Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

What if the key to the game were the last 30 seconds? Think about it: defensive teams HAVE to go back in the end game to score their ramp points. An offensive alliance will be able to put up 3 ringers at least during the 1 min 30sec of intensive defense. If such alliance can manage to put 3 more during the last 30 secs without defense... bye bye ramp advantage?

This is pure speculation though, but I can think of a few team that could pull it off.

Francois.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

My Thoughts:

Auto-mode is completely underestimated.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

When we designed our robot, we figured that the rack would not end up being worth more than 60 points in the majority of matches. Effective blocking of the rack, or blocking of rows with your own ringers is usually enough to turn the "bonus" into the primary scoring for your alliance.

Regardless of what FIRST wanted, this is a game where you have to decide early whether you're getting your points through the rack, or limiting their points through the rack.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

That is one point that I wholeheartedly agree with. Such is why I would still prefer being on an alliance with 2 offensive and a ramp, rather than a defensive one. In the absolute best case scenario, while the opposing alliance is getting on their ramp, one of your scorers is getting on your ramp while the other scoring bot is getting 2 or 3 more ringers, securing your win. However, there's still a lot of risk; maybe a tube decides to jump up onto your ramp in front of the scorer that's trying to get onto it. There's your 15 points gone, and the scoring robot that remains on the field now has a lot more pressure to attempt to compensate for the other team's 60 that they're about to get.


Atlanta's endgame is going to be insane.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

It is very interesting to see the complaints about heavy defense and ramp bonus in the Week 3 thread. UTC is always defensive, and 25, frankly, should have been prepared. I am not surprised that they were shut out twice during the finals and encountered heavy defense. Detroit is a little more interesting, but defense is often common in smaller regionals, as the quantity of proficient offensive bots is lower, allowing for defensive teams to take a more prominent role (despite the powerhouse offensive machines).
At Chesapeake (and apparently at Peachtree as well) we saw a whole new game. It might have been, in part, due to the lack of very many quality ramp bots, but isn't the only explanation. The winning alliance at Chesapeake scored a TOTAL (yes, a TOTAL) of ZERO bonus points. 293, 75, and 203 won through the rack and the rack alone. 293 and 75 scored early and quickly on the top level of the rack, a place few other bots could effectively challenge them, and managed to create several long rows (5-7) capable of outweighing any bonus points the other alliance might have gotten. Much like the NJ regional, if the other alliance retreated to score bonus points, 75 and 293 would extend their row long enough to outscore them. 203 played enough defense to prevent the other alliances from creating longer rows beneath. The opposition even resorted to spoilers, but the one time it was placed on a long row, 293 actually removed it (and almost placed it over an opposition ringer). Judging from the reports and pictures I have heard about Peachtree, it was much of the same.
There are several explanations behind this. One is the lack of quality 2@12" ramps. They were few and far between, but even when they did play, they didn't mean a guaranteed win. Another is the stricter reffing at Chesapeake. More penalties were called than at other regionals, but even this didn't fully discourage defense (and it was still very common and quite intense).
As the game evolves, I think we'll see these two styles of play meet somewhere in the middle. Most of the complaints in this thread originate from a New England regional, and a regional with less than 30 teams, both of which create defensive regionals. But Peachtree was a very defensive regional when we attended in 2006, but the winning alliance (as shown here) managed to score 260 points on the rack alone. At the Championship, the quantity of powerful offensive machines will be high enough to create a game between these two realms. Well executed driving and multiple offensive machines will allow for scoring on the rack, while smart placement will prevent many long rows (resulting in lower rack scores, which keeps ramp points important). Spoilers will continue to play a prominent role, especially when larger rows do form, but the value of removing them will also increase. The value of autonomous will definitely be shown as well. Not only are keepers protected from being spoiled, but autonomous essentially represents 15 additional seconds to score (and a keeper is essentially an extra ringer). Because of the exponential scoring, an extra ringer doubles the points of the row (duh), as well as cuts your opponents possible score on that row in half. Imagine now if an alliance can score 5 rings on a purely defensive alliance. Without a keeper, they might lose 60-32 because of bonus points. With the keeper it's a 62-60 win. Now imagine when 2 or 3 bots on that alliance can score keepers.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

A defensive alliance usually has one scorer. If they can do 4 tubes in a match, then they can pretty much bar any long rows from being assembled. This game is getting interesting (to think about). You have offensive titans, and then you have ramp bots and defense. If you watch the regionals that have occured over the last few weeks, you will notice that at a majority of them, a powerhouse offensive alliance was consistently taken out by ramps+defense+a few tubes on the rack. Consistently. Powerhouse scoring sounds good (i mean, it still sounds good to me), but only if there are other factors present: ramps, defensive ability, scoring ability times three, and the ability for teams to seamlessly alternate among these roles, should they be playing double or triple duty.

Having a ramp that gets a 30 point bonus isn't going to be enough. Having three robots with sub-average drivetrains isn't going to cut it. Having only one scorer and ramps, without defense won't get you very far.

I don't know.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I think the game is starting to branch out, with some alliances winning with two decent ringer robots, one defense robot and a good ramp, and some winning with no ramps at all, and absolutely insane rack scoring.

Atlanta will be interesting indeed, as all these styles of play get mixed and matched in the divisions. I can't wait.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

In reference to the winning of eliminations because of ramping, I would like to point out that the winning alliance of the UTC regional (195, 1124, 558) won all of their matches without the need for ramping**. It was done for a higher score and as a reassurance of a win.

**Ramping was required in one match where, in the end, there was one robot from each alliance on a ramp, in effect, canceling out the ramp bonus points.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

There is a lot of assumption in this thread that we know what the GDC intended for this game to be. That's an interesting assumption. The GDC, I'm sure, knows how games have played out in the past. I doubt they are unaware that qualification matches in regionals are sometimes/often very defensive. In fact, looking at last year’s game, and the opportunity it created where teams basically had to play defense, I wouldn't say that the GDC doesn't expect games to be defensive. I also don't think that you can assume that the GDC didn't know what an effect the ramps would have.

Personally this game is growing on me. I rather like that there are many ways to win. There are some games when ramps are absolutely deciding, some games when even ramping won't give a team a win, and some matches where a team has to decide whether defense, scoring, or ramping is the most effective strategy in the last 30 seconds. I also love the variety in the way that teams have answered the challenge of this game.

And the decline of some parts of this thread into complaining about reffing just seems a bit petty to me. And, frankly, off topic and unnecessary. I really doubt that complaints about calls have anything to do with an evaluation of rack and roll. There have always been complaints about calls, no matter what the game.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I just enjoyed how in the MWR elimination rounds 648 usually had two robots on them at all times while 447 racked up the points for us (pun intended). We were stuck in the rack multiple times and pounded by other teams. We expected this and reinforced our arm. It's not sheetmetal you know. Only our moon pieces of our grabber was bent a little bit.

1625 played some crazy defense on 71 and that alliance. Kudos to their drivers, too bad it didn't work out.

The 7 seed alliance won with 111 being the only ramp robot but not using it so much.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

There is no deadline time teams need to pass inspection by. However, robots will not be allowed to take the competition field until they have passed inspection. So every year there are teams that miss qualification matches because they have not passed inpection in time for their match. It is not all that uncommon to have teams that only take the field for their last match or two on Saturday. Usually there is only one of these per regional, but if you are their partner, you just have to do without them.

The inspectors will keep working with a team until they either pass or Qualification ends, but I can't recall a team that didn't get at least one match. For such teams taking the field IS victory.

Some regionals may have a requirement that teams must BEGIN inspection by a certain time to be eligible to compete. This is a local regulation and, in my opinion, of marginal legality at best. I have never heard of an absolute deadline for teams to PASS inspection, other than the end of qualifying.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Team 766 and 488 played defensive during elimaination rounds. 766 would play offense for the first minute and place ringers at midpoints on the rack so long long rows could'nt be completed. Meanwhile 488 played defense on the tubes themselves and prevented teams from picking up tubes. Then after a minute, we switched roles. 488 would get back and set up their ramps while we played hard defensive on their top threat. In the quarter finals this was either 254 or 1070. We lost the match we plaued D on 254 because of ramp points so for QF-3 we played D on 10 70 and pushed them onto out half of the field and delayed them until fifteen seconds so they couldn't get backa dn drop their ramps and lift the other two roobts. We won because they had no ramp points and the poofs' main breaker tripped.

In the semis, 488 played the same D on woodside while we stopped 114 who tried to place a tube where we wanted to. So we cleared them out and placed the tube. The pushing match and evetual scoring by 766 took about a minute so we swtiched wth 488 and played D on woodside and got bac on 488's ramps for the win. The next match 488 played D and we scored tubes with 852 who played offense the entire time. Again we swtiched and stopped woodside from completing long rows. we got back on 488's ramps and won.

The finals went almost the same way. they sent teir D bot 1516 to play D on 852 so we scored tubes for the first minute. then we played D on 1280 and witched over to play D on 190. somehwere in our pushing atch they broke down and we pushed them to our homezone. we got on 488's ramps for the win. the second match 852 got a tube stuck n them and we pickd off but wasted time so we had to place that one tube an play D this time 190 didnt try to push through us like before and were able to get around us to set up their ramps for the win. the final match involved 766 playing offnse for only 30 seconds before helping 488 play D. we managed to dleay 190 for a minute and pinned them against the rack while they were trying to score. It took the help of both their allaince partners to stop us and 190 squeezed around us and the double pick to get back in the homezone to set up their ramps for the win. 852 and 766 both rushed to get on 488's ramps and we both over shot the ramps and we stayed on barely and got 15 points and 852 tipped slightly and ended up leaning against the allince station for no points. all in all, that was a very tense end game bcause 190 barely got both their bots off the floor and only scored 15 points each. If 766 and 852 both did not overshoot the ramps, the match outcome might have been different (im pretty sure we would have won by 1 or 2 points).

hopefully my long post signifies the importance of D. I also found out that ramps and ringer scoring complement eachother, rather than one being the decider. Usually the team with the ramp wins, but in the case of the finals, both allainces had functioning ramp bots that played smart and always got back to deploy, so actually the allicne who placed the most ringers won in that case.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I agree that it's just a situation where the team who is missing a partner must simply make the best of it without them, but our team felt this rather acutely when we didn't have a third partner in 3 of our 7 matches at Chesapeake. This made us a bit more aware of it than some teams, and more willing to help correct that in future years.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I agree with that. Hanging a keeper has little or no effect on the final score, especially as compared to last year. Many teams didn't even bother trying to design an autonomous program this year. Is the GDC deliberately trying to level the playing field by de-emphasizing autonomous? It's another aspect of the game that can make it interesting, IMHO.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Combining points into one reply -

In Detroit, most teams were inspected on Thursday, and all teams were inspected by their first match on Friday. No one missed their first match, although a few came close. A few teams did miss subsequent matches, though - by their own choice, because they evidently were fixing or upgrading something. One team brought the bot to the field only about 1/2 the time on Friday. And one team did not appear for their last match on Saturday morning, in which they were scheduled as a surrogate (extra match to make a full group of 6).

There were approximately the same number of penalties called in Detroit as at GLR, on a per-match basis. Perhaps even a few more in Detroit. Most were technical calls - entering ringers before tele-mode, deploying greater than 72x72, entering the opponent's home zone in the endgame. Teams were warned against high-speed ramming and pummeling (repeated banging) in all driver meetings, and I don't recall any ramming calls that were made. Nor did I see anything that I thought was ramming - although my duties generally made it impossible for me to see more than 30 seconds of any one match.

Pinning against the rack by a robot attempting to score is allowed.

Regarding arm-to-arm contact, I haven't seen this bullet point of <G35> mentioned: Teams can't use their arm to spear another robot's guts, but they can make contact when both arms are outside the starting footprint. Arms have all sorts of doodads on them that can cause entanglement when two of them connect. Most times drivers in that situation recognize the danger, and attempt to disentangle without causing more damage.