Re: Well played GDC
 

This game reminds me of Stack Attack in 2003, except I think this one will work better in reality. It's interesting because nobody has really seen a game like this before, so in a way, everybody's a rookie.

Re: Well played GDC
 

I see your point, but I still think of it as the "end game bonus". It may not technically be end game, since robots can start climbing anytime during the match. But it seems like end game to me because the climbing points are assessed after time runs out. You don't get climbing points if your robot climbs early, goes back down to the floor, and starts/resumes playing other aspects of the game.

Either way, the climbing bonus is what makes Ultimate Ascent a great game. If it were just throwing discs, that would be fun, but not much of a challenge. IMO.

Re: Well played GDC
 

Same as last year, teams could start balancing whenever then wanted to.

Re: Well played GDC
 

Right. It is the "end game" in terms of when points are scored, but the tiered difficulty of this year's CLIMB (along with the corresponding tiered points) makes it a very interesting strategic decision that depends on how fast, how far, and what other compromises have to be made to make the CLIMB happen.

I suspect that the "right" answer is going to be different for a lot of teams -- sure, there's one uberbot concept that can do it all, and that would be the robot to have if you could do it, but if you can't, you start to make compromises in functionality based on what you determine the optimal strategy to be.

Re: Well played GDC
 

Us too, since our robot overall stance and appearance is very similar to 2003. In fact, we pulled it out of our storage area the day of kickoff.
That's also the year at CMP where we were with 45 and 217 in the playoffs.
I wasnt coaching back then but Paul and Andy were.:)

Re: Well played GDC
 

I think everyone in this particular thread is concentrating a great deal on the end game. Many teams are missing the significance of the autonomous portion of the game.

I know quite a few teams are designing for a 24 point autonomous. Some others are designing for a 30 point autonomous or greater. This will definitely be seen. 30-36-40 point single auto routines are possible in this game with 24 point being what I would consider to be a high quality auto.

When you combine a 24 point auto and a 30 point auto and perhaps a 12 point auto... you will see teams in St. Louis doing regular 66 points in autonomous....

Even if all three teams climb the pyramid you only get 90 points...

Autonomous will be big this year... very similar to last year but I think more points will be scored...a good auto last year was 30-36 points... we rarely saw even higher auto scores... this year we could see scores over 50 ...

A good auto requires a good shooting mechanism and a floor collector... so those teams that concentrate on auto will also be able to shoot/collect during regular match play.

I would certainly consider a team to be special if they had a 30 point auto and could put in 16 disks in the high goal during the 2 minutes without doing any hanging... this would give a team a boost of 30 + 48 or 78 points..... and the team would not even need a hanging mechanism...

Imagine three teams that could do this... and you get well over 200 points with no hanging or 5 point goals scored...

All teams need to think seriously about auto.. it is big points... with no defense being played... disks on the floor in known places...

I can't recall a game that had more potential in auto other than in Stack Attack (the first game we had auto) where auto pretty much decided the game and perhaps in 2006 with Aim High when winning auto gave a team a huge advantage....

This is a rich and many faceted game.... it should be fun....
It will be really fun trying to put together winning alliances...