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Is the Boiler worth it?
I can't seem to figure out a reason why you'd wan't to go for the steam over the gears. You gain points in a much more efficient manner with the gears. If you get all the rotors started you get a minimum of 120 points with a qualification point in teleop. With the steam, you get something like 40 points and a ranking point for 120 balls shot in the high goal. With a processing rate of 5/s, that comes out to 24 seconds of just processing and that's not accounting for the chance of you missing and collection time. It just seems extremely inefficient compared to the gears. Is there a maximum on the kPa you can have?
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Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
There are two main answers:
-In higher level (and perhaps slightly above average) matches, you don't need all robots on gears. You only want to devote the minimum resources necessary to the gears, and capitalize in other ways for points (balls or hang). -You get a ranking point for 40kPa. Ranking points are immensely valuable, as I'm sure that you've recognized if you've looked at FIRST STRONGHOLD. This RP might even be achievable in autonomous (if you are a high goaler with a speedy shot) by triggering a hopper and shooting, as the point values are boosted. Regardless of if you don't quite make it, this gets you in close proximity to the needed 40kPa. tldr; Ranking points are important, slightly above average alliances don't need all three robots on gears. Additionally, while the kPa visual counter maxes out, their is no maximum to kPa you can earn. |
Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
So then can you earn an additional ranking point if you can manage another 40 kPa?
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The fastest way to get the boiler up will be to dump 50 balls into your robot from a hopper and stream them into the high efficiency goal during auto. Not easy, but fast. I think some teams will do this; i.e., the teams that go to Einstein.
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1) What's going to settle the score when both alliances get 12 gears delivered? 2) If your alliance doesn't offload scored fuel, your opponents get it back. 3) If your alliance doesn't offload scored fuel into one of your robots, your opponents effectively get it back. 4) You've got all this room and still 6 weeks! Unless you've got some ultra-niche strategy, I fail to see how a team can 100% disregard fuel. |
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Also, the gears have a diminishing return. Assuming all in teleop:
Rotor 1 = 1 gear = 40 pts/gear (60 in auto) Rotor 2 = 2 gears = 20 pts/gear (30 in auto) Rotor 3 = 4 gears = 10 pts/gear Rotor 4 = 6 gears = 6.667 pts/gear Additionally, you have to deliver all but 1 gear, so that's 12 gears to deliver through the match, which may take a little while (average rate is about one every 10 seconds in teleop to get all 4 rotors). Factor in defense of various types, and you'll need to be pretty good at gear transport to get 4 rotors turning. Oh, and if you deliver 11 gears, you may as well have stopped at 6. |
The boiler can be important because if you get 40 kPa you get 1 ranking point. It takes 120 balls for high goal to make that 40 kPa. It also takes 360 balls to make it as well. But when in final they are then worth an additional 20 points.
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As said earlier, ranking points are king. The better you seed, the better your playoff alliance will be. If you're very good at getting that 40 kPa, you'll seed very well.
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Rotor 4 = 6 gears = 6.667 pts/gear + 1 RP (qualify) Rotor 4 = 6 gears = 23.33 pts/gear (playoff) |
Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
One thing I've realized over the years is that relying on your qualification partners can be risky business. Unless you have a constant stream of information from your scouters throughout the tournament, many teams over estimate their ability. That said, we have been evaluating how our team can hold our own in matches.
It is significantly more feasible for a single robot to max out the pressure on the boiler, only needing one or two cycles depending on the robots fuel capacity and accuracy. A single robot is going to have a very hard placing the 12 gears needed to get the rank point for the rotors on its own. Assuming one gear could be placed in auto, that leaves about 10 second per gear cycle, while still leaving 15 seconds for a climb. A robot is going to have to move quick and avoid all defense. A boiler robot can guarantee the rank point on its own and has more protection while doing so. The tricky part is determining how many rotors need to be spinning to get enough points to guarantee the win as well. Arguably winning is more important than losing but filling the boiler. But being able to solo fill the boiler is also a very valuable alliance partner in playoffs. |
Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
Don't forget, to deliver a gear you'll almost always have to traverse the field. Fuel will be available in the hoppers and likely on the ground. Less travel time.
The boilers also have no upper limit. Once you've delivered 12 gears your done with them. If you don't have anyone in your alliance working with fuel you've capped the total number of points possible. |
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It is going to suck when you do 3 preload + 6 cycles and your other 2 bots can't manage 3 collectively though. Be ready to bag out early. In fact (if you're playing with this level in mind), that's among the most important uses of fuel: when your coach is looking at the clock ticking down and realizing you're not going to finish that last rotor. If you need points before endgame to pull out the win, running insufficient gears is literally a waste of time. |
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The fuel is the only method of scoring in this game that has no limit. In higher level of play, the rotors will get capped out with some time left. After this, the determining factor is the fuel. Whichever alliance can put in the most fuel into the boiler is how the winner will be decided.
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Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
Gears are bursts of points, boilers can get you points in the background while you go around and do other things. Both are worth it, you should ask what you want to prioritize more. In all honesty I look at all the objectives on the field and most of them can be accomplished with minimal moving parts. I imagine some of the best robots out there are going to be insanely simple designs augmented with active mechanisms to make them run more efficiently but that is a different conversation.
This game kinda reminds me of cookie clicker, Star Craft or Age of Empires in regards to resource management. If you only do one or the other you are going to have a ton of down time where you aren't scoring and if you aren't scoring you still need to be doing something. |
Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
I'm confused as to why one entire method of scoring game pieces would be invalid for use?
Scoring in the Boiler gives you one RP in Quals, and that RP can be guaranteed in the autonomous period given kPa is equal to each fuel in the High Efficiency Boiler. That means that you can do both. That being said, there still can be a case made that the Low Efficiency Goal isn't worth it. |
Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
Absolutely... RP and difference maker
As for LE goal depends on design...if you can ensure a cycle of 50 dumped..that nets 5+ points per cycle.... if you can do 7or 8 cycles that's a RP that would require both hopper load and super fast floor pickup. The advantage of LE is its semmingly higher probability then HE for many teams. That being said HE is the way to go I think in terms of fuel especially in auto. |
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Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
The low goal strikes me as useless in teleop. If your robot can carry 40 balls and you dump them in the low goal you get 4.4 points and bit more than 1/10th of the way to a RP. Spending that cycle time on defense against gears (average gear worth is 15 pts, not counting the RP or point bonus for all spinning). I imagine some good defense could double or triple cycle time for gears, making it more worthwhile use of time than low goal scoring.
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Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
No
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I agree that the gears have a higher face value than fuel, but in higher level matches, all the gears will be placed before the match is over and you don't want your robot sitting around on the field waiting for the ropes to drop.
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My point is not that the boiler should be ignored but this: supposing you score all the gears, there are better uses of your time than low goal cycling. I like Rangel's idea of loading up high shooter bots. |
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I think that the top teams at events, both in terms of alliance captains and first picks, will tend to be robots a mastery of gear manipulation as well as one of high goals or climbing.
While gears are the big points in this game (I think everyone agrees here), they are finite and rather defendable. Plus, with how obviously advantageous gear-scoring is, I think robots who do so will be abundant. Teams will be served well by having another scoring method in their toolbox to stand out and give them a strategic edge. 40 kPa of boulders yields nearly the same number of match points as climbing, plus one RP. Last year, bonus RP made a world of difference, and with them being considerably harder to earn this year than last, I think robots who can pull off the high shot will quickly scale the rankings. However, with shooting this year being harder and way more defendable, I think it's really important to not put all of your eggs in the shooter basket. To be successful, I believe shooters will need to something else really well as well. Defense this year is going to be ferocious. For this reason, I think the fill-the-boiler-in-auto strategy is going to be incredibly powerful. Shooters who don't intend to finish the job in auto better plan around defense in teleop, or they will be easy targets. Climbing is also rather valuable, and is not defendable. For this reason, I think the most desirable robots during alliance selection (i.e. the early first picks) will be relaible gear/climber bots. Those climb points will be particularly value in elims, where having a climber instead of a shooter doesn't sacrifice an RP. |
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For all those discounting the low efficiency scoring method, remember this: after the fuel is scored, it goes to the opposing alliance. They have 3 buckets that can hold roughly 50 fuel each, meaning around 150 fuel max. After this point, they go to overflow. So, if you can move and score fuel faster than the other alliance, the fuel will be forced into returning back to your side of the field via either their loading lane or your overflow loading station.
[Edit] - that being said, I'm not saying it's the way to go, but I do think that it could potentially present a large pressure point on the opposing alliance. |
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Maybe I'm crazy but I actually think the low goal can be useful. With the low goal it's all about quantity, if you can dump a hopper where you catch one side and ground pickup most of the other quickly you can get enough balls for 10 point cycles. That's the same point value as gear cycling for the 3rd rotor (requires 4 gears yielding 10 points per gear). It's not a single strategy to pursue like high goals or a fast gear runner, but it would be a good secondary function for robots that have another function as well. A defensive minded bot could score low in a match when the alliance needs just a few more kPa for the bonus, or a gear bot can cycle balls and gears across the field in one pass to maximize scoring per cycle.
High goal scoring can go toe to toe with gear cycling for max points in a match (gears score 220 in teleop in playoffs ignoring the reserve gear for rotor 1, high goal fuel can score 245 in teleop in playoffs based on the 5 fuel per second processing average). It also offers the highest potential autonomous bonus for a single robot (going to assume no one does 3 gear auto solo). With high goal scoring most teams will have to pick between that and a fast gear runner though, since most teams will not be successful in making their bot capable of scoring both ways at a top tier level. Quote:
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Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
Dr. Joe's 3 "Don't Bother Unless..." Rules For High Efficiency Goal Shooting:
Seriously, it is going to be very hard to make the numbers work our from a cost/benefit point of view. You have to excel at all 3 aspects of this process or your team probably would have been better off making simpler/smaller robot that you finished earlier and got more driver practice and had more time to make those 100s of refinements that add up to huge benefits to your overall performance. I am quite serious. I would bet that for 90% of teams that are going to try to do high efficiency goal shots, they literally could have increased their average scores significantly more by just organizing their pits better and/or focusing on battery management and putting in place preflight check lists/diagnostic software features (e.g. checking for PWM wires that are unplugged). Bottom line, High Efficiency Goal Shooting is going to be a boneyard of time suck for so so many teams. Sorry for the downer post. Dr. Joe J. P.S. Our team was high fiving ourselves when a prototype "Fuel Tank" was able to spit out 2.5 balls per second during a test run. It seemed like a crazy fast stream of balls exiting our test hopper. Then I realized it would take 20 seconds of shooting non stop to empty a single hopper's worth of balls into the High Efficiency Goal. And that it would take 3 such hoppers worth to earn that tantalizing extra RP. How many teams are going to actually pull that off. Many will try. Few will succeed... |
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My concern is that there will be decently accurate teams that shoot at about 1 Ball/second processing rate...
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Sightlines.... even a bigger deal this year than last year. |
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If the boiler plays out like Aim High goals did, this game will be entertaining to watch. The Einstein matches from 2006 with teams filling the high goal so fast that balls were falling out of it (then being caught and re-fired) are some of my all time favorite matches to watch. |
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How does one write code to detect a pwm is unplugged? |
Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
I believe there is just one reason to use the low efficiency goal and I don't think it has much to do with the points it scores. So it's probably not worth it. It's just too inefficient as a scoring method. 33% accuracy in the high goal is not that much harder than a low goal mechanism. The frustrating thing is that the low goal dump height is not the same height as the hopper load, so you can't easily use the same mechanism to load the low goal as you use to load alliance partners.
Ball mechanisms seem like they take so much more design effort and space compared to the reward. I see it as something you do opportunistically while focusing on gears - you keep that intake running as you make your back and forth cycles, and eventually your hopper will just so happen to be full, so you can get a few points for that. Balls are also something to do on alliances that have gotten three rotors spinning, but clearly won't get the 4th in time. |
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But it would work with some form of feedback... current sensing circuit shows no current, optical encoder detects no ticks etc. Might be useful in the pits, but hardly useful once the robot is on the field. Quote:
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Re: Is the Boiler worth it?
One way to look at the Boiler is it worth it?
Its the only scoring method that is available all game... with unlimited game pieces In gears you have "pay as you go" at 0 (40/60) 2 (40/60)- 4 (40) -6(40+ RP/100) In climb you have 30 secs to get 50 at endgame Fuel is the only way to continually score all game ...so its a DIFFERENTIATOR and definitely has worth... Simple example Both teams with gears in auto/tele at 120, both alliances climb so far a TIE at 270 who wins? the alliance that scored 1 point with Fuel (1 HE auto, 10 HE tele or 30 LE tele) that is 2 RP. This alone makes potential boiler capability on an alliance worth it. to win those matches 271 to 270 |
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But that second sentence is what I was alluding to with the "one reason to score in the low goal". If both goals are processing balls at capacity, that's ten balls per second going into the opponent's ball bin. Shouldn't take too long for that bin to overflow and give your own alliance quick access to some more balls to score with. |
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There will be a production possibility curve for each team based on a cycle-time modifier. This determines where teams' resources (time) are best spent. I have attached an example with a 1:1 time spent per point for both gears and fuel. NOTE: The attached graph is only considering teleop playoff point values and may have slight inaccuracies based on how the graph was generated (due to the number of sample points), it also works with the assumption of 108 max points of fuel (including bonuses). |
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Unless there is a robot on your alliance that owns* the boiler (see my earlier post in this thread), stoking will be everyone's part time job. Grab a few balls at the loading station, visit a hopper while it is being dumped, or sweep the floor on along your way -- just get a little FUEL when you can, and score it to the best of your ability. This will be the win/loss margin when alliances are evenly matched on gears and climbing. Could even get you an extra RP, sometimes.
----------- * Looking at you, teams from Purdue. :) |
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Westside Boiler Invasion Harrison Boiler Robotics Maverick Boiler Robotics |
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You can count 75 balls in 15 seconds of autonomous and 675 in teleop. But this raises another question, is it 5/second for each boiler or combined? If the answer is combined then for max score you'd only do the high goal with gives a theroetical of 75 * 1 + 675 * 1/3 = 300 kPa (or points) . If the answer is each then your alliance does both and you theoreticallyy could get an additional 100 kPa for a total of 400 kPa (or points). |
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If we have an opponent that is a hopper loader/high shooter, our first move in tele will be to run around and dump all the hoppers. Ball pit time! It will be the extremely rare robot that can process balls from the floor fast enough to be effective.
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My team says it's worth it, but I can't see how. You'd need an extremely quick shooter and accuracy is critical. Even slightly off, and your robot sucks.
And retrieval time is just too long. It'd be more worth it if balls were worth more points. However, we also have to consider that if all robots focus on gears, maxing the rotors may end up the norm, and boilers are now the only way to get ahead. |
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Sorry, but from what I've seen in the past, if floor loading is available, there'll be a lot of teams that can be extremely lethal with it, especially when there's no capacity limit other than robot size. '09 and '06 come to mind. |
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You are forgetting about collecting fuel from the floor while doing gear cycles... |
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Per the manual, however, this is an average value, depending on how tightly packed the goal is, so theoretically it could be processed faster than this. |
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It's important to note that not all matches will be close: if you think a qualification match is going to be a blowout,getting that extra RP will be very valuable.
This also means that the best partners in qualms arn't necessarily the best ones for elims... which is going to be fun. |
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Edit: And yes, there will be a team somewhere that does everything well. 7 gear cycles, 150 balls scored in the high goal, climb, all by themselves. |
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Also, add a second or two for alignment. Add 10 seconds if there's any defense at all on you. You're looking at spending a minute or so on shooting, giving you time to cycle maybe 3-4 gears. That is a lot better than a plain gear cycler, so I will admit for a team that can hit those fast, accurate shooting goals (as Dr. Joe said) it's a viable strat... if you're alone. If you have a couple of gearbots on your alliance, you shouldn't bother cycling back and forth and just collect close to the goal and shoot fast. Edit: Not sure how timing would work for 7 gear cycles, 150 pts, and climbing. It might happen, but I wouldn't bet on it. |
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We are a 2nd year, FRC team with very little experience, we are currently thinking our best bet is to focus on a simple mechanism to deliver cogs, rather that a fuel retrieval and shooting system...what would others advise? We appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.
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2017 Manual 3.11.4: "A BOILER processes FUEL in to [sic] steam at an average rate of five (5) FUEL per second per GOAL, but actual rate is dependent on the amount and packing of FUEL in the GOALS (i.e. the tighter the packing in a GOAL, the faster the FUEL processing rate)."I too cannot reconcile these two statements. How can the range be 4 to 5 and the average be 5? (Do note that there was one mistake in this video that's already been corrected in the description: the dimensions of the high goal opening. But this issue is not mentioned.) |
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In regards to whether or not the boiler is worth it: Yes, in the right situation. Say your alliance has time to score 10 gears. So you score 10 gears, then climb. You've gotten 3 rotors spinning with 0 fuel. But you had 3 rotors spinning at 7 gears - you've completely wasted time scoring 3 gears because those 3 give you a grand total of zero points. Whereas if the opponent alliance had the same gear scoring speed, but stopped at 7 and scored fuel for the remainder of the match, then climbed, that alliance is victorious. And also maybe got an extra RP. I can't speak for whether or not the boiler is "worth it" in eliminations. But the boiler is an incredibly easy way to get a RP during quals, especially with a strong autonomous. |
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A lot of this has probably already been said, but:
I see a lot of parallels in the scoring setup between Steamworks and Stronghold. I think we will see alliance setups work very similarly. In stronghold, defenses were the 'easier' scoring method, and they initially returned much more points. The problem is there were only so many defenses, and once they were all broken there was nothing left to do. This is the same as gears. Really good shooters struggled in quals last year because they struggled to put up a lot of points. In elims however the match usually hinged on the performance of the alliance's shooter(s) because all defenses on both sides just got broken every match. Elims this year will be decided by shooting fuel. I expect both sides in elims will get all or all but one rotor, and the differentiating factor will be which team can shoot more balls. |
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What we are seeing this year is a bit of an inverse of 2016. The 'easy RP' is in the fuel, a task many teams may choose to ignore, in 2016 quite a few teams were selected for defense breaking ability. The 'hard RP' is in the gears, similar to breaking the tower (with high shots). 40kPa seems easier than 13 gears at any rate. I think we will see a lot of bots working towards that magical 7th gear and picking up fuel at minimal time-cost within the gear cycles. When the bots' fuel storage is full they will shoot or dump. |
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I discovered my Production Possibility Curve did not include the 40 points of steam bonus for elims. Here is the updated figure:
The same assumptions apply, namely 128 max fuel score. EDIT: check a few posts below for the NOT SCREWED UP (mad at myself) curve. |
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We reviewed some of these strategies, including defensive strategies, in our video update of weeks 1 & 2 of this season, so check that out for additional info and to see how some teams are implementing these strategies! https://youtu.be/PJhMr0CW83s |
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I think you *must* have some sort of ability to manipulate gears and some sort of hanging mechanism to be in elims, because if you have somebody on your alliance who can't do one or the other, you're at least 50 points down (100 if it's gears they can't do) and you have to score 150-300 high goals just to make up for that! |
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I know I have a bias towards shooting, but at extremely high levels of play there will be alliances that max out the gears (provided FIRST doesn't adjust the number required) after that what's left? Climbing and shooting. If you were going to climb in the last 10 sec that leaves you only with shooting. This year I think we could see scores exceeding 400 in division playoffs. (again assuming no FIRST score adjustment)
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But consider the fact that you may be on a team where everyone is gear heavy, which is very likely considering the circumstances. Depending on how efficient the others are, two situations may arise. 1. All of the gears get done earlier in the game than expected and if you have no fuel capability you're SOL for the rest of the game. 2. the other robots are more efficient than you and they handle the gears, then you're stuck driving in circles.
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This is gonna be fun. :) |
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