Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

Speaking entirely out of personal experience, being a team that played defense in the playoffs of both a shallow district and a relatively deep district against the #1 Alliance, I can say with almost certainty that a 3-Cycler Alliance will be better off. Honestly, only play defense if you are noticeably the scoring underdog. Here's why:

1) A well coordinated Alliance will not run into congestion problems. All three robots we faced had distinctly different shooting locations and travel pathways, making it literally impossible to play defense against all three robots (67 high-goal shot from the center or right batter, 2834 shot from the center of courtyard/Outerworks, both traversing misc. center Defenses, 51 low-goaled into the left goal, traversing the low bar). Any given time, 2 robots would enter the courtyard looking to shoot from two different sides of the field. We could stop one for a while, but not both. Defense robot can't be in 2 spots at the same time.

2) There is a defense-free period at the beginning and end of the matches that net your alliance 6 safe boulder scores. The time it takes to travel courtyard-to-courtyard gives the 3-Cycler Alliance about 5-10 seconds to put their first boulder in (or second if they scored in auto and returned to the neutral zone). And of course, the last 20 seconds also permit 1 last boulder shot from all 3 robots. Than means only 2 more boulders are needed from the 3 robots combined over the span of 1:55. That's VERY likely from just 1 robot alone.

3) Tall OuterWorks shooters are completely undefendable in the courtyard, period. Batter shooters with good drive teams are harder to defend than you think. Our strategy to stop 67 from getting to their shooting location was to always stay between them and the tower. They saw this, and in response to us would drive laterally an arced path, forcing us into the right batter divider and allowing them an opening to the right or center batter lane (intelligently using the field to stop the defense robot). You'd think that we should have had the driving advantage because of the shorter path distance, but a) reaction time to "which direction are they accelerating" eats into that advantage, and b) even neck-and-neck driving would still favor the offensive robot because of the batter defender-blocking technique (also we were lighter, which was our own fault).

4) The third robot is your security blanket. We were able to limit 67 and 2834 to a combined 6 boulders in each of their matches (which when less defended the two scored 8 and 12 high in the finals), yet they were easily able to capture thanks to the 4 boulders scored by their 3rd robot. 51 was the difference between capture and no capture in all QF and SF matches. Whether they are just transferring boulders across the Outerworks for the other 2 robots, or scoring them in the low/high goals themself, against the best drivers, the 3rd robot is adding more worth to their alliance by adding 2 high boulders or 4 low boulders to their side than subtracting 1 or 2 boulders from the other side. (Against lesser drivers, a good defender can completely shut down an entire alliance's tower scoring. This will not be done at Regional Championships or Champs.)

5) Put boulders in the neutral zone. You don't want opposing robots stealing boulders from your secret passage for a quick score? Don't put them there. Throw them into the Neutral zone, where they are effectively closer to your robots anyway to reduce cycle time.

6) No wasted time. In an Offense-Only system, all your time is accounted for; collecting boulders, crossing defenses, and scoring boulders into the tower. Playing defense, there is dead-time while you are waiting for the opposing alliance to return to your zone (while they collect boulders or cross defenses). That is effectively non-value added time. And then when they do enter your defended region, you have to pick which robot to defend, meaning that someone is still not being defended.

So... yes defense is an option, but after playing it, if you have the high goal firepower to keep up, Offense-Only is the way to go.

As stated before by someone else in an earlier post, it's easier for your 3rd cycler to play defense when needed than for a defense robot to score boulders.

Wow, this ended up being a longer post than I wanted it to be.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

I just wanted to add that defense is probably more advantageous than triple cycling. At Hartford, defense helped the number 7 alliance shut down the number 2 alliance, which had 2 high shooters and a low shooter by consistently denying them a capture. That effectively robbed them of 25 points, giving the number 7 alliance a big boost. Even the 5 point penalties that effectively "gave" the other alliance the shot helped deny them the capture, making it difficult for number 2 alliance to score. Defense is effective.

If you do triple cycling, on the other hand, you may score more balls, but the other alliance is almost guaranteed their capture, which is 25 points. The question becomes, can the third robot add an extra 5 shots, plus the points to make up for the other alliance's shots (so total 6-7)? Probably not.

I conclude this with my support for a third defense bot that can also quickly help with breaching rather than 3 shooter bots

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

Again, this is your experience at your event. Different events with different teams require different strategies. Talk to 1241 about whether running a defensive robot is worth it after Waterloo. I think they'll disagree with your analysis.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

While I do agree that defense can have a strong impact, I think it's disingenuous to characterize the #7 alliance beating the #2 at Hartford as being a result of the overwhelming defense.

In quarterfinal match 7, the first hint of defense occurs around ~50s left in the match from what I see. The match also started with two out of three robots on red dying immediately after autonomous (both of their alliance stations have blinking lights at ~128s left in teleop). 3104 came back after about 50 seconds, while 176, the first pick of the alliance, remained dead throughout the match.

In the quarterfinal tiebreaker match, again defense doesn't start until there are only about halfway through the match. 3104 a few seconds after auto, contributing nothing until the end of the match. Despite this, the red alliance still got the tower health to 1. I'm all for talking up defense, but 7 upsetting 2 wasn't about the defense played. It was an alliance taking advantage when the opponents couldn't keep comms together and perform their strategy as a result.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

I appreciate the effort and thought put into this thread by you and others. Your personal experiance is a great addition, but I think I draw a different conclusion. While your other bullet points have merit, I think they are greatly overshadowed by #4. As a third robot, you held two robots that scored a combined high of 12 high goals to only 6, in two matches! Instead of saying defense is only an option if you can't stay with them, I think defense is the way to go if you can stay with them. You say in the same bullet point that their third pick put in 2 high balls, you prevented 6. Assuming the capture is a given and your other 2 bots offense is equal or better, you're coming out ahead.

Not even factoring in the other points brought up pro defense; like congestion from 4 bots, preventing a short circuit of balls being inbounded, availability of shooters as a top 3 seed alliance, etc. The PNW has seen defense consistently change the game at the highest levels seen thus far, we'll see how DCMP goes this weekend.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

Think about the "opportunity cost" of having a dedicated defense robot in your courtyard:
- They aren't scoring any boulders
- They aren't breaching any defenses
- They aren't delivering boulders to your high goal shooters
- Your high goal shooters are making fewer, longer cycles (on average) because they need to complete the breaching.
- The defense robot is "idle" any time they are alone in the courtyard.
- Defense carries a high risk of collecting fouls
- Defense slows down good scorers, but rarely stops them.

You can't just consider the goals blocked. You also need to consider the affect it has on your own offense. There is more to defense than sending a dedicated robot into your own courtyard.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

Honestly, after watching Waterloo Finals, I think they'd have been better off with another 1-2 boulder high goal shooter. (No idea if there was even one available though) 3560 didn't block shots at all, staying in the Neutral Zone entirely, and only really played a factor of really getting in the way twice during the 3 finals matches, maybe adding a total of 20-25 seconds delay to the opposing alliance per match. That's like 1 ball. They got more penalties than that in their final match.
5912 did a much better job of defense for the red alliance, and even then was only responsible for maybe 1-2 missed shots and 25-30 seconds of total delay per match. But they got a penalty for contact to a robot in the Outerworks each match, so that negates at least one of those boulders saved each match.

While I appreciate your extrapolation, through watching specifically play on red's side of the field, we realistically only prevented/delayed 3-4 shots max. Alliance 1 was playing out of their mind in Finals 2, and would have not scored that much in their matches against us. And if 51 their 3rd robot had not been playing low goal offense, they would have not captured in either match, but still winning by proxy of larger high:low goals scored ratio.

Alternatively, if we HAD played offense, we most certainly would have captured both matches too. But 6 of our balls would have been low, and 8 of their would have been high, so they still would have won. We were simply way outgunned. If either us or 4776 had been shooting 4 high (instead of each of us capable of 4 low), the only difference then would be two high boulders and 67's hang, which is much closer. But we don't live in fantasy land, we didn't, and they did. Our inability to shoot high was the sole reason we relegated someone to defense. We could almost keep up with them in frequency, but not point value.

Is the capture really a given though. In most events, you'll be really hard pressed to find multiple robots capable of consistently scoring more than 4 teleop high goals/match. We'll see more data as Regional Championships play out.

I have not watched much PNW, but coming from my friends in Washington, there were not that many high goal shooters to choose from at district events, therefore scarcity forced the hand of Alliance Captains to play defense with their 2nd picks. We'll see if defense can continue when shooters are more plentiful into the 3rd round of robots.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

This is correct, IF the defensive robot can prevent the capture... many strong alliances have proven the ability to get the tower below 0 (by quite a bit!) even with defense though.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

In that case, if a capture can be achieved even with the defender, the line between shooting & defense becomes much more gray.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

1114 and 2056 are scoring monsters, both with fairly accurate shots as displayed near the end of the match. Leaving them undefended is, quite simply, a nightmare. However, 2056 has a safe shot, and 1114 is fairly good at maneuvering around defense. Playing 3560 where they did was a very smart move, and I would argue that it's what won 1241, 610, and 3560 the event. 3560 effectively prevented the opposition from fast cycles in the secret passage, limiting their scoring ability tremendously.
On top of this, you would've seen a similar effect, had 2056 and 1114 pulled the same move. 610 was running very impressive, fast cycles in and out through the low bar, and to the high goal. Had 2056 and 1114 placed their 2nd pick there, I predict that we would've seen a reduction in the number of boulders they scored by almost 1/2.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

What about the teams that place a defense bot in their own courtyard? It gets pretty crowded with four bots, but it allows for two to cycle shoot, and the last to stand it the way of the opposing alliance's defense. It worked well for our elimination matches in East Kentwood (and in some cases, the defense bot could still contribute scoring 3 low goals or so).

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

I'm pretty sure that you mean opponent's courtyard here, so I'm going to go off that.

IMO, this is lowkey potentially one of the strongest offensive strategies, but it relies of a few things:
1. Incredible coordination between Alliance Partners. I'm pretty sure that with 3 robots in the courtyard, it started to feel cramped for our drivers at Waterloo. Adding a fourth could potentially ruin cycle times as robots struggle to make space for each other while efficiently running cycles.
2. You believe that your 2 scorers are stronger than the opponent's 2 scorers. Not a difficult assessment to make, as hopefully you have scouting data to work off of.

I think that if you're able to secure >12 balls in the opponent's courtyard/side of the field, this strategy will guarantee a win. However, if you are unable to secure those balls, you run the risk of being forced to roll boulders into your opponent's eagerly waiting intake.

Re: Triple Cyclers or Defense?
 

And of course, this means that the cyclers have to be strong breachers in their own ways, since they need to quickly make into the neutral zone for boulders with no hesitation if their outer work of choice is already being used. This strategy was mostly used when the opposing shooters were facing mechanical issues, but it ensured the win in the finals for my team.