Chief Delphi

Chief Delphi (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/index.php)
-   Rules/Strategy (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=6)
-   -   Fuel Seems Undercosted (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153119)

evanperryg 08-01-2017 12:59

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe G. (Post 1626469)
Just because a task closely resembles the "main" task of old games, doesn't mean it's the "main" task of this one.

Also, fuel has an effectively infinite scoring potential, whereas gears are finite. True, the gears limit is relatively high and will take many alliances the full match or more to reach, but others will be able to finish them off with plenty of time to spare. In these matches, where both alliances do this, fuel will be the difference maker.

Additionally, there's two very key differences between fuel and most recent shooting tasks: the ball is tiny compared to the robot, and storage is unlimited. Unlike recent games, and especially unlike last year, where you had to make every shot count, pure rate of fire is arguably more important than actual accuracy, and the size difference opens up some interesting possible ways to make this happen.

Don't forget that there's less risk associated with fuel than there is with gears. With gears, you MUST reach a certain quantity of gears to get those big points. With fuel, even if you miss the RP you still get points. Both gamepieces have finite "steps" at which you get your next point, but those "steps" are much closer together with fuel. As such, fuel is the "low risk, low reward" elims strategy, while gears are the "high risk, high reward" strategy.

gigaboggie 08-01-2017 13:32

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Jarren Harkema (Post 1627168)
Plenty of teams last year performed way more than 8 cycles, all while avoiding defense. This year, shooting is mostly protected, or at least risky enough for most drivers to avoid. Something else I think is being underestimated is how much of the field is obscured by the airships. Looking at the top view, possibly two of the three driver stations won't be able to clearly see their opponent's key.

400 balls does seem like a long shot, but if you improved that accuracy to 50%, 240 seems more reasonable to me.

I think that's a fair assessment of shooting. It is reasonably difficult for drivers to see and no amount of cameras are going to fix that. I do also agree that 400 balls is pushing it in terms of what teams can reasonably accomplish. I have yet to sort of make an estimate of how long a cycle would feasibly take, however like I mentioned previously the balls are in a great abundance. Obviously if you can get accuracy above 30% the necessary cycles decreases drastically. For example if a team is actually able to get upwards of 90% which I think is likely possible, the cycles reduces to 3. I agree that avoiding defense may be reasonably difficult. There are however spots that a robot is effectively undefendable.

apm4242 08-01-2017 13:42

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
A robot that can trigger the hopper bin closest to the boiler would have access to 60 fuel balls and a clear shot at the high goal without having to reposition. At 1 fuel ball per kPa in auto, a robot with a decent rate of fire could reach the 40 kPa RP threshold in auto, or put a serious dent in it.

Anyone considering this strategy?

The Doctor 08-01-2017 13:53

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
My initial thoughts were that the GDC is going to rebalance fuel in order to make more people care about it.

pmattin5459 08-01-2017 13:58

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by apm4242 (Post 1627211)
A robot that can trigger the hopper bin closest to the boiler would have access to 60 fuel balls and a clear shot at the high goal without having to reposition. At 1 fuel ball per kPa in auto, a robot with a decent rate of fire could reach the 40 kPa RP threshold in auto, or put a serious dent in it.

Anyone considering this strategy?

You have to re position to the shooting area to shoot the balls into the high goal. Also, the trigger for the bins is offset from where the balls are located, so it might be hard to fill a robot with 40 balls. However, if you could manage to pull it off, even mostly, that strategy would make it really easy to reach the limit. So, while problematic, with a fast shooter and some clever auto code to position to the shooting area and lock on to the target, the strategy could work pretty well.

Donut 08-01-2017 17:59

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by apm4242 (Post 1627211)
A robot that can trigger the hopper bin closest to the boiler would have access to 60 fuel balls and a clear shot at the high goal without having to reposition. At 1 fuel ball per kPa in auto, a robot with a decent rate of fire could reach the 40 kPa RP threshold in auto, or put a serious dent in it.

Anyone considering this strategy?

With a floor pick up, you have access to 110 fuel balls, though it's not very realistic to get all of them off the ground.

MattV781 08-01-2017 18:27

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
There are separate counters for the high and low efficiency goals. Each capable of an average of 5 fuel/second.

Siri 08-01-2017 20:20

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Donut (Post 1627383)
With a floor pick up, you have access to 110 fuel balls, though it's not very realistic to get all of them off the ground.

Plus if you're close/fender shooting (in auto or teleop), there's a potential to catch N% of your own misses in your nice big open-top hopper, which means even with a low 30% shooting average you won't be physically running 8 cycles (though you will be shooting that many times).

Lil' Lavery 08-01-2017 20:39

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Jarren Harkema (Post 1627168)
Plenty of teams last year performed way more than 8 cycles, all while avoiding defense. This year, shooting is mostly protected, or at least risky enough for most drivers to avoid. Something else I think is being underestimated is how much of the field is obscured by the airships. Looking at the top view, possibly two of the three driver stations won't be able to clearly see their opponent's key.

400 balls does seem like a long shot, but if you improved that accuracy to 50%, 240 seems more reasonable to me.

A "cycle" last year involved acquiring and releasing one ball. I know people can build some pretty darn fast shooters, but it's going to take a lot more time to expel 50 balls that it takes to expel one ball.

You also had 3 high goals and 2 low goals to align with last year. It was relatively rare you had to wait on a partner to move out of the way. This year that may not be the case. Especially once you consider the processing rate of the goals and the potential of overfilling.

StevenB 09-01-2017 01:19

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by The Doctor (Post 1627215)
My initial thoughts were that the GDC is going to rebalance fuel in order to make more people care about it.

I think this is unlikely. I don't know how the GDC tests the game, but I'm willing to bet they've evaluated the point values pretty carefully, and picked these values because they're confident it will make the game play well.

There are lots of reasons to care about the fuel balls, which have been discussed in this thread. Don't underestimate it just because it has a low point value.

engunneer 09-01-2017 07:09

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by StevenB (Post 1627644)
I think this is unlikely. I don't know how the GDC tests the game, but I'm willing to bet they've evaluated the point values pretty carefully, and picked these values because they're confident it will make the game play well.

There are lots of reasons to care about the fuel balls, which have been discussed in this thread. Don't underestimate it just because it has a low point value.

I don't know if they still do this, but back in the day, there were a few teams that played a prototype game in the fall. Changes get made based on learning and then the game gets released. Two of my classmates in college were on fall teams in high school.

mrnoble 09-01-2017 08:17

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
I'm expecting a short reveal video of a top-tier robot (not saying who) reaching 40kPa during autonomous. I don't expect this to the only model for great robots to follow this year, but it'll happen.

Chris is me 09-01-2017 09:12

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by mrnoble (Post 1627721)
I'm expecting a short reveal video of a top-tier robot (not saying who) reaching 40kPa during autonomous. I don't expect this to the only model for great robots to follow this year, but it'll happen.

I think determining whether or not this achievement is viable for your team is the most important strategic choice teams will make this year. If this is truly possible within your team's resources, you will have a completely different list of strategic priorities than a team that knows they cannot do this. This is absolutely a year where there is not one "right answer" for a robot, and that teams honest about their capabilities will excel.

fearxzombie 09-01-2017 11:00

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Steven Carmain (Post 1626454)
Does anyone else feel that Fuel is under costed in this game?

You can put in 120 high efficiency or 360 low efficiency Fuel to get the same amount of points as one gear in teleop. (I will concede that there is one QP for Fuel that would be valuable)

Plus, would the field be able to count 360 balls in 150 seconds (full match)?

It is probably undercosted due to its abundance

rocketgamer102 09-01-2017 11:35

Re: Fuel Seems Undercosted
 
How it is now can change, they could lower the required fuel for the 1 Q pt. But for now, a strategi=y is coming to light that my team, team 2544, is seeing. Hording fuel. Crazy at first, but can work. If you have an all gear team, the 12 required is possible, and if 3 can be put on in auto, that is 120 pts right there. I digress. If you shove much fuel into your launchpad, and you do not release your fuel you have got from the boiler, you can starve the other team. If you could make a pile of fuel near the boiler, you could in fact make a pile they can not touch and possible start falling into the boiler. Fuel is lomited, so if you starve the opposite alliance, and have a spot-on gear alliance, you will win.

Also, the fuel will unintenally block the opponents from getting gears from their shoots on your side. :}


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 20:34.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © Chief Delphi