Defense for Logomotion

[pianogrrl71]

Hey guys! I've been looking for a CD forum with a discussion about the best defensive strategies from the 2011 regionals, but there doesn't seem to be one -- so here we are. :p

At the start of this year, I have to say I wasn't convinced that defense would play a huge rule in this game, due to being able to throw the tubes and the robots being able to safely stay in their zone. Plus the huge penalties for violating the lanes/zones or pinning the robots. But after attending two regionals, I have to say that defense and the interesting defensive rules that have often changed the game in some of our matches.

Have you guys seen any particularly cool defensive moves this year? Any rules that might be utilized to be better at defense? Any interesting strategies?

[ahollenbach]

The best defense I've seen was played by 1391 at Philly, where they basically drove side to side between the opponent's two towers. An advantage they had was height, as well, so tubes were harder to through into the alliance's safety zone.

[nikeairmancurry]

Hahahaha Defense.... There was a good lack of it at the Michigan State Championship... It's a huge reason for the like zilllion 100+ match scores...

[MagiChau]

Defense was a killer in Michigan State Championship for minibot race. For instance the 8th alliance in quarter-finals, Team 74, blocked Team 469 from deploying at the start of the end-game. It gave their alliance a better chance of winning and resulted in 469 being unable to deploy and their alliance taking 1st and 2nd place respectively with Team 216 taking third. Seems better to secure the 10 or 5 points from a better result in minibot race with your third robot if you aren't going to complete a logo in top or middle row. Unless you're one of those drivers that just has to pull off a tube hang after deployment :P

[Colin P]

One of my teams managed to shut down the Shoe-in alliance at the Troy District. Hard hits and pushing the tubes into the lanes brought down the alliance that was written off to win from week one.
2586 is a little team from the U.P. which I am very honored to work with after such a great performance to upset two of the greatest teams in FIRST.

[penguinfrk]

Defense was a killer in Michigan State Championship for minibot race. For instance the 8th alliance in quarter-finals, Team 74, blocked Team 469 from deploying at the start of the end-game. It gave their alliance a better chance of winning and resulted in 469 being unable to deploy and their alliance taking 1st and 2nd place respectively with Team 216 taking third. Seems better to secure the 10 or 5 points from a better result in minibot race with your third robot if you aren't going to complete a logo in top or middle row. Unless you're one of those drivers that just has to pull off a tube hang after deployment :P

I don't think this'll be a big issue at Championships, but I guess it's worth saying now.

Know when to sacrifice one of your minibots to stop the opponent's faster minibot(s). Even if there are 2 robots on each alliance that can score a minibot, if you can't do it faster you're time's better spent keeping the opponent from scoring theirs.

I suspect that at St. Louis all elimination round robots will have a reliable minibot (if not their own, then their alliance partners') in case one is being heavily pressed by defense.


I wasn't able to watch any matches with Dragonfly from 3553. How'd they do this season?

[Deetman]

I wasn't able to watch any matches with Dragonfly from 3553. How'd they do this season?

Unfortunately I had to work Friday and wasn't able to get to the stands for any of their matches Saturday in Philly, but from what I'm told they were able to play some effective defense. Not only that, but they were picked for elimination rounds and won the Rookie All-Star award.

[viperred396]

I know in the Colorado regional defense wasnt played too much but when it was it was a game changer.

We had a bot very similer to the "dragonfly" from 3553 and it was a great thing. We were more often then not able to cut scoring in half for some powerhouse teams.

Where as before they could score both top logos and some of the middle, if we were playing Defense then they were lucky to score 2 or 3 tubes total

[ahollenbach]

3553's robot was extremely successful in essentially halting the excellent scoring flow of 341's bot, as well as tripping up the omnidrive of 365's bot. Although some of the more powerful robots were able to move them around with ease, they were a force to be reckoned with for teams who did not anticipate a need for power, and earned the well-deserved rookie all-star award.

[Gdeaver]

Many of you may have watched Some of the Philly regional. I have to say it was a weird one compared to the others I watched. There was some very effective defensive strategy unleashed by many teams. We were on both sides of it. We were defend and bashed severely and we also adopted a defensive strategy in some elimination rounds. We had our claw sheared off. Luckily a small piece of metal stopped it from detaching on to the field and getting a penalty. Several times we took sever impacts that messed up our mini bot so we could not deploy. On Friday early on I was at the field level and saw a robot come out of Auto, fly across the field and smash an opposing teams robot head on. The robot was launched back about 18 to 20" and was air borne. Their arm thrashed around at a sever angle. They were not effective the rest of the match. Think of the impact load and G forces that robot endured. The problem is this happens all day and the effects are cumulative. Drive trains get loose and sloppy. The arm or lift gets sloppy or binds and then a robot that was 100% hanging a ubertube now is marginal. The human players are smarter and do not flood the field with tubes. So when one does come out its a sprint to get to it. Even if you get to it first, is you grabber strong enough to pull it out of the grasp of the opposition that just grabbed on too? If you win the fight for the tube, there is another robot between you and the rack. With today's robots you can not plow through them, It's a jog and dance to get by them to put a tube up with a worn robot. Elapsed time - allot. Then It's back through the defender to do it all over again. The result is low tube hanging scores. The end game has also matured and defense is very effective. Putting allot of tubes around a post works and blocking that supper fast mini bot is critical. Being able to align and deploy in your protected zone can really help. Of course defense also carries the risk of penalties. Yellow and red cards can destroy your chances. I saw allot of teams that were very smart at defense and new how to push it and at the same time avoid going too far and get penalties. Yes a team can play offense and defense in the same match. When your coming out after hanging a tube take a second and whack that defender so your alliance partner can get threw with a tube. Defense is fun. That offensive team is totally focused on getting a tube. They never see you lining them up and coming. One good whack and they are thrown off their game. Then go hit another bot. Come back and whack them again. He, He defense is fun. Yes, defense changes the game. Our first regional was offensive and we did not do well. We are not the best offensive team. Our minibot and deployment is OK but not supper fast. We can hang ubertubes but not 100%. We are very agile with swerve drive. Our robot, arm and grabber proved to be very durable and could be fixed fast. Our alliance partners also were on the same page, adaptive and executed very well. In the end our alliance adapted and executed superbly to over come one crisis after another. We won by surviving attrition. Defense changes the game. Yes, Philly was weird. Going forward can your team deal with heavy defensive strategies?

[GGCO]

Despite FIRST's attempts to penalize defense into obscurity, defense is definitely a huge part of Logomotion. The biggest reason is that its a mess to have three robots trying to score at once, and therefore it just makes sense to have the third robot play defense.

[fuzzy1718]

There is a lot more to defense then just stalling people in this game. One of the most effective defensive strategies is tube starvation. You seen it a lot at MSC. I'm not saying stalling an opponent is not affective. In fact when mixed with tube starvation it is quite crippling to an alliance.

My personal opinion, based upon watching quite a few differant elimination rounds, having 1 robot stall the other alliance's movement to and from the rack, 1 robot delivering tubes to its safe zone, and 1 robot hanging is one of the best strategies.

Has anyone else seen this?

[Jeffy]

There is a lot more to defense then just stalling people in this game. One of the most effective defensive strategies is tube starvation. You seen it a lot at MSC. I'm not saying stalling an opponent is not affective. In fact when mixed with tube starvation it is quite crippling to an alliance.

My personal opinion, based upon watching quite a few differant elimination rounds, having 1 robot stall the other alliance's movement to and from the rack, 1 robot delivering tubes to its safe zone, and 1 robot hanging is one of the best strategies.

Has anyone else seen this?

I'm not sure "delivering tubes" is really worth it except for a select few robots I have seen. When you make a delievery, it adds an extra tube aqusition time (and release) into the mix. I think we will mostly see one defender and two hangers in St. Louis on sucessful alliances.
PLUS: Many human players have demonstrated the ability to throw all the tubes full field.

[Austin2046]

Watching some of the video from MSC i noticed in semi-final 1 match 2 (seen here http://www.youtube.com/user/FIRSTinMichigan#p/c/61E716C78A9FA603/145/2sbjDxGItW8) team 1023 played some very good defense on the red alliance.

They pushed a number of tubes into the safety of their lanes (in particular squares) denying them logo possibilities. They hit tubes the robots were trying to pick up. They pushed robots around while they were trying to score, and they delayed robots heading for their towers... they limited the red alliance to just 72 points while the blue alliance scored 134 points. In the previous match the red alliance scored 143 points, so i think cutting their scoring potential in 1/2is worthy of some recognition.

as a side note, i think all in all the tube starvation (in particular, lack of squares) and the tower alignment delays were the most effective defensive manuvers. even if the robots do get lined up with the towers before the 10 second mark, i think the defense gives the drivers less time and makes them more panicked. this might lead to deployment mistakes or slightly delayed deployment. the less time they have to prepare and wait for that 10 second mark, the better.

[boomergeek]

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1973098812980&oid=260884387121&comments

Team 241 playing defense in a deciding quarter final match at Boston Regional:
blocking and tube starvation.

4 CIMs, 6 plaction wheels, low CoG, driver with practice,
only one three point penalty through 8 matches.

[jts]

Team 900 at the NC Regional was quite effective at implementing a tube starvation strategy in addition to the general harassment of the other alliance's scoring robots. In many matches we were able to block nearly all of the tubes being thrown in from reaching the opposing alliance.

[Wayne TenBrink]

There is a lot more to defense then just stalling people in this game. One of the most effective defensive strategies is tube starvation. You seen it a lot at MSC. I'm not saying stalling an opponent is not affective. In fact when mixed with tube starvation it is quite crippling to an alliance.

My personal opinion, based upon watching quite a few differant elimination rounds, having 1 robot stall the other alliance's movement to and from the rack, 1 robot delivering tubes to its safe zone, and 1 robot hanging is one of the best strategies.

Has anyone else seen this?

I agree. Early in the season, I thought that defense was a futile sign of desperation by an alliance that couldn't hang tubes, but that was wrong. As the season developed, it became apparent that even two fast hangers tend to get in each other's way. A well supplied, fast hanger can do 2-3 logos. A pair of good HP's can pretty much keep a fast tube hanger busy without ever leaving their scoring zone. A second hanger can clean up tubes that don't make it to the scoring zone & either deliver them or hang a logo. The third partner can focus on a mix of tube starvation and delay tactics. They don't need to shut their opponents down completely - just make them go as far as possible to get what they need. The defender then gets to be the front line of defense between the slowest-to-line-up hanger and the tower.

[thefro526]

I wasn't able to watch any matches with Dragonfly from 3553. How'd they do this season?

Dragonfly's defense was definitely above average in Philly with room for improvement. They clearly displayed their ability to interrupt the scoring flow of any single robot, and at times, multiple robots depending on the situation.

That being said, in it's Philly Configuration, Dragonfly was not without flaw, and one of their major flaws was exploited during their Elimination Run while Playing 103 and 56. 3553 was extremely effective at keeping 103 and 56 from leaving and entering their scoring zone to get tubes efficiently, but thanks to some good strategy on the part of 103 and 56 they found a way to work around this - 56 would pass tubes to 103, instead of attempting to score them.

What'll be Interesting, is seeing 3553's Dragonfly at the Championship Event with a consistent more practiced Driveteam and a more effective Minibot Deployment Mechanism. If they were to pair or be paired with two strong scorers (5+ tubes each) then that Alliance is going to be tough to beat.

[Akash Rastogi]

Unfortunately, the only match I have a full video of is QF match 1 in which our driveteam forgot to take our safety bungie cord off the wings. :( This was the only time a mistake like that was made. If people still want to see it:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SouthPhillyRambots

103 didn't know if we were bungied down, so they played some heavy defense on us. Final score of that match was 63-59. I wish the drive team didn't leave the safety on there :rolleyes:

I'll be the first to admit that our performance was sub-par. In St. Louis we'll be a whole different kind of defense though. If we get selected for an alliance at the Championships, I will consider it an awesome rookie season.

[stuart2054]

Despite FIRST's attempts to penalize defense into obscurity, defense is definitely a huge part of Logomotion. The biggest reason is that its a mess to have three robots trying to score at once, and therefore it just makes sense to have the third robot play defense.

Grant,

I have to agree with you. Two offense robots, one defense seems to be the most effective to me. Three is definatley a crowd in this game. A good defensive robot and team can deny alot of points as well as bring a crucial tube for a LOGO to your end of the field. If tube starvation is severe it might make sense for one offense, one tube retriever and one defence but if the human players are good, I think two can stay one offense.

[BJC]

I actually thought that the #8 alliance at MSC did an amazing job with three robots scoring. Granted most alliances can't really pull it off.. but, man, #8 was crazy.

As to effective defense. One of the best things you can do is push all of the other alliances tubes into your lanes. This is killer.

Selective tube starvation is also super effective.

http://www.youtube.com/user/FIRSTinMichigan#p/c/F842A7EE389B39A9/1/wlvrf-RtPOE

In this finals match in Ann Arbor the red alliance steals all of blue's triangles. Blue doesn't realize it until its too late and can't make any logos. Awesome stratigy!

[ToddF]

So if the benefit of hanging a red triangle and completing a top row logo is 3+9=12 points and the cost to fetch one from the blue zone is 3 penalty points, why on earth would red leave logos unfinished? Once the red triangles are on the blue rack, they are untouchable, but if they are on the floor in a blue zone, they are usable, but come with a price. Tube starvation is pretty neat, but certainly not unbeatable by a couple fast hangers. The key is to maintain enough situational awareness to realize you are being starved.

[joeweber]

I do believe that a strong defense robot can make a difference in the game. I have seen team 3536 rank very high at Kettering district, Ann Arbor District and EMU state competition by playing defense only. The only tube they delivered was an uber tube. Unfortunately at state nobody would pick them. If some of the teams would have taken them into the finals it could have made a difference for them. The question is will they be picked in the finals because they are only a defense robot? I would think it would be a mistake not to.

I am also surprised that there were no defense robots that could throw tubes across the field to there team mates. What a help that would be.

[icyplanetnhc]

During the Silicon Valley Regional, the defense that 604 played against 254 in the finals was surprisingly effective. In fact, 254 was being pushed around at its side and couldn't break free. I think their light weight prevents them from having the necessary traction to break the friction between the bumpers. If 604's alliance was more effective at scoring, 254's alliance, which is the first seed, may have lost the competition

This leads me to speculate. Would a defensive robot be effective if it has a powerful enough drive train with enough traction and gear reduction and very high friction cloth for bumpers. If it pushes another robot at its side, it may be effective in preventing the other robot from maneuvering. Of course, this is just a thought, and I haven't done any math to substantiate this speculation, so I may be completely wrong.

[Blackphantom91]

Defense should be a one robot thing just to avoid penalties, but you could cause tons of problems just by poking away tubes and "bullying" the top robot on the alliance thus hopefully cutting there scoring down by half. I mean at championships the likely hood of an alliance getting a good 3rd is high so you could theoretically do three scorers and outscoring the other alliance. Defense can be pretty good if apply correctly.