Re: Working with alliance partners
 

Thanks for all the replies guys! If anyone has more comments feel free to post.

Re: Working with alliance partners
 

I agree with everything that has been said so far. Two specific things that make strategy planning easier and more efficient:

1. Scouting Data - Before planning each match, the scouting team prints out a data sheet for the strategists. The sheet has relevant info on all 6 teams, color coded and organized for easy reading.

2. Whiteboard - We laser engrave a small whiteboard with the field layout to help plan the match. It's a simple addition, but it helps everyone visualize the plan.

Would you mind sharing the file you used to laser engrave the whiteboard? Ever since champs I've wanted to laser engrave my whiteboard but I couldn't figure out how to get a drawing of the field.

Re: Working with alliance partners
 

We do the whiteboard too and it really helps. We didn't laser engrave it though we just got the field printed as a poster at Staples, and then sandwiched it between two pieces of plexiglas and just closed it by bolting the four corners. Works like a charm and only like $15.

Re: Working with alliance partners
 

For Quals, you have to be OK with whatever impressions of your team are given during the negotiation, as the drive team is the most highly visible window into the attitude of other teams. We DNP teams that are prohibitively difficult for us to work with, and we expect others will do the same if they feel they can't work with us (so we try to mitigate that impression as much as possible, while still trying to optimize the match for both our performance and the rankings).

Bad blood develops when two teams want to do the same thing and can't, and fortunately this year was easier than most for multiple teams to score at the same time. Pre-match negotiations for Quals went very smoothly as a whole this year (at least for us).

It's in your best interest to have your partners do the thing they will be best at if it makes sense with the match flow, since that will likely result in a higher score and more RP overall.

For elims, we're usually a lot more aggressive about pushing the strategies we believe are correct. Everyone on your alliance should have the same goal at that point, and if they don't, you probably want to avoid picking them in the first place.

Re: Working with alliance partners
 

I have some other thoughts on this topic, but they're much too nebulous right now to really put into a post.

However, here's a thread from 2014 that relates to a topic that was touched on here: the tradeoff between "best" strategy vs. everyone doing what they want/are comfortable with.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/s...d.php?t=127653

Of course, the best strategists in FIRST are those that manage to both have teams playing their game as well as integrating that into a cogent larger strategy - it's not necessarily a tradeoff.

Re: Working with alliance partners
 

Came in to post something, read the thread, everyone already posted what I was going to say multiple times over.

Re: Working with alliance partners
 

One thing I have to add is when you have overlapping strategies, i.e. 2+ robots good at the same thing. In some cases, you just have to cut your losses because there are few ways around it. In other cases, someone may have to fall back on a weaker secondary strategy because one robot is simply better at the main one. The latter was a lot more common in Stronghold where there were more things to do, and if you find yourself in the position that you are the strongest at whatever strategy is being conflicted over, don't be afraid to be insistent on being the one to do it, within reason of course.

For example, our Stronghold bot did breaching, then defense if there was time, and had no shooting mechanism. Therefore, if we got our ideal alliance of two shooters, we would urge them to cycle through Low Bar and/or a static defense and leave the rest entirely up to us, whereas they otherwise might try to take a few other defenses, using up more time.