How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Last year we had full court shooters, but because of the rules (and ball size) this year full court shooting isn't an option. However, if a team had a strong enough shooter they could get the inbound from the human player and immediately launch it down the field to a teammate who would ideally catch it and score it.

In this scenario each cycle would be worth: 10 truss points, 10 catch points (in the unlikely case that the ball is caught), 10 assist points, and 10 goal points for a total of 40 points.

I feel like this strategy would be a more efficient way of moving the ball down the field and into the goal than a more traditional approach.

What does the CD community think about this? :yikes:

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

In theory sounds logical, but I believe even the most basic robot could make it worthless by either blocking the catcher, or you, there are no safe zones. To me , a robot that could drive and feed well would be way more desired? Maybe I'm wrong, do what you feel like your need, but just remember having a robot that preforms well constantly, is a team player, and again can do what they do reliably! I personally believe that its better for a newer team to just be able to drive great first off, but be able to feed great? then you could cause way more assist points, and stop the opponents points, more than you could score with a decent shooter.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I have also thought about this. You would get 2/3 assists and the truss which is essentially one assist short of a full round(excluding truss catch because our team belief is that most won't do it until later) so if you could make up that deficit by being efficient and fast it could be an effective method

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Put a strong shooter on a good drivetrain and you could get around the defense for shooting. As for the robot that is receiving the pass, it would just need a good ground pickup and omnidirectional drivetrain for avoiding defense. Just ideas, I don't think our team will be pursuing this strategy. However, you never know!

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

You can always adapt!

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Though this seems really good I wouldent count on having an alliance member catch. To much to go wrong.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I agree. The catch points would be bonus!

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I think this could be a deadly strategy in early regionals for the top seeded alliances. Since the one seed has the best two robots and then the 24th best, depending on the regional the top two may not want the third robot slowing down their cycle times, and if one has a strong shooter this could be a quick 40 point cycle opportunity.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

If the catching robot gets pushed and misses the catch you will most likely have a bouncing ball that's hard to contain because its bouncing? If you feel like this is what works for you, than please pursue it, but also think it through very well! Being a defensive driver on the field, I would specifically target any full court shooter, or their high goal shooter?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Who says the robot will be easily pushed? If you design both robots drivetrains right then they can be pretty solidly mounted to the floor. With vision tracking teams could adjust their shot to the catchers desired posistion. One think i learnt from last year is that if it's possible then it will be done. Look at chessy poofs 30pt climb! That was insane fast and nobody thought it could be done that fast but they pursued their goal and achieved it. I personally think full court assist will be possible this year, but not common

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

This is true, but wouldn't the robot catching have to be able to move well to catch ball? And if say defensive robot had 6 CIMs and driving capabilities I think it might make it hard to catch, again causing a wild ball chase, which is what your opponent wants. But it might work? Who knows anything is possible in FIRST, maybe you could make a braking system to hold you in place?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

A full court assist meaning say one robot in the blue zone passing all the way to the red zone? I could see that becoming very uncontrolled. If you didn't set up your pass perfectly you could easily lose control of the ball on the other end and waste time. Also this would be very easy to defend.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Yes that is what I mean when I say full court assist. A lot of people doubted full court shooting last year as well. If the right two robots get together with this strategy and can do it effectively then I see it being tough to stop. I do however, see your point that it could be a high risk strategy in the sense that a mistake is costly.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Keep in mind that some (most?) catching mechanisms were probably designed with a more modest hurdling action in mind, and may react in fun and exciting ways to a hail mary.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Nothing like pushing mechanisms to their limits :D

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Says who?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I think a full court assist is a very viable strategy, even without the catch. Think about a robot that can get the ball over a truss to two robots waiting to pick up and shoot, you get an assist, a truss bonus and a score in a potentially very high cycle time.

This strategy should not be discounted.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

The rule book.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

If I'm understanding the given quote correctly, it means that a robot has to possess the ball between the Truss and the corresponding alliances goal.

OP was describing full-court Assisting, which means that Robot 1 passes over truss to robot 2, who then possesses the ball and scores or passes further.

On that note, I think that Full-Court Assisting is a very interesting strategy, but it seriously depends on the alliance composition.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Yes this is what I was referring to.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Bocheck was asking who said a full court shot wouldn't be allowed.

I am personally a huge proponent of the goalie/punter bot. I believe that a good one, could very well give an alliance a distinct advantage come the elimination rounds.

I expect to see the top seeded teams looking for a robot like this to pair up with. A bot like this would account for a 20 point contribution to the cycle.

If you were a rookie team, you could abandon the drive train and just create a static punter. You could probably automate it too...

Also think about the fact that if there are no balls on the field a punter get's your cycle started right away, as opposed to you waiting for a bot to cross the field.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I think this strategy depends on how bouncy the balls are(I don't know this because I'm not on a team). If the balls settle down fairly quickly after being fired over the truss, I think we'll see this strategy and it will be deadly with an efficient scoring bot and a blocking bot. If it bounces around a lot, it may not be as viable. A version of this utilizing a low pass under the truss for a 20 point cycle could also be useful if it is significantly quicker than a 3 assist cycle.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

You couldn't be a static punter because you start in the white or goalie. I think it would then become they have three moving bots to defend and protect, while your alliance has three, all you could do is sit there, but if you have a really fast bot, with a good feeder you could bring the ball over very quickly then do other things needed?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

The only problem I see is your idea of using an omnidirectional drivetrain. Unless you're thinking of using a swerve drive, omnidirectional drivetrains are usually very easily pushed around, so you will either be seceptable to defense or limited in mobility.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Any drivetrain that would be capable of getting under the ball to catch it would be ideal. I only threw out the idea of an omnidirectional drive because aligning the robot would be easy. I agree a powerful tank with a good driver would be more effective at dealing with defense.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

When I said a good driving 6 CIM tank robot would be defense, but that is true as well, but it might work? maybe if you have some other teams you can work with, just have the back up ability to score in the highgoal if needed, and atleast feed.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

One of many viable strategies for the game.

I remember a missed shot during our students game simulation bouncing off the goal and back to the other side of the truss. I can see the same happening on a missed catch. Full court assisting may be able to average out to more points due to faster cycles, but an unlucky bounce could really hurt.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

But since this full court assist strategy only really involves 2 robots, the 3rd robot could be used for retrieving missed shots as well as defents

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

true true, this would be good because the full court shooter would be the one protected, also stopping the other teams shooter, but the imbounder on the other side could defend against the catcher? and the third member on your team couldn't protect both?
It actually might work, but catching will be the hard part.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Alternatively, if you decided to try this strategy with 3 good robots, you could have one robot positioned such that they are in their colored zone, then throw to the white zone, and the last robot throws to the robot parked right outside of the goal, allowing for incredibly fast cycle.

Then again, that would depend on absolutely 0 defense, and robots that can catch and throw with good accuracy.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I do agree that good defense could shut this strategy down, but can't that be said about almost any strategy? Defense could shut down FCS last year but yet FCS still prevailed..I think the same will be said about FCA(Full Court Assisting). :D

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

There is almost absolutely no point in my opinion. If you can score 20 assisting, why not aim for 40?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

This is true for pretty much any strategy, but its a thing of how good the defense is, there is a difference in strategies that can be shut down by a rookie robot that had an ambitious design fail, or a team prepared and great at defense? So lets say FCA is on the blue alliance, they have 2 great shooters on team, they start in red and then shoot it over the truss, then go and play decent Defense but aren't very effective because they used the motors for the FCA (this may not be what you do, just a possibility), then their opponent score and so does their alliance, the shooter for the other team plays defense against them, or the midfield opponent, and stops them from feeding, then the midfield alliance bot gets the ball and truss shots over and it isn't caught because of the in-bounding opponent robot blocks, the ball goes bouncing, it is retrieved, your bot lines up to inbound, the cycle starts over and you shoot it over, by this time the opponents understand and block the catcher, another flying ball, while they are scrambling you have to attempt to play defense on shooter if ball is there because you can't go help because you aren't fast enough. And by time selections come around your opponents in finals know what you can do so they play easy defense on you (the shooter for opponents) but the problem is that more than likely in a finals match that shooter would be one of the top teams so they would be very versatile, so they could play quick defense, so what do you do, you grab the ball and bring it down to shoot , if you focus on a full court assister wouldn't you have to also refine it to be able to shoot closely and maybe not as good so you'd want to hand it off well? but you spent so much time on the FCA that it's not that great? this could go a million ways but this is just a way I thought of. There are so many other great ways for this ending up but this is a bad way that very well could? Please correct me if this is totally nonviable.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

One reason might be that you can do these 20 or 30 point cycles faster than a 40 point cycle. Say it takes 45 seconds for some alliance to complete a 3 assist cycle. If one robot has the ability to pass the ball from their defensive zone, over the truss, to a partner in the offensive zone, they may be able to complete this 30 point cycle in say 30 seconds. Using those times, they could do 3 40 point cycles for 120 points, or 5 30 point cycles for 150 points. What would you do?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

This is definitely a scenario that could conceivably happen. However, like you said it could go a million different ways. I think you are underestimating how hard it would be to actually play defense on the FCA. A well designed FCA should have a good drivetrain and should be able to launch the ball from a number of different spots to a number of different spots. I just don't think even an experienced defensive team would bother trying to block the FCA.
Blocking the robot (or two robots) on the receiving end of the FCA is a different story. Finding a way around defense from the receiving end is definitely more difficult. If there are two robots receiving from the FCA then the FCA would aim for the one that isn't being defensed against (or is more open). If one of the receiving robots is better at catching the ball, then the inferior receiving robot could play anti - defense (setting a pick) for the superior receiving robot allowing it to get room to catch or quickly corral the ball in order to shoot. This ties up one robot from the opposing alliance taking away triple assist opportunities for them and still allows for (in theory) quick 40 point cycles for the FCA team.
If there is one robot on the receiving end of the FCA then it all comes down to driver/drivetrain superiority between the defensive and offensive robot. This also would allow for the third member of the FCA alliance to strictly play defense against the opposing alliance.
The advantage of having a FCA in quals is huge because there are a lot of ways to do it depending on who the FCA is paired with. The disadvantages are glaringly obvious as well because the strategy relies on a teammate of the FCA to be able to quickly attain possession of the ball and consistently put it in the 10 pt goal which will be rare qualities (I realize this paragraph contradicts itself).

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

why would a defensive team not play D on an FCA???? if the defensive robot hit them off a slight and off goes the ball? if a good FCA could easily be kept from getting the ball by a good defensive player? its like playing defense on a shooter, but bigger risks for the shooter. Just my thoughts, I am a defensive driver and that's what our team prides ourselves in is our driving, because our last robot stunk. Know that this is just my opinion and it can, and has often been, be wrong so believe what you believe is right.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I see your rational but if your playing defense on the FCA and the FCA gets a shot off (and eventually they will) even in the vicinity of the receiving robot (assuming your defense alters the shot so it is less accurate) there is no defense preventing the receiving robot from getting the ball and scoring it. Unless you want 2/3rds of your alliance at least partially dedicated to defense you can't effectively cover both the FCA and receiving robot.
Also if you are covering the FCA it will come down to driver/drivetrain skill of the FCA and defensive robot. Like almost every strategy in this game it will come down to robot v. robot in an open field. The key is limiting potential for error and inefficiency.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

One robot in each zone, then you would have two partners for stopping, say the defensive bot controls the feeding zone for their alliance, their two shooters help eachother as well as the defensive bot. but needless to say other robots could still defend catching, and if a robot is fast enough ( a good defensive bot will be), than they could catch up and stop the shooter before they either get it or try to shoot?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

If you have the 'perfect' alliance pairing, I'm not sure why defense has to matter much at all.

Maybe some missed it in the initial game analysis, but if I am Red alliance there are 4 spots in the red zone I can park my robot where defense cannot move or block me. If I have a catching device, and the 'perfect' full court assist partner is parked in the parallel location in the blue zone, then that's game. Our 3rd alliance partner can play defense on Blue alliance or can park in front of the FCA in case someone is tall enough to attempt a block in front of it.

If none of the robots have to move to complete a cycle, can our alliance break 300 in a match?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Mind sufficiently blown. I don't think we will see this, but it is still awesome and I am mad at myself for not seeing it.

I think aiming for running quick solo cycles is probably the most efficient and likely way to do something in this spirit and something we are going to see a lot of, especially in the early regionals. You can run a solo cycle straight to the goal in 5-10 seconds assuming accuracy (which is never safe to assume). But theoretically you can run 22-44 cycles a match in your perfect scenario. That is a lot of points.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

22 cycles in a match will not ever happen. Not on Einstein, not at IRI, never. There are 140 seconds in Teleop. 140sec / 22 cycles is 6.36 sec/cycle. Subtract 4sec for your very athletic human player to get the ball from behind the player station into your robot and and you only have 2.36 sec left to score and be back in position to do it again.

Historically in games where teams have to cross the field and back to score game pieces, the Einstein level play maxes out around 9ish cycles (1 cycle every 15.5sec.)

Cheers, Bryan

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

This idea pairs well with Donuts idea:

Maybe some missed it in the initial game analysis, but if I am Red alliance there are 4 spots in the red zone I can park my robot where$@#defense cannot move or block me.$@#If I have a catching device, and the 'perfect' full court assist partner is parked in the parallel location in the blue zone, then that's game. Our 3rd alliance partner can play defense on Blue alliance or can park in front of the FCA in case someone is tall enough to attempt a block in front of it.

If none of the robots have to move to complete a cycle, can our alliance break 300 in a match?


If the top 2 robots on the #1 alliance are FCAing then I could see them becoming very efficient at it. Maybe even efficient enough to resemble the scenario described by Donut.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

If a Full Court Assist (FCA) robot is launching balls down the field, there will be times when that ball hits another robot.

Will your robot (the pickup arm, the launcher, the electronics, etc) be able to sustain that hit?

That is something that teams may want to consider in their design.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I did really poor 3am math in my head... i meant 14-28 in perfect scenarios. I agree that a realistic max of 10 at the top level is what we are probably going to see on average. But I do think you can do these much more quickly than you could last year, because you don't have to travel as far and you don't really have to align with a specific human player slot and people can have giant "sweet spots"

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

my only opposition to this is you would have to be able to still move and then park and that could be defended except in auto mode so that would work as far as I could tell?. the only possible way I can think of to defend that would just be to ram them as hard as possible. One problem is that if you ever miss you have only one mobile robot on the alliance and that could be easily defended so you can't slip up and with being rammed that might be hard to do?

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I think the Zebracorns (team 900) proved Full Court Assisting to be extremely viable. They very nearly won Palmetto with this strategy. I believe 2451 also performed a version of this strategy and we're very successful at Central Illinois.

Edit: Just started watching 148 in Elims they are full court assisting to 2468 (very successfully might I add :D)

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

I just watched a match with 148 and another team doing really well, 148 would FCA to the human player who would imbound while their partner played defense, great strategy!

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

4901 had the exact same strategy as 900, except we found it uneccesary to shoot the ball off the field. However we only had 2 maybe 3 matches where our parners worked well enough to execute the strategy. So apparently none of the scouters at Palmetto payyed attention to those matches where we were the ONLY team on an alliance moving.

Sorry. Week 1 rage is kicking in.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Thank you for noticing. Honestly, the biggest problems we had were with human players loading the ball and catching it. We worked out the catching pretty quickly with our own HP but the loading is tricky. We are going to improve the design for the NC Regional and hopefully other teams will begin to understand the importance of putting a more talented human player on the field. The human player is very undervalued from what we saw in Palmetto.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Lead scouter from team 900 here. We looked at your data Friday and saw that you guys had a really great bot, but boy you guys had a HORRENDOUS schedule! It's a real shame our strategies couldn't overlap. Just wanted to let you know that you guys were noticed.

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

Notes taken for our first regional which isn't until week 5 :p Any other tips for us they would be greatly appreciated. I really enjoyed watching your robot by the way!

Re: How viable is full court Assisting?
 

This my 6th year with FRC and I've never faced such bad schedule luck. Thanks so much for confirming that it wasnt my imagination. I mean it.