Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

FIRST has, for a few years now, left some element of the game open to an increase of difficulty for championships. This year, it's tower strength. Do you think it will increase, and if so, to what level?

I was honestly surprised at how damaged we were able to get the tower with a good alliance in week 2. We were able to get it to a strength of -4 in one match. Now, for week 2, it was absolutely an exception rather than the rule. It seemed to almost never occur during qualifications (happened only a couple times in Pittsburgh), but in elims/playoffs, it's almost too easy with a well formed alliance. So again, given what we know now about how the game is being played, do you think the tower strength will increase for championships?

My guess is it gets increased to at least a strength of 10.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

i find it hard to believe they will change it just because of how rarely it happens but it always a possibility i would like to see it change for sure. maybe to even more ten 10 to something where it a game changer and not guaranteed every round.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

I would like to see it changed for eliminations at champs but stay the same for quals.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

We will see more clearly as the weeks progress. Captures are still rare--though there have been a few in quals, usually they're seen in semis and finals.

If the teams progress to where most matches on Saturday get very close, or succeed, I would expect a strengthening. If, on the other hand, captures remain a relative rarity outside of elims, and somewhat in elims, I'd expect anywhere from nothing to a 1-point weakening.

My prediction: 0-1 point increase.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

it's obviously too early to tell, but I dont think that getting the 8 boulders in is meant to be a goal meant only for the best of alliances. another part of the challenge is getting all 3 robots on the batter, which can be quite difficult for some teams

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

At WPI elims the lowest I've seen the tower at is -7, so it may very well be possible.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Dang, videos of this available? Scoring 15(+) boulders is no easy feat.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

My fear is breaching will almost become trivial at the championship, where nearly all alliances will be able to do it unless they really screw something up.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Make that -9: http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2016mawor_sf2m2

And with a rookie team, no less.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

I feel both breaching and capture should be increased to 12 for championship (cross 4 defenses 3 times each - 3 lights are already there).

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

It's already basically trivial at the regional level(for eliminations at least). I honestly wouldn't mind a update for champs where the health is increased to 3. Though I can imagine there would be a lot of outrage since it wasn't in the rules.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Depends which regional you're at.......

Yeah the beaching strength could be increased to three theoretically but it won't be, because they didn't put it in the rules. In terms of tower strength, I can see anywhere from 10 to 12, if they do anything at all.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Increasing health for the defenses is way more game-changing than increasing the health of the tower. Increasing the health of the defenses implies that points will be awarded for the third crossing (if not, the rules will be less intuitive and even harder to understand). That increases the viability of breacher bots and render high goal shooters more obsolete. After all, crossing the low bar awards the same amount of points as scoring in the high goal. A big reason to go for the more difficult high goal shot is the unlimited points potential. Lifting the limit on crossing points will drastically change the nature of the game, unfairly devaluing high goal shooter strategies and rewarding breacher bot strategies, both decided with the original game in mind.
Increasing defenses' health is too much of a game changer. I don't think it will or should happen.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Is breaching strength able to be changed as well as just tower?

If so, I agree, 3 crossings per defense wouldn't shock me. It's too easy right now.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Nah, just the tower. Blue box in 3.1.4 is the only point in which the manual talks about fortifications.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Who ever decided that the majority of that match needed to be shot through a overhead view from the tower, and not the very nice side view where everything can be seen deserves to be dragged into the street and pelted with boulders.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Like this.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

In their defense, they were probably standing on the balcony that overlooked the field judging by the angle, and most likely only wanted to record their one alliance.

Anyway, if an alliance with a rookie team can score so many boulders, top-tier robots at champs most certainly can.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

The rules also didn't say that the rock wall dimensions would change before the end of build or that different fabric would go on the low bar between week 1 and week 2.
Is there any reason a change in defense strength couldn't just be in a team update?

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

This is a pretty interesting discussion because we don't know what it would take for the GDC to use this rule. It's been in the books since 2012 (probably because minibots were overpowered in 2011) and hasn't been used since then. But I'd have to say the games have been reasonably balanced in all those years (2015 was bad but changing point values would not have helped). Would the GDC only act if the game is very broken? Would they do it simply to improve gameplay?

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Here is a better angle of Semi 2-2 from WPI... 17 boulders scored....10 by Team 126
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ8SY7KI4aQ

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

If it changes, it would be after DCMP but before CMP, and to no more than 10. It won't get easier, and it probably won't get harder. Maybe by district champs it'll be really easy, I don't think so though. Limited number of balls and more teams being able to contest them as play gets more competitive...

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

In my opinion, they can only increase the tower strength OR the defense strength, not both. The additional time it would take to breach would prevent many, not all, alliance from being able to score 10 or more boulders in the tower. Obviously, I could be wrong, just guessing here. (This entire point could be useless if it is determined that they can only change the tower strength)

My prediction is they'll increase the tower strength to 10 at CMP, but we will have to see how often captures occur once teams are getting into their second and possibly third events.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

I am talking about the other video, not the one clearly done by a team.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

The number of crossings required to take down a defense, and the number of goals required to capture the tower are semi-fixed by the number of lights on the ramps and the tower. Changing the requirements would either be confusing or require hardware changes to the field.

There are, however, some simple rule changes which might make breaches and captures more difficult.
breaching:
1) All five defenses required to breach.

captures:
2) Increase the number of boulders allowed in a tower from 6 to 8 or 10.
3) Reduce the number of boulders on the floor from 6 to 4 or 3.
4) Offensive robots prohibited from entering the secret passage regardless if a defender is present.

both:
5) No penalty for defenders interfering with defense crossings. (eliminates shooting from defenses as a safe zone)

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

A lot of good rule change suggestions here. But I am opposed to any change that creates a situation in which robots qualify under one set of rules, then compete under a significantly different set of rules. The tower strength change was built into the rules from kickoff, so I'd be completely ok with that. IMO, it should be changed to 10. But any of the other changes suggested in this thread would be unfair, and may actually hurt the Championship (because robots were designed to a different set of rules).

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

An alternative to this is to not reward the third crossing with points. This way, there'd be more of a trade-off to the decision of:

A. Getting the full breach
B. Getting the partial breach but shooting
C. Trying to do both of the above.

It'd certainly add a few more variables to the game and make the breach slightly harder.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

It was explicitly stated they had the ability to change the strength of the tower. The lights used are individually addressable, so I imagine it's a simple software solution. In fact, it would surprise me if the FTA didn't have the capability of setting the tower strength (as in it's a built in configuration option).

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZH42aJT28k

Thanks to the Ligerbots for the best collection of HD videos of an event I've seen from a team. Got the scores and everything. Really nice.

Also, we had a GoPro on one of our drive team. It's not easy to see the match, but it does give you a decent idea of the poor vision and the chaos behind the drive stations during a match. https://youtu.be/igLmJ5veFuE

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

We were counting the number of lights on the TOWER to see what the max strength could be at IRI ... ;)

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

So how many lights are there?

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

More than 20 ...

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Is that per string, or between the two strings? Might need both strings individually at IRI...

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Have you considered using full vs. half strength light to double the possible strength?

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

The rules already deal with the light strength. Its possible for it to go above 8 already, and all it does is up the counter on screen but doesn't do anything with the lights. In all honesty this would be fine, as most teams wouldn't really care about the strength until it is less then 8 anyway. Most won't care until its down to 4 or 5 anyway.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Not with that material they're shining through, or at that power. If you were using a full-on stage lighting setup, that might work. But that's a *little* bit harder.

Just not quite enough difference in brightness.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

Now this kinda makes me want to see an IRI "speed challenge" to see what alliance can take down a high strength (25+) tower the fastest.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

I like these ideas. I think tower health increase would be the first thing to happen though, since it was mentioned specifically in the rules.

The only idea I don't like on that list is 5). We've had too many broken defenses already.:yikes:

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

I count 30 lights per string.
Tower video

It appears that the lights go out in this order:
3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.

Increasing the tower strength to 10 would be easy, 3 LED's per boulder.
Increasing the strength to 12 (what I think may be appropriate for higher levels of play at the CMP) could be 2,2,2,2,2,2, then 3,3,3,3,3,3.
This maintains the visibility to the audience as the lower level of the tower weakening would be more obvious.

Re: Increasing tower strength for Championships.
 

I am not in favor of increasing tower strength. By doing so, match scheduling becomes way more important. The less the match schedules can dictate your success, the better.
Right now we have a healthy balance of achieving a capture, and by the time we get to champs, it should be doable for a lot of matches with decent robots.