teams we've been partnered with. One of the best parts about FIRST is the idea of coopertition (even though it doesn't always play out that way when it's been worked into the actual game), so if anything else, go up to an older, more established team and ask them to share scouting data and tips on how they've scouted the teams at Bayou. I can tell you firsthand that 118's scouting system is very visual, simple to understand and very powerful and informative.
TheSoftwareGuy
23-03-2013, 09:44
Thank you everybody for your replies.
5. Visit the pit of as many robots as possible from your list, and find out what the health/status of the robot is.
themccannman
24-03-2013, 01:14
I would just like to note that if you are picking a robot for the sole purpose of offense OPR is the best system you have you don't already have a scouting system. The OPR ranking has a .9 correlation with our teams actual, quantitative offensive ranking of teams (how many points each team actually scores in a match) so when you say OPR isn't accurate at telling you which robots are good offensive bots you are wrong, it is 90% accurate. For your third alliance partner you need to completely ignore OPR and seeded ranking and just look at what robots fit your strategy best, that might be a defensive robot with nothing but a drive train, or it might be a robot that can feed you disks half-court from the feeder station (if you have a aground pick-up) or it might be a bot that can climb for 30 points and stay out of your way for the rest of the match.
TL;DR: a good scouting system is irreplaceable, however OPR does tell you, with 90% accuracy, which robots score the most points consistently (this may not mean they are the best pick though).
I would just like to note that if you are picking a robot for the sole purpose of offense OPR is the best system you have you don't already have a scouting system. The OPR ranking has a .9 correlation with our teams actual, quantitative offensive ranking of teams (how many points each team actually scores in a match) so when you say OPR isn't accurate at telling you which robots are good offensive bots you are wrong, it is 90% accurate. For your third alliance partner you need to completely ignore OPR and seeded ranking and just look at what robots fit your strategy best, that might be a defensive robot with nothing but a drive train, or it might be a robot that can feed you disks half-court from the feeder station (if you have a aground pick-up) or it might be a bot that can climb for 30 points and stay out of your way for the rest of the match.
TL;DR: a good scouting system is irreplaceable, however OPR does tell you, with 90% accuracy, which robots score the most points consistently (this may not mean they are the best pick though).
Is this always the case, or is it 90% accurate at just the regional you attended? I haven't checked the correlation at the Wisconsin regional, but comparing OPR data to the scouting data we collected on individual robot scoring from Friday shows OPR to be off quite a bit at a quick glance. 4212 was far and away the highest scoring average robot at the regional (by at least a 10 point margin) but was 4th in OPR. We (167) were about the 9th highest average scoring robot at the regional but are 26th in OPR. 1732 was 8th in OPR but I believe was closer to 3rd in actual robot scoring.
Of course, Wisconsin could also be an outlier in its own right as far as OPR correlation. I noticed off hand that the regional tended to be very balanced as far as quality scoring machines were concerned. There was not any clearly dominant scoring team like 987 or 2056 at the regional, instead there were 12 or so top teams that all scored between 40 and 60 points a match on average, then the average slowly dropped down until you had to get probably 24 teams in before teams were averaging less than 20 points a match.
themccannman
25-03-2013, 02:05
OPR has been within 90% accurate at all of the last 5 events we attended (6 once nationals rolls around) so if you don't have a quantitative scouting system to track every team OPR is your best bet.
Don't count out rookies, they can surprise you.
efoote868
25-03-2013, 10:09
Is this always the case, or is it 90% accurate at just the regional you attended? I haven't checked the correlation at the Wisconsin regional, but comparing OPR data to the scouting data we collected on individual robot scoring from Friday shows OPR to be off quite a bit at a quick glance
At Boilermaker Regional, I calculated OPR as well as match predictions for Saturday (after teams had played 8 or 9 matches). It predicted the winning alliance correctly 20 out of 24 times. Score predictions were low by about 10-20 points on average, but that showed that robots were improving.
The other thing that surprised me about the Boilermaker OPR is that there were a couple of cases that demonstrated accuracy. There were 2 single purpose robots in particular - one that hung for 30 points and one that hung for 10 points. OPR after Friday was 29 and 11 respectively. Anecdotal evidence I'm sure, but it seems that this year's game is easy to decompose (even easier than last year).
OPR might be good at identifying top pick candidates, but nothing beats old fashioned scouting. My advice is to write down 5-10 attributes you think make a robot "good" for the game. This year, accuracy, distance, as well as how quickly can they hang, and floor pickup are good attributes. Attributes that are pretty universal between games describe robot drive trains, like speed and pushing power.
The next step is to find 3 or 6 dedicated students to watch robots from the stands. These students need to focus on a single robot during each match, writing down as much detail as they possibly can.
The last thing you might consider is writing down robot *features*. When I was watching matches this year, whenever I saw a battery move within a robot, I advised the scouters to note it. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it sunk my team and our alliance during eliminations in 2006 when our battery wasn't secured properly and knocked open our pneumatic release valve, and disabled the robot through the remainder of the match. There are other things like this that are easy to spot (bumpers dragging on the floor), that can potentially draw lots of fouls or a disabled robot.
Hope this helps your scouting effort!
Lil' Lavery
25-03-2013, 15:08
The other thing that surprised me about the Boilermaker OPR is that there were a couple of cases that demonstrated accuracy. There were 2 single purpose robots in particular - one that hung for 30 points and one that hung for 10 points. OPR after Friday was 29 and 11 respectively. Anecdotal evidence I'm sure, but it seems that this year's game is easy to decompose (even easier than last year).
Not going to get into a full OPR rant, but I will briefly mention something about this anecdote. Those OPR figures would only be accurate if those robots were 100% successful in their climbing attempts.
Joe Ross
25-03-2013, 15:56
OPR has been within 90% accurate at all of the last 5 events we attended (6 once nationals rolls around) so if you don't have a quantitative scouting system to track every team OPR is your best bet.
What data did you use to determine it was 90% accurate?
KrazyCarl92
25-03-2013, 16:41
What data did you use to determine it was 90% accurate?
I have the same gripe. It sounds like they have found a correlation coefficient of 0.9 between the explanatory variable (OPR) and the dependent variable (Avg. Score). In this case it is poor interpretation to say that this is 90% accurate. However, due to an R^2 value of 0.81, it would be acceptable to say that 81% of the variation in Avg. Score can be explained by variation in OPR. Saying it is 90% accurate based on a correlation coefficient of 0.9 is poor analysis of a statistical regression (it sounds like this is the mathematical tool being used).
Collecting and compiling statistics on individual team contribution can be very helpful. This is the type of system that CORE uses for data collection and it is very labor intensive.
Scouting is a lot like building in that you need to consider the capability of your team in your planning.
For smaller/newer teams I would suggest some kind of partnership with a larger and/or more established team. You can get some data from them and then work on your own strategy using their numbers.
Otherwise, OPR or FRCminer are good sources of impartial data even if they are not 100% representative of the teams individual capabilities.
I hope the OP had a good outcome at Bayou and I would encourage all teams to keep practicing and growing your scout-egy capabilities. If you wait until you are going to need the data you probably will not get up to speed in time.
-mister g
themccannman
25-03-2013, 17:17
Not going to get into a full OPR rant, but I will briefly mention something about this anecdote. Those OPR figures would only be accurate if those robots were 100% successful in their climbing attempts.
From what I've seen it looks like OPR accounts for the "average" number of hang points that a team will get per match, if they hang for 10 points 100% of the time their OPR will be higher than if they hang for 10 points 50% of the time.
What data did you use to determine it was 90% accurate?
"90% accuracy" was probably the wrong phrase for that. To elaborate, OPR ranking had a .9 correlation coefficient with robots actual offensive performance.
The main point that I've been trying to get across is that a good scouting system is irreplaceable, but if you don't have one, OPR is much better than having nothing. I think we can all agree on that.
MrForbes
25-03-2013, 17:24
The main point that I've been trying to get across is that a good scouting system is irreplaceable, but if you don't have one, OPR is much better than having nothing. I think we can all agree on that.
I'm thinking we might use OPR as a major element of our scouting process for Championships. We will also have students scouting the teams, but probably won't scout every team every match.
Our crude 1-sheet-of-paper-per-team scouting during the AZ regional worked fine, and we we were also able to get corroborating scouting data from a friendly team.
What exactly does OPR stand for and what is it?
What exactly does OPR stand for and what is it?
Offensive Power Ranking.
It's an estimate of how much each team scores per match, or rather their point contribution to their alliance (on average).
The biggest problem with using solely OPR is that 1) it virtually ignores defensive players, and 2) it takes a bit of setup to run the numbers properly. (It also doesn't distinguish between how points are scored--if you're a 50-point climber and you pick a 50-point climber because they have a high OPR, you'll probably be blanked by the 50-point climber that picked a pair of shooter/defense robots that combined for 50 points.)
xSAWxBLADEx
25-03-2013, 19:38
Offensive Power Ranking.
It's an estimate of how much each team scores per match, or rather their point contribution to their alliance (on average).
The biggest problem with using solely OPR is that 1) it virtually ignores defensive players, and 2) it takes a bit of setup to run the numbers properly. (It also doesn't distinguish between how points are scored--if you're a 50-point climber and you pick a 50-point climber because they have a high OPR, you'll probably be blanked by the 50-point climber that picked a pair of shooter/defense robots that combined for 50 points.)
That is why we use a pit scout/OPR combo.
Offensive Power Ranking.
It's an estimate of how much each team scores per match, or rather their point contribution to their alliance (on average).
The biggest problem with using solely OPR is that 1) it virtually ignores defensive players, and 2) it takes a bit of setup to run the numbers properly. (It also doesn't distinguish between how points are scored--if you're a 50-point climber and you pick a 50-point climber because they have a high OPR, you'll probably be blanked by the 50-point climber that picked a pair of shooter/defense robots that combined for 50 points.)
Is that determined and managed by an individual team, or are the OPR maintained by an official source?
efoote868
25-03-2013, 20:07
Ed Law does a good job posting the results after each week of competition.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115380
This question has been asked many times, the search function is your friend :)
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114980
There's an executable available by Bongle, I think the last updated version was last year, but it still works for strict OPR and predicting matches.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75272
EDIT:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1154326&postcount=280
(It also doesn't distinguish between how points are scored--if you're a 50-point climber and you pick a 50-point climber because they have a high OPR, you'll probably be blanked by the 50-point climber that picked a pair of shooter/defense robots that combined for 50 points.)That's why if you're a 50-point climber (or anyone else, for that matter), you should also be looking at the separate auto, teleop and climb OPRs for your prospective picks. Rather difficult to make that mistake if you do.
themccannman
25-03-2013, 21:23
Offensive Power Ranking.
The biggest problem with using solely OPR is that 1) it virtually ignores defensive players, and 2) it takes a bit of setup to run the numbers properly. (It also doesn't distinguish between how points are scored--if you're a 50-point climber and you pick a 50-point climber because they have a high OPR, you'll probably be blanked by the 50-point climber that picked a pair of shooter/defense robots that combined for 50 points.)
It doesn't virtually ignore defensive robots, it completely does. Offensive Power Ranking is just that, a measure of a robots offensive contribution to their alliance. There is also a DPR (defensive power ranking) however it's wildly inaccurate and should be ignored. The main reason (aside form accuracy) why scouting is vastly more valuable than OPR is that it tells you why a robot performs the way it does which is absolutely necessary when considering a robot to fit a specific strategy. People should stop hating on OPR so much though, it does exactly what it's designed to do. It's not designed to replace your scouting system, so don't expect good results when you do rely on it for scouting.
People should stop hating on OPR so much though, it does exactly what it's designed to do. It's not designed to replace your scouting system, so don't expect good results when you do rely on it for scouting.
I have to ask, if OPR is not designed to replace a scouting system, then why did you suggest earlier that a team who was unsure of their scouting just pick based on OPR? Those two statements are not entirely compatible.
OPR does do what it's designed to do: tell you how much a team can expect to score. For alliance selection, though, I probably don't care how much my alliance can score.
What I care about is how big of a point differential my alliance can produce in my favor, which is not the same thing by any means. If that means that my really, really accurate full-court shooter has to be protected by a pair of brave little toasters, then that's what I'm going to pick (though I'll probably pick rather specialized brave little toasters, just to increase that differential). If that means that my 50-point climber needs some shooters to back it up, that's what I'm going to pick. Is there a full-court shooter somewhere in my likely road? I'm going to look at teams that either have a blocker already or that can add one quickly. This sort of thing is what OPR cannot tell you, because it quite simply is not designed to do that. But it's this sort of thing that can make or break an alliance.
The OPR score also cannot show a trend in a team's scoring that will show up on a multi-line scoresheet that has been recorded for that team. A dragster is going much faster nearing the finish line than near the start line. No one bothers to calculate the average speeds at the NHRA events.
It doesn't virtually ignore defensive robots, it completely does. Offensive Power Ranking is just that, a measure of a robots offensive contribution to their alliance.
To be clear: If a robot's excellent defense boosts the offensive output of its two alliance partners, then that defensive robot will receive credit for the increased scoring during the OPR calculation.
For anyone interested in crunching numbers, there's an interesting discussion going on over here (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1252712#post1252712) in re analysis of OPR's match results predictive efficacy.
PVCpirate
25-03-2013, 22:33
Looks like the OP's team ended up as the 7th alliance captain and lost in 2 matches to the 2 seed and eventual finalists.
I have one main concern with OPR. I only had time to briefly look over how it is calculated, but what I saw troubled me. One teams OPR is influenced by their alliance partners. This influence may not be very big, but it can add up. If a team goes to an event where the teams are generally "good", then their OPR will be higher. The opposite happens when the teams are generally bad. Most OPR stats are seperated by less than one point. As a result, one match with bad partners could screw everything up.
That is just my two cents. If I am wrong, or if I misunderstood something, please let me know.
themccannman
25-03-2013, 22:38
I have to ask, if OPR is not designed to replace a scouting system, then why did you suggest earlier that a team who was unsure of their scouting just pick based on OPR? Those two statements are not entirely compatible.
OPR does do what it's designed to do: tell you how much a team can expect to score. For alliance selection, though, I probably don't care how much my alliance can score.
What I care about is how big of a point differential my alliance can produce in my favor, which is not the same thing by any means. If that means that my really, really accurate full-court shooter has to be protected by a pair of brave little toasters, then that's what I'm going to pick (though I'll probably pick rather specialized brave little toasters, just to increase that differential). If that means that my 50-point climber needs some shooters to back it up, that's what I'm going to pick. Is there a full-court shooter somewhere in my likely road? I'm going to look at teams that either have a blocker already or that can add one quickly. This sort of thing is what OPR cannot tell you, because it quite simply is not designed to do that. But it's this sort of thing that can make or break an alliance.
Because I never said that, from what he posted it sounded like they didn't have a scouting system, in which case I stand by my original statement,
The main point that I've been trying to get across is that a good scouting system is irreplaceable, but if you don't have one, OPR is much better than having nothing.
OPR is relatively accurate for finding powerful offensive teams, and nothing else. The rest of your post seems to reiterate what I said previously,
The main reason (aside form accuracy) why scouting is vastly more valuable than OPR is that it tells you why a robot performs the way it does which is absolutely necessary when considering a robot to fit a specific strategy. People should stop hating on OPR so much though, it does exactly what it's designed to do.
The one thing that I would like to clarify is this: if you are scouting for a robot that scores a lot of points, OPR is a relatively good measurement, if you're looking for a robot to do anything else other than score, OPR is the last thing you want to rely on.
EDIT: also Ether is correct, if a robot is playing phenomenal counter-defense it will boost their OPR.
Scouting, if you guys don't already have a scouting system set up I would just use OPR data to select teams.
I think it is the word "just" that I and others have a problem with. The mental image of a team picking solely based off OPR seems almost as wrong as picking the next highest seed. Granted OPR is a much better metric than the ranking system, but great alliances aren't composed of offense alone.
Even without a scouting system providing hard numbers of a robots capabilities, a lot of useful soft information can be gleaned by talking to teams in their pits as well as talking to spectators.
MrForbes
25-03-2013, 23:55
Granted OPR is a much better metric than the ranking system, but great alliances aren't composed of offense alone.
Our scouting at the AZ regional was based pretty much totally on offense alone, we counted up auto, teleop and climb points for each robot, summed them for all the Friday matches, and used that to generate an ordered list. Result....we picked the #1 ranked OPR team first, and a very underrated team second. All three teams were offensive most of the time, but our second pick (3944) got drafted into defense mode for our semi's and shut down a full court shooter. Three offensive robots can do just fine at this game, as long as they're good offensive robots. Scoring is how you win matches.
Your regional may vary.
The OPR score also cannot show a trend in a team's scoring
It could, but nobody has ever broken it down that way.
If a team competes in two regionals (or two districts) the trending OPR could be calculated as follows:
1) first 2/3 of first regional
2) last 2/3 of first regional
3) last 1/3 of first regional and first 1/3 of second regional
4) first 2/3 of second regional
5) last 2/3 of second regional
... and so on, if a third regional is involved.
I have one main concern with OPR. I only had time to briefly look over how it is calculated, but what I saw troubled me. One teams OPR is influenced by their alliance partners. This influence may not be very big, but it can add up. If a team goes to an event where the teams are generally "good", then their OPR will be higher. The opposite happens when the teams are generally bad. Most OPR stats are seperated by less than one point. As a result, one match with bad partners could screw everything up.
That is just my two cents. If I am wrong, or if I misunderstood something, please let me know.
First of all, I just publish the numbers and provide means for other teams to use the data and to calculate the OPR during a competition. How they use the data is up to them.
My team does pit scouting, collect data of every robot of every match and combine that with OPR/CCWM to come up with a pick list. I don't advocate using only OPR. There are two circumstances I can think of that it is useful. When we were a rookie team, we had 6 students on the team, 4 of them were on the field or in the queue line most of the time, leaving only 2 students in the stand. In between matches, they were fixing and getting the robot ready for the next match. That year we used strictly OPR for first pick and CCWM for second pick. It was better than nothing.
The other way I would use OPR is if I was not at the competition so other means of scouting is not possible. The data tells me a lot about the teams. This data is very useful at the Championship when you have not seen how the other 99 robots in your division play, especially in the early matches.
The last time I check, the winner of the alliance is the one who can score more points. Offense is definitely important. However another way to look at it is if my alliance plays in such a way that we can create a positive point differential, my alliance will win. Three defensive teams, no matter how good they are at it, will never win a match. The best they can do is to tie it. You need at least one robot on the alliance that has sufficient offensive power to win.
Oh I almost forgot to answer this new posters question. You are absolutely wrong. Let me give you a simple example. I see you are also from Michigan. Let's say the district event has 40 teams. Let's say all teams except yours score exactly 20 points per match and your robot score 10 points. The calculated OPR is 20 for every other team and 10 for your team. Let's say you go to your second district and every robot there can score 40 points per match and your robot score 10 points per match. The OPR will be exactly 40 for all other teams and your team's OPR is still 10. So you are wrong to think that your OPR will be higher because you play in higher scoring matches. If you don't contribute to the higher score, you get nothing higher in your OPR.
I have one main concern with OPR. I only had time to briefly look over how it is calculated, but what I saw troubled me. One teams OPR is influenced by their alliance partners. This influence may not be very big, but it can add up. If a team goes to an event where the teams are generally "good", then their OPR will be higher. The opposite happens when the teams are generally bad. Most OPR stats are seperated by less than one point. As a result, one match with bad partners could screw everything up.
That is just my two cents. If I am wrong, or if I misunderstood something, please let me know.Welcome to ChiefDelphi!
You are in some respects correct, with some caveats and corrections. Yes, OPRs are based on calculations that involve the full alliance's score. However, "add up" is not the correct turn of phrase for potential inaccuracy--the more you play, specifically the more different alliances you (and your allies) play with, the less a role they should play in determining your OPR. As a simple example:
1114 + 000 + 999 = 150 ...this could mean that 1114 did nothing, and 000 scored 150 points alone
000 + 9999 + 8888 = 10 ...this makes it less likely that that happened
1114 + 7777 + 8888 = 180 ...again, it's getting clearer that 1114 has something going on here...
Imagine this continuing for another half dozen matches, and you'll see how more data tends to yield more accurate rather than less accurate results.
OPRs are also not as close as you think they are. For instance, at my last event, the standard deviation was 17.5, with a range of 69. Of 33 teams, the largest set within a 1pt range was 3 (13.7, 13.1, 13.0). Even at 60-some team events, the largest I found was 6. While they are somewhat sensitive, particularly at regionals with fewer qual matches, the amount that they'd change would probably be lower than the rating's useful precision anyway. And again, if your partners in that match are normally that bad in their matches, it certainly won't screw everything up for you.
EDIT: Or, you know, what Ed said. That too. (Except ever since EDIT: after 2011, 3 defensive robots can win matches.)
Siri,
When I say defensive robots, I don't mean they can score all their autonomous points and then play defense and then get the end game points. I meant pure defensive robots that do not score. You cannot win a match that way.
The type of robot that score well in autonomous and end games and play good defense in the middle will usually have a decent OPR. However their CCWM will be high because they will contribute to a big point differential. That is why I use CCWM to prescreen 2nd round pick and I never pick a team in the second round with negative CCWM. We do not use strictly OPR or CCWM to pick teams.
Siri,
When I say defensive robots, I don't mean they can score all their autonomous points and then play defense and then get the end game points. I meant pure defensive robots that do not score. You cannot win a match that way.Nor do I--but this year and in 2012, fouls committed by the opposing alliance add to your score. (I've actually seen matches--albeit not elim matches--won this way.)
Nor do I--but this year and in 2012, fouls committed by the opposing alliance add to your score. (I've actually seen matches--albeit not elim matches--won this way.)
Ha ha, I forgot about that. A team that is good at getting the other alliance commit foul and get a certain number of points will have the same OPR as another team who actually score those points.
themccannman
26-03-2013, 01:57
I think it is the word "just" that I and others have a problem with. The mental image of a team picking solely based off OPR seems almost as wrong as picking the next highest seed. Granted OPR is a much better metric than the ranking system, but great alliances aren't composed of offense alone.
Even without a scouting system providing hard numbers of a robots capabilities, a lot of useful soft information can be gleaned by talking to teams in their pits as well as talking to spectators.
That's not what I was trying to communicate, my bad. I was using "just" as a verbal filler which I probably shouldn't. I was trying to make that clear in my other posts that if they have no other options to only rely on OPR for what it is, offensive ranking. Rarely do you ever pick a third robot to score points and be offensive. I realize I could have been clearer with my original posts but I hope this has clarified most of it.
waialua359
26-03-2013, 02:41
Ed,
first of all, thanks for posting the OPR data week after week, year after year.
More than anything, I find it useful to see how robots have done AFTER tournaments.....especially if our team is competing the same weekend (not being able to watch other webcasts).
Nothing beats the good 'ole fashion way of scouting by watching robots in matches.
In recent years, we have either been the #1 seed or picked by the #1 seed most of the time which has kept us busy on friday evenings after event socials.
We always look for robots that either best complement our strategy OR robots that we dont want to face in eliminations the most.
In this year's game, if we went to a regional where we were the best shooter far and above the second best shooting robot, I would NOT consider finding the second best shooter at the tournament......but instead, look if there is a 50 point climb/dumper robot (even if that is all they do!).
With that kind of combination, it would be hard pressed for any opposing alliance to overcome.....assuming autonomous points are equal and full court shooters can be blocked.
I beg to differ that 30 point climbing even if it takes 1 minute, doesnt make a difference. At many regionals this year, selecting a 30 point climber CAN make a difference. Or, it can be a pain to try and overcome if climbers are on the opposing alliance.
Okay, thanks for clearing that up. It helps a lot.
efoote868
26-03-2013, 10:32
That's not what I was trying to communicate, my bad. I was using "just" as a verbal filler which I probably shouldn't. I was trying to make that clear in my other posts that if they have no other options to only rely on OPR for what it is, offensive ranking. Rarely do you ever pick a third robot to score points and be offensive. I realize I could have been clearer with my original posts but I hope this has clarified most of it.
At the championship event when the division is ~100 teams deep, OPR from all previous competitions can be a valuable tool for the 2nd pick. At IRI when the event is ~70 deep, OPR might be valuable for the 2nd pick but probably won't for the 3rd pick (assuming they let captains pick 3).
themccannman
26-03-2013, 16:23
At the championship event when the division is ~100 teams deep, OPR from all previous competitions can be a valuable tool for the 2nd pick. At IRI when the event is ~70 deep, OPR might be valuable for the 2nd pick but probably won't for the 3rd pick (assuming they let captains pick 3).
I assume what you mean by second pick is the second alliance robot (the alliance captains first pick). I wouldn't consider using OPR for picking your third alliance robot unless you're in an unusual situation where you are looking for a high scoring third robot.
Lil' Lavery
26-03-2013, 16:25
I assume what you mean by second pick is the second alliance robot (the alliance captains first pick). I wouldn't consider using OPR for picking your third alliance robot unless you're in an unusual situation where you are looking for a high scoring third robot.
The "3rd pick" was in reference to IRI, where alliance captains draft their own "backup bot," essentially forming 4-team alliances.
efoote868
26-03-2013, 16:59
I assume what you mean by second pick is the second alliance robot (the alliance captains first pick). I wouldn't consider using OPR for picking your third alliance robot unless you're in an unusual situation where you are looking for a high scoring third robot.
No, second pick means the 3rd member of the alliance.
I expect there to be a good number (maybe 10 or more?) of robots at the championship event that will find themselves in the top 8 in each division, even though they'll be middle of the pack in OPR.
Their strategy should be to pick the two best offensive robots they can, so that the alliance captain in effect becomes the 3rd bot for defense. OPR in this case would be a good tool for them to help rank teams.
Also, depending on the team's strengths, an alliance of 3 offensive capable bots could be more effective than an alliance of 2 offensive capable bots and 1 defensive only bot. If this is a team's strategy, OPR is a good tool to help rank teams (or at least identify 20-30 teams to focus on in scouting instead of 90+).
themccannman
26-03-2013, 19:30
The "3rd pick" was in reference to IRI, where alliance captains draft their own "backup bot," essentially forming 4-team alliances.
Oh, I had no idea that they did that at IRI.
waialua359
26-03-2013, 19:51
Also, depending on the team's strengths, an alliance of 3 offensive capable bots could be more effective than an alliance of 2 offensive capable bots and 1 defensive only bot. If this is a team's strategy, OPR is a good tool to help rank teams (or at least identify 20-30 teams to focus on in scouting instead of 90+).
I suspect that match scheduling will be even more important than in recent years at CMP because of the nature of this year's game.
Both you and I are not top 10 material because we dont have a 7 disc auto mode (i.e. 2056, 1886, 987, etc.). However, like Boilermaker, if you put the 2 of us together against 1 of the elites with 2 defensive robots, we both know either alliances can still win. It was such a beauty everytime we paired up.
On a side note, we have defensive/offensive center discs for auto mode. We wont ever use it unless the time calls for it.
Citrus Dad
30-03-2013, 03:08
No, second pick means the 3rd member of the alliance.
I expect there to be a good number (maybe 10 or more?) of robots at the championship event that will find themselves in the top 8 in each division, even though they'll be middle of the pack in OPR.
Their strategy should be to pick the two best offensive robots they can, so that the alliance captain in effect becomes the 3rd bot for defense. OPR in this case would be a good tool for them to help rank teams.
Also, depending on the team's strengths, an alliance of 3 offensive capable bots could be more effective than an alliance of 2 offensive capable bots and 1 defensive only bot. If this is a team's strategy, OPR is a good tool to help rank teams (or at least identify 20-30 teams to focus on in scouting instead of 90+).
If your first two 'bots are of moderate offensive capability, then picking a third offensive bot is a good idea. However, if you have 2 high powered offensive 'bots as we did at both Madera and Sacramento, then you should pick a bot that stays out of their way and is very useful for defense or other tasks. We made our high score in a match at Sacramento where our third 'bot was out, and the other team switched off with us to put up mucho disc points. In Madera we ran interference for our full court shooter to win the tourney.
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