Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Scoring is a step function--each capped stack is really worth 36 or 42 points. If a team can't fit in that last stack in the last few seconds, they fall 36 or 42 points behind, not just 2 or 4. We can see how teams fall into 2, 3 or 4 stacks per match teams (only 2 or 3 at that higher level, and a dozen at the next level). There aren't really any 2.5 stack teams, because that's largely meaningless due to the lumpiness of stack scoring.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Which is fundamentally different from previous years. It was very difficult for a top team alone to outgun an entire alliance at least in the last 3 years, and even impossible last year if the alliance had competent robots. This year a top team will "win" the match so long as the bot doesn't drop a stack.

And what's worse is that with all of the anticipation for Einstein, the competition may be decided in the first second and all of the amazing stacking power of 1114/254 will be for naught.

That's why this year's game "sucks." (And yes, I agree with my fellow mentor on this point.)

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Yes, that has been the case each time for us, but that has been much more important than previous years where specific robot performance had been the primary criterion.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

I think there are plenty of 2.5 stack teams. The ".X" in 1.X, 2.X, 3.X buys you margin against screwups, dropped cans, cans ending up in the corners, noodles, "defense" from alliance partners, etc.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Just a note-
the problem is no longer how fast you can get the cans. Anything between 0-0.3 seconds will probably get the can, depending on if they are going for the handle or for the center. It's how well you can hold on that's the deciding factor now.
Unless you can block teh center of the can against another center robot.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Tug of war scenarios opens up a new avenue of strategy: determining the price a team is willing to pay to hold on to the can. Is it worth 5-15 seconds of tele-op for something you may not win? Is it worth a broken arm?

It becomes a physical auction of sorts that drive teams will have to manage very carefully.

But based on the canburglars I've seen, I'm not sure how often such a scenario will occur.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Adding a can triples the stack value, more if you add a noodle. The moment you let go of a can, you assume that the other robot can stack less than 2x as fast as you can- at least in finals. Before then it makes sense to gamble.
Can grabbers at champs will probably be "cheesecaked" to other teams. The speed makes the tug of war very possible.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Galileo 2011 was also the division where 973 (who also had a really fast minibot) fell to the pick right before 294.

This reminds me, that based on how champs has ended in the past, I think this year, a #1 or #2 alliance will pick a robot with a really fast can grabber (w/o cheesecake) that the other alliances ignored, and said alliance will win champs because of this second round steal. It happens almost every year, with teams like 610, 16, 973, 177, 971, and 148 (the third champion robots from 2013-2008) falling to one of the last picks of the draft.

An argument can be made that the smaller divisions may reduce the depth of each division. While that may happen in some divisions, I believe that because their are twice as many chances for this to happen, it will still happen (I don't think cutting 25% of teams from a division will bring down the bar for a third robot 50% across all eight divisions).

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Back in 2011 973 had the fastest minibot bar none in Galileo and really all the teams should have known that if they had done some quality scouting. Combining their minibot with 254 or 111's and they had the fastest 1/2/3 combo around. Our scouts were blown away that they they fell all the way to the 2nd pick of the 2nd alliance.

We were really lucky to play with 1114 on the number 1 seed alliance that year. Our robot was decent with an above average minibot. We were a solid pick but not elite. The really amazing thing is how we teamed up with 1114 to make our minibot system way way faster! We actually swapped our entire minibot deployment system for a 1114's spare system got reinspected and went to play. It was actually documented here..

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...4+1114+minibot

This kind of harkens to the sharing of ramps/cheesecake this year...

Adding to the 2nd pick steals, we felt the same way with 177 as well in 2010. You couldn't beat picking a team that not only had a great robot but also had been to Einstein the past 3 years in a ROW! how did they get missed?!?!

I easily see this happening again this year especially with more divisions and a much higher bar of quality robots.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

Yeah, sidenote, I completely told this story wrong. Point being, 973 (I think, 973 =/= 294) was really, really fast and fell really, really late. Right, apparently I don't still remember it that well at all. Ahem. EDIT: Yes, what 294 above me said. Sorry about that, folks.

Yes, it is quite common. In fact, our first Einstein appearance (2013) was as the second round draft pick of a full court shooting AC who'd gotten a floor pickup in the first round. We were a cycler with a 30 point climb. Weird combinations fall through the cracks somehow.

In fact, the draft might be even cooler than that this year. As Rangle asked, what does 1114 do as the second fastest can grabber? The thing is, this isn't just a subdivision question. If the point calculus works out to mean that the #nth AC can win their bracket with the mth fastest burglar there, the problem isn't whether they're the mth fastest burglar in their subdivision. The question is whether they're the pth at Worlds--or rather, qth fastest that's going to make it to Einstein. Meaning that if you're thinking about winning the whole shebang, you're not just scouting your subdivision's burgling speeds, you're scouting all of them. And making some kind of weighted judgement, consciously or otherwise, as to what the other Einstein-likely ACs are doing during selection. Hmm...I wonder what happens if alliance selection doesn't occur at the same time on each field.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

I wasn't around on CD back then, so can somebody inform me of how often on CD was the overwhelming importance of minibots discussed in 2011? I tried doing some searches and couldn't find much discussion until after champs.

Similarly, how often was the importance of lap bots in 2008 or ball-stealers in 2012 talked about?

Can people point me to threads that talk about these issues before champs in each of those years?

This canburglar stuff has been beaten to death on CD, I seriously doubt that any division will leave a good canburglar to the end of the draft. And even looking at the teams that you mentioned, the more recent ones (610 and 16) were not the last picks of the draft, instead they were selected by the lower seeded alliances. I expect something similar to happen this year, with a lower seeded alliance of alright robots and great canburglars winning a few of the divisions.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

I don't know the exact threads for 2011 but if you just watch Einstein matches, you can see how tube scoring that year became exponentially ineffective after scoring the top two rows of the scoring racks. A full logo on the bottom rack was only worth 6 points and since minibot scores varied dramatically if an alliance got 1st and 2nd, it was pretty much the sole decider of games at the highest level. I also think that awesome canburglers will make it to the very late picks since alliances will be weighing in different factors and not just canburglering. I think many captains might pick slower canburglers that are also good tote stackers vs a robot that is a awesome canburgler and not much else. Especially for the lower seeded alliances where they might still need help with tote stacking.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

I know how important minibots were on Einstein, what I want to know is Did the alliance captains drafting in 2011 know how important minibots were?
This year we have very active CD threads always discussing the importance of canburglars. GameSense talks about it, Looking Forward talks about it; did people in 2011 talk about minibots like we're talking about canburglars now?

This is an interesting point. I can understand how something like this may happen, but I wonder if there are enough canburglars in each division that it will happen.

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

I'm betting/counting on an over abundance of burglars. Don't let me down....lol:ahh:

Re: A Recycle Rush Reflection
 

I don't remember specific DC threads (not to say there weren't any, just to say that that was years ago), but I do remember that we as a team discussed it, and we were idiots in 2011. In fact, it must have been on CD quite a lot, or there wouldn't have been so much cloning. We won Philly that year with a minibot whose identical twins were all over the FRC world. As I recall a lot of that cloning was related to the "seriously, this is becoming a coin flip" discussion. Loud discussion. And I remember lots of "refs as garage door openers" complaints vis-a-vis not really knowing if people were deploying exactly on time. It was at least known aggravation and a serious enough game mechanic that people were loud about objecting to it. I have trouble parsing how much of that was CD and how much was in person, though.

On the other hand, for you youngins' out there, we didn't have LF or or Ri3D or GameSense or Top25 or Top10 or... etcetera. (I wonder what Car Nack said that year.) So there's a limit to the ubiquity potential.

Can an NE and/or PNWer talk about how selection played out at their District Championships? What was your depth in stacking and specialist(s), and where did which caliber of each end up in the draft?

And does a mod want to kick us all out, because I think we broke this thread topic. :o