Chief Delphi - Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

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Re: Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

This year game is not only complex as far as technology goes, but also about the strategies teams have to use winning the game.
This year game heavly depends on the kind of strategies each team will use. even with the heavy technology, eaach team have only one option ;;;;; to be defensive or offensive. In either of the cases......... the ccommunication among th teams will dominate the whole 2 mintue session. The scouts, captians, coach and the drivers have to use their 6th sense in figuring out a way in and out of the field, with as many points as they can score.

Madi
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"Think in terms of what you can think by not thinking what you can't think, but you can also think about the fact that you are thinking about something which somebody has already thought off."

Re: Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

I donno, I was thinking that building this year would be easy, but today we realised just how much torque is needed to move one of those tetras.

Re: Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ianworld

A defensive bot is really just a robot that can push harder and probably drive a tad better than another robot. So the result is that the strongest robot gets to do what it wants. Thats kind of a generalization. Even the strongest robot will get hampered by a weak robot playing defense assuming they don't completely outclass their opponent(4wd bot vs 2wd bot)

So that being said, every single team should try to have the strongest drivetrain it possibly can. If your stacking mechanism doesn't work you'll have a great backup plan. If it does work, then you'll be able to force your way through other robots.

That being said, i think defensive robots will play a key roll in this years game. Having a robot capable of stopping a cap that will alter the rows significantly will be a huge asset. Now that being said, this year you can't rely on defense. That won't cut it by itself. The team will be able to cap one tetra on a defensive robots watch this year. There are just too many options available. Each alliance will need to find the balance between capping and defense. It could be two defensive robots, one capper. Maybe two cappers and two defensive robots. The top alliance in Atlantawill probably include three fairly good cappers, of which one or two can play solid defense also. But at the regionals I'll take a bet that only two of the three alliance bots will be able to cap, thus forcing a designated defender.

makes me glad that my team is always critisized for an "overly-powerful" drivetrain :p

Re: Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

yes, we had an overly powerful drive train last year.... This year we are going to be adding bumpers a much better drive code to stop it lol.

I think the game will probably run really defensive - everyone blocking each other, or really offensively - mad stack . I dont think it will be possible to have something in between...

Re: Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

yup defense does help we saw a lot of people get whooped by the grease monkeys :ahh: :eek: i saw them ram into Robonauts and knock off their arm

Re: Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesus

yup defense does help we saw a lot of people get whooped by the grease monkeys :ahh: :eek: i saw them ram into Robonauts and knock off their arm

Note to self: don't build an offensive robot that falls apart upon impact. That would be quite a site. :yikes:

Re: Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

NEVER underestimate defense bots. Last year, we won almost all of our nationals rounds (except the first, which 71 won for us) in qual matches by playing really good defense on the bar. One of the reasons our alliance lost the semifinals was because another robot knocked us off the platform before we got into defense position.

--Eric

Re: Do defensive, low scoring tactics work?

I think FIRST did an excellent job this year of making a game where simple-minded box-bot strategies are effectively worthless. There are, however, certainly defensive strategies that could be very effective. Fortunately, those strategies will require a bit more thinking than just "getting in the way." Such strategies might include closing off parts of the field, using part of one's robot to cover the top of a goal (or more than one), etc.

Defensive strategies this year will require robots like the one Team 25 built in 2000 (which to this day is the most impressive, well-designed robot that I have seen).

The reasons I think box-bots will be ineffective this year:

-6 robots, 9 goals, you do the math.
In recent years, the number of "goals" has always been limited (1999, 2000, 2002) and/or centralized and immobile (2000, 2003, 2004). To see that these set ups were prime for defense one need only look to military history: successful defenders defended the smallest, highest area possible. The field this year presents no true center. And a robot doesn't really have to travel very far in any direction to be find a goal.

-Take a look at the field:
http://www2.usfirst.org/2005comp/Sec...-The_Arena.pdf
As soon as a robot is done getting a tetra from the loading station they can 1) get another tetra, 2) turn to the right and go to a nearby goal, 3) turn to the left and go to a nearby goal, 4) go backward for a few feet and have 6 goals immediately nearby. The only one of these four options that a box-bot could legitimately "defend" would be #4, as it cannot hit a robot in a loading station, it cannot pin the robot up against the wall for (10 seconds?) and it cannot touch a tetra being held by another robot. Looks to me like the box-bot hasn't got a chance.

Cheers to offensive and defensive solutions,
Andrew