2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Each year, we look at what official rules might need to be adjusted for IRI.

We have the benefit of seeing how the game is played, and we can adjust the level of difficulty (when needed) to match the level of play we see at IRI.

Gneral guidelines we use are that we won't make changes that are a major impact to designs, and we try to limit changes so that teams don't feel compelled to spend all of June and July working on their robot to meet some new challenge. We are also have to consider changes that impact FMS, automated systems, and referees.

As a note, we were already discussing the Tower Strength change to 10. We will see how that plays out at CHP.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Change G28 so that robots can continue playing defense in the courtyard until the end of the match. They must leave robots on the batter alone, but before that robot gets to the batter, they're fair game.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

This could make the game more competitive in the way that you possibly eliminate shooting from the same spot every time. Agreed in the way that it could force teams to use more goals than just the center one.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

As the season continues, Breaching seems to be less valued, as it happens relatively quickly with a competent alliance. Something that may add an additional level of difficulty would be to require all 5 defenses to be breached to get the rank point/extra points in teleop. I don't know if that messes up the FMS, but from a referee standpoint, it shouldn't be any more work.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Change the wording so that Robots shooting from the Outer Works are no longer protected.

This would help with the easy-to-capture towers problem, because defense could actually do something!

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I would make the sally port and drawbridge transparent. My preference would be to eliminate the portcullis and drawbridge completely, but that might be too drastic a rule change.

Some language to eliminate the transferring-balls-without-completely-crossing-a-defense penalties while still preventing the existence of 'defense-straddling bots' would be nice.

Some language to not penalize robots that inadvertently push a second boulder over a defense when crossing when the second boulder previously started in a defense would be nice.

I would also investigate incorporating a static or non-team-selected defense lineup to help with the space constraints (and matches would go very quickly without having to change all the defenses all the time), but I haven't done any analysis on the impact of this yet.

Add a ref in each human player station watching ball counts

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Get rid of audience defense selection.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I agree with this. There has to be some better way to go about selecting the defense in slot 3.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

To modify the rules to support this, I'd recommend this change:

Essentially, this removes the "safe shooting zone" of the defenses, but does not eliminate safe passage across the defenses.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Randomly select the "audience" selection, but still have the suspense/cheer for "X", now "Y".

Make driving over a second boulder like pinning, 5 second count, then get smacked with a penalty.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

The low bar can only be weakened once the other 4 defenses are damaged.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Robots can break the midline during autonomous, but only for a new boulder zone. Put the boulders in their own 10" "zone" where you can interact with the entirety of the ball. Itll make for some interesting auto modes.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Breaching and captures shouldn't be automatic, as they are slowly turning into. Changing it to 10 boulders (or higher?) should help with captures... I would also, if possible, change the requirements for damaging a defense to 3 crossings instead of two.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Remove the limitation on robots crossing Neutral Zone plane during autonomous. This encourages teams to develop more complicated autonomous programs that reflect the level of competition that should be at IRI.

Remove the height limitation of 4'6 in your own courtyard. This makes actual courtyard defense viable, and gives cheesecaking options.

If a boulder is in the way of a robot's defense crossing (eg in the low bar), don't penalize them for pushing it through. This eliminates those awkward situations where you have to outtake your ball and take the defense ball because of a weird case in the rules.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Let the alliance pick all of their defenses. No audience selection, no categories, and the low bar does not have to be in slot 1 (but has to be on the field).

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I was so caught up in boulders/tower strength I didn't even think of this, but I really like it. It seems like it adds that extra amount of difficulty without being excessively hard or fundamentally changing gameplay.

The only issue I see is that I doubt it will be able to be changed in the scoring system (as there was no reason to build variable defense strength into the system) so that will add some difficulty in scoring. Potentially. I'm no expert.

And of course now this means that there's another crossing for teams to get mad about when refs "miss" it :p

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Allow boulders to be able to be shot/launched/moved out of your own courtyard into the neutral zone or opponents courtyard. Penalize any scored boulders however. This would open up some new defensive and offensive strategies to play stronghold.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Just remove the drawbridge entirely, but if that's too much I completely understand.

You should allow defenses to be crossed multiple times in auto and give you the same amount of pointd(I.e. first crossing 10, 2ND crossing 10) because at the moment defenses are effectively worthless at high levels of play as an effective elims alliance is breaching literally every match.

This would make auto a bit more interesting as now you have placed an interesting deal on the field of do you shoot and cross once or just cross twice? However it does have the chance to greatly overpower two ball autos, which to be honest are already doing a fine job at being pretty effective.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Allow teams to shoot from the neutral zone...

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Human players able to throw balls for a score in the last 20 seconds

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Replace the drawbridge and sally port with clear polycarbonate.

I know this will cost money, but it's worth it. If a team I'm with ends up competing, I would honestly donate to a Fix The IRI Drawbridge Fund to help make this happen. The drawbridge is just such a crummy field object and it really ruins the flow of the game when it is out there. It would just make a subset of IRI matches worse to watch and play in.

I would get rid of the penalties for driving through a defense when there's a ball stuck in it. If this means teams bulldoze an extra ball or two over a defense than they otherwise would have, whatever, it's worth it. Not a huge deal.

I would not remove protected zones or anything like that. That's completely unfair to the hundreds of teams that designed outer works shots. I don't know why everyone is so bothered that they can't hit shooting teams this year - it didn't seem to bother anyone in 2012 or 2013...

To draw penalties in the secret passage, the robot drawing the penalty has to be also within the secret passage. I'm not sure if this is how the rules are currently written or not, but it's being called as "offensive robot in secret passage + any contact at all = penalty".

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I think the IRI is for the best of the best. I may be wrong but I think making the game easier to play defense seems like no improvement. Any mid level team with a decent drive system should be capable of this. If anything their should be a premium on skilled tasks, shooting long shots ,climbing and autonomous. I rather see more offense by adding more balls and get rid of ball hoarding.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

FMS automatically generates the audience selection and there's no way around it. The easiest way to get rid of it would be to randomly select between the two.

If they really wanted to, they could develop a whole new system, ignoring the print-outs and field reset lights, but, as someone who is planning an off-season of their own, I don't think it's worth the effort.

I like this idea. We might take it for Mayhem in Merrimack! :D

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Does the FMS know the difference between defenses placed on the field? If I put a rough terrain in place of a rock wall, would it scream at me?

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I'm not entirely sure how much of an 'arms race' this would cause, but I think it would be cool to see the wording of G13 to be changed to the following:

Bolded sections are changes that I am proposing. The intent of this change would be to encourage teams who have been sitting on 2 ball autonomous modes all season to run them with less fear of drawing fouls, but I can see this possibly becoming an arms race of sorts for folks to spend time working on 2 ball autos. It also intends to make a situation where two robots attempting to collect the same boulder to be a no-call situation. Thoughts?

-Nick

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

These changes are aimed to speed up the potential pace of the game to a level beyond WCMP's and DCMP's. Let's assume all IRI teams are at least capable of crossing at least 8 of the 9 defenses. Let's also assume teams are very capable of boulder scoring, either high or low.

Allow selection of both defenses from the same category. If done, also remove the 'tunnel' that the HP's have to throw a ball into in order to get a ball on the field. (Seriously, no where in literature or history did a catapult have to re-cross yonder mountain to get another rock...)

Allow the low bar to be placed anywhere. We need to keep those autonomous programmers on their toes (muahahaha).

I agree - get rid of the audience selection. Or implement a more scientific method for determining which one is chosen - something like decibel-seconds, for example.

Set tower strength to 8. Add 'fiery' boulder that, when scored high or low, gives the opponents a tech foul. There are only 2 fiery boulders on the field, and they both start behind the glass (1 per side). I can give a part number for the ball - it's bright orange, is the same size (verified w/ measurements) and is only slightly stiffer than the usual game piece. Sure, it needs 2 extra people to specifically watch the balls - but it's IRI, I'm sure there are people who would love field-side seats.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Nope. FMS only know what's entered by the defense coordinator and the current audience selection. That's how it sets the outer works lights for the field resetters. It can not differentiate between the different defenses physically placed on the field.

However, if FMS is posting data (I haven't heard if this will be enabled for offseason builds, although it usually isn't), then the published defenses used in a match will be wrong.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

-Playoffs tower strength is set to the average number of boulders scored across all alliances in the IRI qualification rounds, minimum 10. I don't think any of us can predict how loony the play will be there, so let's just admit we don't know.
-No penalty for crossing the midline during autonomous, if the bumpers don't cross the far black line. (This should facilitate boulder-grabbing strategies without removing the overall protection intended.)
-Teams can get credit for more than one crossing in autonomous.
-Leave the drawbridge and sallyport alone. It's IRI, it's supposed to be hard. Bring a pole if you're that worried.
-Remove or greatly increase the height limit on poles, subject to some safety vetting (say, a get-through-the-doorway test and a pelted-with-boulders test). It's IRI, it's supposed to have something ridiculous on the field (and this might beat Suzy-Q).

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

You know I heard the TSA has a really expensive iPad app to pick left or right... Might help. :)

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Interesting.

Though perhaps they could also ban all poles, suspend a camera above the field, then send the feed to 6 separate monitors at the 6 driver's stations?

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Add 2 more "refs" to focus on the outerworks, and reverse the hinge side of the sally port. These two new refs would not need to call any fouls and would only need to know the wave off and what counts as a crossing.

As for actual adjustments to the game, I'll leave that up to everyone else :)

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Leave all of the defenses in the same place for each round of matches so we can play more matches and make field reset easier. Don't change them until every team has played their first match, then until every team has played their second match, etc...

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

The protected zone around the outer works was not a loophole in the rules, but an obvious and almost certainly intentional aspect of the game. Yet, relatively few teams took advantage of it. I don't think teams should be penalized for having made good design choices to take advantage of the obvious protected zone.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Add extra points for multi climbs/a triple climb bonus. Maybe make the rough terrain blocks a bit taller so that there's a reason to select it. Possibly add weight/take off the constant force springs on the portcullis?

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Replace the 5th defense with another Low Bar to encourage more two ball autonomous routines.

Or allow teams to replace whatever defense gets put in position 5 with the Low Bar but don't only give it points for the first crossing as the "penalty" for putting it in.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Return any ball that flies out of the field to the SPY. They can do what we they want with the ball, except score it.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

If the goal is to increase scores, have 3 balls start touching the castle wall, but not in the secret passage, on each side placed by the alliance in that tower.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Does that include nailing a defending robot? :D

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I'd also donate to this fund. The drawbridge seems to be much harder than the sally port for many teams (since you can't just spin around/wiggle to break contact), but it's not getting much use because of how much of a hinderence it is to drivers. It's almost like there's only 8 defenses instead of 9 because of how little it's used. There's something to be said for tradeoffs, but I think it would still a challenging defense to cross even if the door was clear. The #damaged/#opportunities success rate in the quals at the DCMPs was low, which is partly due to the abysmally low denominator, but also because it's difficult.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

For those keeping score at home (because I love numbers) the Drawbridge was the least selected defense in Qualifications, being chosen 27.67% of the time. However the Portcullis (28.71%) and Rough Terrain (29.29%) weren't chosen with much more frequency.

In Playoffs, the Drawbridge was actually chosen with MORE frequency (28.30%) than either the Portcullis (28.17%) or Rough Terrain (20.87%)

Your mileage may vary based on region, week of competition, district vs regional vs DCMP, etc.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

At MAR CMP, according to TBA, the drawbridge went 0/34 in quals and 0/13 in playoffs. We are one of the teams guilty of putting the Drawbridge in 4, since in that spot it is worse for the opponent than for you in many cases.

Looking at NE, they had the drawbridge go 0/9 in quals and 0/17 in playoffs.

Unless you are one of the few with a very good dedicated drawbridge mechanism, at the highest levels, it's not worth your time versus scoring more boulders and just lowers everybody's scores.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I did see that too. For category A at DCMPs (which I'm using because IMO they'd be more similar in competitiveness to IRI than a regional), the portcullis and cheval seem to have similar success rates, so it makes sense to choose the one that doesn't impede vision at all. Looking at some week 6 districts and regionals, if the success rate isn't the same, the portcullis tends to have a slightly higher success rate.

For category D, I'm guessing that's because the rough terrain is incredibly easy compared to the rock wall; it gives your opponents a fast way in and out of the courtyard. I'm surprised the rough terrain wasn't used less. I'd actually like to see the rough terrain modified somehow to increase its difficulty for IRI and put it more on the same level as the rock wall, but that might be changing the game too much.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I totally agree with your assessment. Additionally, Rough Terrain use dropped to only about 24% in both Weeks 6 and 7 (and even lower to 21 and 19% in Playoffs), and I wouldn't be surprised if it drops even lower at Champs.

The question becomes what could be done to increase the difficulty of the Rough Terrain without changing the game too much?

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

+1:D

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

The main breaker shouldn't be that hard of a target.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Add a spy ball that can be placed in the courtyard in auto mode.
add an additional ranking point in quals matches that exceed 150-175 points. (there needs to be an intensive to keep playing. In the event of a blow out you don't want to see an alliance all on the tower with 20 seconds left to play.)

Stronghold is a good game so to make it better you just need more stronghold
Increasing match length for eliminations 30 seconds
Breaches need all 5 defenses
Increase tower strength

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Interesting idea that would add a fun element to an otherwise uninteresting position. I would allow them to score it, but not peg another robot.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Allow them to only score, but only low goals.

Any ball returned to the field by the human player may only contact robots on that human player's alliance before making contact with another robot.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Sequence of events for a ball is tough on the refs, tbh. Scoring is automated, so it's easy.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I'd like to see what happens when all the herding/trapping/driving-on-top-of/shooting-outside-the-opposing-courtyard rules were lifted. It seems like it could make the refs jobs a lot easier, there would be a lot more high-flying game pieces, and teams could get more creative with strategy (both defensively and offensively). This might have to correlate with more tower strength, but that isn't really a problem.

Defensive robots wouldn't only be robots that can drive well, but now defensive robots that can remove game pieces from their courtyard would be valued, as would robots that can feed their attacking shooters in the opposing courtyard.

Subsequently, when teams don't have to cycle every time they needed a gamepiece to score (because they could be fed them by partners shooting them into the courtyard), we would probably see less defense crossings in a match, and maybe force teams to make a strategic decision to either feed boulders and score more, or cycle and get more crossings, ideally making it more work to breach the Outer Works without heavily modifying the breaching rules.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Picking on Billfred here, just because he has some of the best ideas I've read so far...

Yes yes yes. Playoff tower reinforcement is not only thematically appropriate, but also makes a lot of sense for adapting to the level of play we expect to see at IRI!
(Follow-up question: does the FMS already allow this, and/or can we trick it somehow?)
.

I like the idea of giving teams a bit more fudge room around the central boulders during auton, but the exact wording of the revised G13 determines whether or not this strategy accomplishes that without starting an RC war like last year. Perhaps the positions of some/all of the central boulders might be modified instead, so that a certain number of them are unambiguously allocated to each alliance?
.

I would definitely support this if we find a way to give each defense 3 health instead of 2, or if we can limit the awarding of breaches to after all 5 defenses have been damaged, or we find some other way to jack up the difficulty of breaching the defenses. Otherwise, I'm not so sure that we want to make an easy thing even easier.
.

Certainly! There are plenty of ways to solve the visibility problem, and teams playing at the level of IRI should already have a good solution for this. It was an intended part of the game challenge, and I'd say it still should be!

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Without the springs, the portcullus becomes incredibly hard to lift. Like I can barely lift it hard. I know because we tried going through one on the practice field at NEDCMP and snapped a part.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

No surprises there, that steel frame is heavy. You could remove the springs and change the frame to aluminum, but removing the springs would completely change the dynamic of the defense.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I personally think the IRI refs can get away with a "we know when you're going for a boulder" policy where FIRST can't necessarily, just because it's IRI and it's only one event.

Unless many more restrictions are removed, nobody is getting more than two balls per robot. You could protect the three nearest to each low bar not unlike IRI did with recycling containers last year, but I think that affects strategy too much. (If they can auto something besides low bar, you'd put it in position 4/5 and bet on them not having an autonomous for that.)

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I really like this game, and don't think it needs any real changes.

A couple possible improvements:

1. Have an extra ref monitoring the back-field and corral to ensure that teams get boulders back in ply in time or are penalized.

2. Find a better securing clip/method for ensure defenses do not pop out at inopportune times.

3. Discuss whether or not it makes sense to have "standard defenses" and thus eliminate the swapping of the defenses each match. I am not sure they are really adding much depth to the game at this point. You could do a vote for which ones team want out on the field, and them something else to determine the order/placement, and leave them put. If agreed to, then 2 would be much easier to resolve.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

- Allow launching balls from your court yard, but not from the neutral zone.
- Remove Category A & C Defenses. Putting the following defenses out for every match:
-- Low Bar
-- Rockwall
-- Rough Terrain
-- Moat
-- Ramparts
- Bolt the defenses down instead of using the "pins"
- Breach is 5/5 Defenses

Most of my reasons for removing the defense selection is to increase field reset times which will allow for more matches. At IRI the defenses will be breached over 90% of the time (MSC has a breach of 96%). Also, the strategic advantage of selecting your defenses will be much less.

Stronghold is a very strategic game but most people are delusional when thinking the large portion of the strategy comes from picking the defenses.

-Clinton

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I generally like Stronghold the way it is; however --

1) please put the drawbridge in the parking lot and leave it there. Make Sally's door transparent.

2) tower strength should be at least 10. Let's see how that works out at CMP before raising it further.

3) second Issac's call for better attention to G34 by the referees. Ball hoarding has been a thing in some matches,

4) figure out when to Red Card for tipping, and when clean contact = play on. Put Andy Baker in charge of that.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I disagree with completely taking out category A. Although for IRI it won't provide much of an additional challenge, making the breach even easier is the wrong direction to go. If we're going for constant defenses, stick the Cheval in, and be done with it. Don't completely use the easiest defenses.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

+1, especially to the transparent doors. Strip away thematic elements for the sake of improved referee visibility and reduced chance of uncredited crossings.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

The referee angle is one I might indulge. Mostly-clear Sallyport, OEM Drawbridge? (If you pick the latter even now, you are very clearly making a statement.)

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

We have a camera pole - visibility for the drive team isn't a concern. Visibility for referees is. Sally port has precedence over drawbridge.

We're already used to doing 3 crossings for full damage credit ;) , so increasing to 3 crossings per damage wouldn't be a big deal. I could get behind that change as well.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Addition of a crossing guard, a scorer who's job is just to count crossings to relive the refs for more important things. I'll be the first to volunteer.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Be careful... you might have to do 4 now! :]

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I know it's said in jest, but I would not expect that at this event. The official eyeballs should be plentiful. Especially if Scott is a crossing guard - does he get to wear the vest and carry a stop sign? :)

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Provided they can get the extra volunteers, I vote for this too.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

-Allow teams to shoot from the neutral zone during teleop
-Eliminate the drawbridge
-3 crosses to damage a defense (If not, only make breaching worth bonus points, not a ranking point.)
-Autonomuos low goals worth 10 points
-Accidental tipping no longer a red card (damage inside the frame perimiter still a red card)

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

These may have been said before, but I'll toss em out there anyway. I'm not saying put them all in, they're just possible changes.

Auto
Remove the up to 1 scored crossing in Auto. Or count up to one crossing for each defense during auto( this makes autonomous far more interesting and emphasizes coordination)
Make auto shots worth more damage on the tower
Robots can start anywhere on their opponents half of the field. (No spy bot rule)

Defenses/breaching
3 crossings to damage a defense
All defenses must be damaged for a breach
Eliminate defense classes, any combination of the 8 can be present.
Remove drawbridge or make the drawbridge transparent(no amount of driver skill can make up for being too short too see over the drawbridge.)
Low bar crossings don't count towards score in any regard, it would then just be an easy route into the courtyard.

Tower/shooting
Change base tower health
Make high goals worth more points
Make high goals worth more damage
(Low goal robots are a bit op in low to mid level play, probably not a concern at High levels though, right?)
Make scales worth more points
Make challenges worth less (or no) points
(Challenges are basically free and Scales are wayyyy too undervalued)

Allow alliances to pick their position on the alliance wall, at least in elims.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I like some of these changes quite a bit.

Transparent drawbridge is a good idea. The idea of static defense arrangements is interesting. Perhaps just for quals? Make the blue defenses one set for all of quals, and the red defenses the other set.

Eliminations defense selections proceed as normal.

I'll likely comment later with other ideas, but these seem pretty solid.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

10 points for hitting a shot in the top goal from the neutral zone in the last 20 seconds (so teams don't get cute and keep "missing" to move all the balls from the neutral zone to the courtyard all game long to make it easy for robots to light up the towers).

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Right now, they have 5 refs + head ref working in a zone formation.

IMHO, they should have 6 refs + head ref working in a man-to-robot formation.

It is much easier to see/call crossings and fouls if you are watching one robot continuously. Also, when a robot-robot foul happens, there are 2 ref's that will see it.

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.

Sally port crossing for a Ref on the wrong side (blocked by the open door) is also an issue. But, that is also a current problem.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I'd make bulldozing boulders while possessing another permissible... nothing worse than getting a boulder caught in your drive train slowing you down, and getting penalized on top of it. Insult to injury.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I like this. It also allows referees to better judge intent, because they've been watching the same robot the whole match.

I'd add a clause that if a robot is trying to pick up a ball, and two end up touching the collector, that's not a foul.
I can recall multiple times this season where teams are going to pick up balls and get penalized for touching two of them. Also a particularly memorable one was where 2791 was lining up to shoot their batter shot, and two balls happened to be sitting in front of their robot when they did so. 2791 wasn't trying to pick those up, but they got fouled for it anyway.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

This is one of those rules that was called differently per region. Some regions were much stricter about how "possession" was interpreted than others - in NE this kind of thing was basically never called unless a robot was clearly controlling two balls at once. I hope this is how IRI calls it as well. No need to bog the game down with these kind of penalties.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I'd be interested to see this implemented. As a non-ref, I think it makes a lot of sense, but it wasn't viewed positively by refs in this thread.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

After seeing the playoffs in our division(Carson), we need the high speed impact rule from 2014 back. It was carnage.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

This might not be possible as FMS might need to be changed but....

Get rid of RP for breaching in quals and replace it with the 20 points you get in elims.

Breaching should happen in every match, especially at IRI, and having it give an RP was an OP move by FIRST. Giving it the 20 point bonus still puts a emphasis on making sure the breach happpens.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Given that there were still missed crossings on Einstein, something should be done to fix that..

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Get rid of any and all tiebreakers. Replay every tie in elims.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Eliminate the portcullis (already being done), drawbridge, and sally port. No more major visibility problems, no more problems with teams missing boulders they can't see. In return require all 5 defenses be knocked out for a breach, and as others have said give breaching a point value reward instead of ranking points.

No audience selection - just let the teams choose all of them.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Go back to explaining fouls.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Seconded.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Ties in eliminations are decided by another match not tiebreakers.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Perhaps, but it doesn't really seem like there is that much space on the field to gain momentum, unlike 2014.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

You can't really get rid of both the drawbridge and the sally port, unless you plan to do away with the defense categories altogether and have teams put any defense in any slot. Aside from that, I for one, happen to like the portcullis. :rolleyes:

This. So much this.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I'd take this a bit further and replace the extra RPs for breaches and captures with their elimination point bonuses. I don't see a reason we should be playing a slightly different game between qualifications and elims.

In addition, remove the batter requirement for captures. I'm assuming tower strength will be raised for IRI and putting that many balls in the tower is an impressive effort in itself. Removing this requirement will remove the chances of a weaker 3rd robot losing the alliance 25pts by not being able to make it back to the batter on time, and opens up more strategic flexibility within the last 30s of the match.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I agree with this one, at least in part. Focusing on the capture, for a team trying to rank very high, losing the one RP due to a single alliance member's mistake can be very defeating. I think teams should at least be allowed to make up for their alliance member's mistakes by outscoring their opponents above the 25pt bonus (and not spending a bunch of time pushing their own partner around, despite how awesome it was to watch).

For the breach, the importance is less, as one robot could theoretically achieve a breach alone, but if we are changing the capture, we might as well change the breach over to elims style too. The FMS might even let us do that already, though I am not sure where the play-style change made by the Scorekeeper, and if it necessitates actually running an elims bracket.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

When I breach, your secret passage is no longer protected. I can get returning boulders with impunity, and cross back to the neutral zone without negotiating a defense.

This has the following advantages:
- it encourages faster breaching.
- it encourages higher scores
- it gets rid of some penalties
- it fits the theme

This can be combined with many of the other permutations mentioned (forcing three crossings, crossing all five for a breach, doing away with ranking points, etc).

You might also remove the one defender limit when the walls fall, if you want to force teams to be more strategic about it.

Look at it like this - whatever you do by forcing additional crossings is still going to be easy for IRI teams to do in two minutes. Anything that's reasonable enough to be implemented will still happen every match, it will just take longer and we'll end up with less scoring. This wil make fast breaching more important while still keeping the focus for the audience on robots shooting balls.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

There's enough space to gain excessive force. A bump is enough to disrupt any shot. What I saw out there was excessive. Look at the match videos from carson field. I don't want any to ever have to experience play like that again.

I think a large amount of the issues I saw on that field were from uninforced rules, but adding another layer of protection is some positive step as opposed merely blaming refs.

Also the definition of intent may be vauge, but I think we can all agree that giving up points or drawing fouls should count as intent. Maybe we can make that clearer. You can't accidentally tip a robot inches from the outer works outer works, they were already gone. You can't accidentally push a robot into your own secret passage from your courtyard in the last 25 seconds when they should be running away. I saw both of those things happen in our field, and it needs to end NOW.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Thanks for all of the suggestions and input. We are working to create the modifications (if any).

Any rule modification will be posted for teams before the Invitation Response deadline, so teams can determine if they want to play the modified game before they commit.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I think the batter requirement makes the end game so much more exciting. 330's second self-righting wouldn't have been that exciting for the 5 point challenge nor would 1678's and 1405's near misses at challenging be as heart-breaking.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Tactical Flashlights must be on a switch for safety purposes. Accidental shining of flashlight near person (spectators included) is a technical foul, quickly escalating E&R with a red card foul.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Would this include LED rings?

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I adamantly disagree with this rule change, actually. The batter races are some of the most tense and exciting parts of the game. While it is frustrating to not make it onto the batter, it adds importance to the endgame and creates more opportunities for strategies and risk (last second scoring, hanging with an unreliable mechanism, etc) and I think the game would lose a LOT of its value if this were gone. This change more than most other changes would change the dynamics of the game a lot, and I don't think it's a positive change.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

While bright, the LED rings do not focus the light into a tight beam.

That said, there were some teams with LED rings that would be better called round LED panels. Maybe LED rings with more than 20 (?) LED lights.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

What about requiring switches for focused beams that produce more than x lux of light at 6 feet?

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

These changes would make the game pretty boring to watch. This is one of the few games where a qual alliance that's totally outgunned actually has something to shoot for (and their fans something to root for), and it's because of breach/capture RPs. I think the reasons for keeping the latter have been well covered.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

This is something that a few guys on our team discussed that I thought would be an interesting concept/
What if for every 30 or so points a team wins by, they add an extra RP.
Example:
Both alliances score 4 RP
However, Red alliance scores 60 more points than Blue alliance.
Therefore-
Red Alliance: 6 RP
Blue Alliance: 4 RP
I would also like to add that this rule should be negated if one or more robots on either Alliance are shut off or lose COMs for any reason.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I have a feeling that this would just inflate the ranking points of top tier teams while creating a larger divide between the top and the bottom percentiles.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

I agree with you. You make a great point, but my reasoning was because IRI is supposed to be for REALLY a good teams so the point gap wouldn't be that great for most matches. The point behind the idea was that it would give teams somethin to work toward before the competition, such as making their cycle time faster and finding a way to score more points.

Re: 2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions
 

Might have been suggested already, but ditch the requirement that has one defense from each group on the field.

That alone will likely put the Group C's and the Portcullis out of play.