Human Player Strategies
 

I would like to call attention to the position of human player. I have played through two regionals now as the human player for my team and have experienced a wide range of styles of play. For some teams, it seems like the human player simply in-bounds balls as soon as he/she receives them from the corral. Then the field is littered with unused balls at the end of the match.

Personally I like to keep the balls until my alliance actually is in need of them, why overfeed the team and risk not getting the ball over onto the offensive side? The other advantage to this is I usually get to throw a few at the end of the match. I am curious as to what other human players are doing? How good are you at your full court shots? Did you know that we are allowed to shoot in the final 30 seconds of a match? (Unfortunately a human player on my alliance did not know this was allowed and simply dropped the ball over the top of the in-bounding station when I informed him there was 30 seconds left).

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

I am on Team Titanium FRC 1986 and am the Inbounder. I personally throw every ball through the slot that I get. My strategy would change however if we had an immense amount of balls on our offensive side. Most of the time we are starving for balls so I try to get them over to us as fast as possible. I have gotten pretty good at getting them through the slot and over to our robot every time. Personally I feel that giving a ball to our robot is almost a guaranteed 3 where throwing them over during that last 30 seconds is game of chance.

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

But when you throw, and (presumably) miss, isn't that equal to throwing it through the slot, as the ball is most likely end up on your scoring side of the court anyway? And by the last 30 seconds, most teams will be heading for the bridges, unless you are limited by mechanical difficulties or strategic play.

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

If the ball was held from earlier in the match to be thrown at the end (and missed, perhaps), then it wouldn't be the same. If it was bounced over with 50 seconds to go, it could've been harvested and scored (>50% chance, for a strong alliance). If it was held until less than 30 seconds remained, it likely missed and likely won't be harvested and scored.

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

I suppose this is where it gets situational. If you are in a strong scoring alliance, then by all means toss it through the slot, but if your scoring side of the court is saturated with balls, or if your alliance is weaker at scoring than desired, then there is definitely something to be said about hoarding to 30 seconds, IMO.

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

Yeah if you have a ball to throw and you happen to miss, But I don't try to hold on or save a ball for the last 30 seconds just to try to hit a full court shot, as you said most of the robots are heading for the bridges by that point anyway so I don't really find myself getting anymore balls to throw over. I normally leave the "throwing over" up for negotiation with other teams as I would rather have a steady supply of balls going through the slot during the game. If a team is happening to score that late in the game I normally will give it to another Inbounder on the alliance and let them throw it over.

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

Can we please call them Inbounders and not human players?

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

Inbounders are Human Players are they not? They are players that are human :p

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

Sorry it's just one of my pet peeves.

/GOM rant
FIRST goes to a lot of effort to come up with terms that differentiate each game and there is no reference to human player in the manual. The person/s that handle the balls are called Inbounders.

That one is right up there with autonomous, nationals, and my biggest complaint pneumatic piston.
/end GOM rant

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

I know, I'm just teasing :D

And it bothers me as well when the annoucers mention autonomous during a match. But oh well

And pneumatic piston! we use 1 of those.

(I kid of course, we use 2) :p

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

I changed mine to say Inbounder to make everyone happy :-)

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

Reading back I didn't mention human player or inbounder... so good for me? or shame on you? :D

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

How did the term "human player" get started?
Is your problem with "autonomous" that it should be called hybrid?

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

The word "Human Player" has been used in many previous FIRST games. However, like this year, sometimes they mix it up and call them Inbounder, Payload Specialist, Robocoach, etc.

Basically, use the appropriate name for the role so that people don't get confused and you KNOW we're talking about Rebound Rumble is what I believe IndySam is saying.

Also yes, hybrid mode should not be called autonomous mode. However you can run autonomous programs in hybrid mode, it is not strictly autonomous.

I think those were the points being discussed. :)

Re: Human Player Strategies
 

technically it would only be called autonomous if nobody uses the Kinect station. If they did then theres human interaction making it hybrid not autonomous. Am I right?