Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

The basis of the concept is that you make a robot that sits with 2 wheels in their opponent's courtyard, and 2 in the secret passage, close to the castle wall, with most of the mass of the robot in the SP, and a 15" extension off the back.

The extension and the side of the robot all have inputs (optional, can be closed), to take in balls from the human player station as they are fed out. Then the balls are brought through the robot and shot out the top, with another one entering as the last one leaves.

This requires you to score 4 shots to get it running so they have to start feeding balls back, so you might want alliance members to start with balls and score them asap, along with the 1 you would score from auto. If you or a alliance member can get 1 more after that they are forced to start ejecting balls and you can start an infinite loop.

My rough math shows it might be possible to do this in a 3-5 second cycle. With 5 points every 3 seconds of teleop (minus a couple of seconds for setup) you score 200 pts at least, though at the end you may want to challenge. The best autonomous in my opinion is to start in the spy zone and shoot, allowing you to get into position faster once teleop starts. Once this happens though, I see no reason to move after the loop is started. If someone could clarify and see if any rules violations would apply that would be great.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

It'd work for about 30 seconds maybe. According to G21 (A ROBOT contacting carpet in the opponent’s SECRET PASSAGE may not contact opposing ROBOTS), you're allowed to be in their secret passage, but you're not allowed to touch opposing robots in their secret passage. Once the other alliance noticed what you're doing, all they have to do is send one robot to touch you and you'd be at fault and get a tech foul.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

It would be allowable, but why would they feed boulders to you?

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

How would you solve against G21?

All your opponent would have to do is touch you while trying to get a ball from their human player station and you would get a technical foul.

You can only have 6(ish?) boulders in the castle at a time. Once you shoot a 7th into the tower they must put one boulder back into play via the human player station or else they receive a foul.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

ROBOTS are prohibited from launching BOULDERS unless they are in contact with the opponent’s TOWER or carpet in the opponent’s COURTYARD, and not in contact with any other carpet.

You can't score while touching the secret passage carpet

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

You block the bottom two passages, so they have to use the Brattice.
This topic has been covered in depth is two other threads. It depends on Q&A answers.
469 from 2010 sets the precedent for what constitutes "possession" of a ball. If they dump two balls on you you need to prove you are not possessing them.
Also you can't shoot, only roll them, as Antoine said.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

The idea is to take advantage of the boulder limit. Castles may only contain 6 boulders at any given time, and start with 3. Once you've shot 4 in, the idea is that the other alliance would be forced to throw them out. The idea itself is brilliant, but cannot work because of G21.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

He was saying that he would be fully on the courtyard's carpet, and a 15" extension would pull balls from the secret passage.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

Yeah. All the other alliance has to do is have the human player dump 3 balls really fast tbh. The reason is worked so well with 469 was because it was their own human player feeding and the way the trident worked, the balls couldn't be rapid fired. The robot would literally need to score the ball as fast as the balls can come out.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

In order to get around G21, you might be able to have a robot that sits in the courtyard and has an intake hovering over the outputs of the human player station. Now you would just have to find a way to get around ensuring they dont send two at you at once as Purpose mentioned.

Read again, the initial post says 2 wheels in the courtyard and 2 in the secret passage.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

that's not what he suggests... making only a 15" arm won't block all the inbound points on the floor

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

Actually here's a twist that's absolutely in allowance with G21.

Sit fully in the courtyard, and have the 15" extension reaching into the secret passage.

G21 A ROBOT contacting carpet in the opponent’s SECRET PASSAGE may not contact opposing ROBOTS.
Violation: TECH FOUL

However, if only your extension is inside the passage, you aren't touching the carpet of the secret passage. At this point, if an opposing bot accidentally pushed you into their passage, they'd actually be fouled with a G11 for strategically trying to draw a foul (this is because they would have made you foul a G21 when it wasn't your intent)

You'd also be allowed to shoot, because the only carpet you're touching is the courtyard carpet.

This is genius. Pretty much another safe spot - They'd have to squeeze behind you and the guardrail in order to push you away from the secret passage.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

It can be more than the 15" extension over the secret passage. As long as your robot isn't touching the carpet there, part of the frame perimeter can overhang the passage.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

True. Jazzin' snag! You could add a shifting counter-weights to your robot so that you could park and tip back.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

The biggest issue I see now (assuming you follow along with the suggestions/updates throughout the thread) is that you would still be susceptible to defense. What stops another team from coming and bumping you while you're shooting?

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

Not quite. G11 states that the opposing alliance cannot force a robot to break a rule. So if they touch you it's not a foul on you. In fact, it's a foul on the OTHER team.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

This thread may be relevant.http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=141277

Also, G11 may apply if they put in two balls at once and force you to control them

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

You could make feet that extend from beneath your robot and make you somewhat immobile.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

The G11 might apply to them, correct? Are we on the same page here?

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

If a human player can be fouled with G11 for depositing balls too fast because an opposing robot is forcing the human player to deposit, I'm sure this is a huge oversight by the GDC and will be in a team update or Q&A. Really the robot doesn't even need to score to be effective. By carrying one ball and blocking all but one HP slot, the robot can prevent the human player from putting balls back into play.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

Seems plausible to reduce cycle times, yet an offensive robot coming back to the secret passage to get a ball would put this strategy in a world of hurt. The other alliance bot would push your bot back onto the courtyard carpet, and if you resist or push back you may wind up with a pretty bad foul regardless of whether the other bot initiated the first contact. The offensive bot is simply coming to get boulders, so it's tough to say they intended to force you into a penalty.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

Oh shoot.
Counterweight thing wouldn't work, cause you'd be touching their SP carpet...

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

You know, I forgot about that rule. I think you may be right, it definitely could be applied in this case, but the way I'm reading it, it seems to be a fail safe so teams don't design a robot or an entire game plan revolving around giving other robots fouls. In this case, an opposing robot is in your secret passageway, in the way of the boulder dispenser. You could possibly argue that you needed the dispenser, and it's your alliance's dispenser and they shouldn't be in the way. I don't know, it seems like it's in the air.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

G21 is a super iffy rule right now by itself. Waiting for QA to clear up some question about "contact"

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

But would it be a foul on them by sitting in your secret passage hoping you would touch them forcing a foul on you by you forcing a foul on them. Logically it doesn't make sense because the fouls would go on forever. Foul on you for forcing them to foul you by them forcing you to foul them...

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

I guess I don't see this. Since they can clearly have a defender in their own courtyard, as long as no pin comes into play, if they touch you than wouldn't it just be defense and not trying to force a foul.

If I was a ref and I saw a team blocking access to the HP slots that a team was trying to get to there is no way that this would be called as intentionally trying to draw a foul. Additionally I think that an interpretation of G25 might come into play after it was done a few times, as it is intentionally impeding the flow of the match (although none of the definitions clearly define it as such in the current manual)

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

If this was going to work this year, it would have worked in 2012. Which it didn't.

What if you had one team mate block the far human player ground input and had the other robot with its wheels outside the SP allowing it to shoot. This way with an extension of 15 inches you would be able to get all of the other alliances boulders as well and have the ability to Launch the boulders as you aren't in contact with any carpet. With this you also make it almost impossible for the other team to push you out of the corner

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

Then you'd be fouled for a G25

• Sub-section B

coordinating a blockade of the FIELD with ALLIANCE members
An example of a blockade would be two (2) or more ROBOTS on the same ALLIANCE working together to “box” an opponent ROBOT into a corner of the FIELD using the GUARDRAIL and the CASTLE WALL.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

How is this a blockade of the field? It doesn't inhibit the movement of the other alliance at all.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

No, that is not what G11 states. This is what G11 says (emphasis added):
Bumping into someone in your secret passage is not a "strategy." No momentary game event is a "strategy." You have every right to drive around in your secret passage, and if someone is in your way you have the right to bump into them.

A lot of people are over-interpreting G11 in this way, and some of the previous posts have done a good job of showing how absurd that interpretation is. Combined with G21, that means that if two robots on opposite alliances hit each other in a secret passage, whichever one initiated the contact gets a foul, which will often be impossible to judge, and clearly goes against the intent of G21, which is written to only apply to members of the opposing alliance. That's not to mention the infinite descent of "well you caused me to cause you to foul me, so you violated G11 by forcing me to violate G11," and so on ad absurdam. Any interpretation of the rules that results in infinite recursion is clearly flawed.

The intent of G21 is clearly that robots in the opposing team's secret passage have to make way for opposing robots or get a foul. The opposing team does not have to have a justification for doing so--it's their own secret passage, they can do what they want in it!

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

I had a similar thought on this strategy initially.

I also found that I had misinterpreted the field drawing as to whose secret passage is whose, due to the different flags in different drawings being visible. That topic is covered in another thread.

The point is that the secret passage you'd need to sit in or by, is controlled by the other alliance. Therefore if you are contacted by their bot when they try to receive boulders you will most likely be penalized. It also means that the other alliance controls when and how those boulders are put back onto the field. This will limit your points. AA year proved how a nicely timed bump can cause a miss with a long shot. Therefore I do not think this will be a high scoring strategy for very long if at all.
It worked better for Frisbees since you controlled most of the variables.

It's technically feasible with the current rules but very risky. This also depends on the interpretation of the blockade foul.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

We discussed the Choke-hold robot idea today, and we see 2 flaws with it:

The first flaw is debatable: Intuitively, this is not the way the GDC intended the game to be played. The reason you should care is that they have the ability to change the rules at any point, including AFTER build season. (see HighRollers in 2008 for an example of this)

The second flaw is a bit more powerful. Consider Rule <G4> (emphasis added):
Our interpretation of this is that a human player may insert his hand into the BRATTICE while holding the ball, and then throw the ball UP and possibly also diagonally. The ball would most probably not enter into the choke-hold robot, and the strategy defeated.

The height limit means that the robot can't block the brattice, so this would always be possible.

Thoughts?

-Leav

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

The rule does say "placing." More specifically, if you want to dive beyond that., "placing... into that hole." I think that kind of firms things up a bit.

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

The other problem with this concept is TU#1... If there's somebody parked down there, and their bumpers don't match the berm, they need to run if somebody else comes in!

Re: Immobile 200+ pts solo robot concept
 

Only if they are touching the carpet, if I understand correctly. it's possible (probably) to execute the choke-hold strategy without touching the carpet in the secret passage.