Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I'm surprised nobody created such a thread yet.

My analysis is based solely on the Detroit Regional (a small, but competitive regional featuring Bees, Chiefs, Chickens, Phoenix, Guerrillas, Dragons and other non-conventional animals)

If the end of Great Lakes Regional hinted at a more defensive game, where strategic ringer placement and ramp would be key to a win, Detroit achieved to convince me.

First of all, kudos to the game committee for coming up with a game where I have yet to see a really dominating robot. This alliance intensive games makes it hard for a single robot, no matter how good, to dominate the game.

Now, onto the three main components of this game:

Rack Game: Winning the rack is not so much about putting the most ringers on it anymore, but putting such ringers in an intelligent fashion in order to maximize their point value. Winning a game with the rack only is currently difficult for most robots as defense is fiercest than ever, strategic ringer placement usually prevent any 7 or 8 rows, and spoilers are starting to be used on a regular basis. All in all, only the best of the best can rely on their scoring abilities to win a game now.

Defense: Defense took a whole new dimension this week. We saw a couple very strong ramp bots such as 247 or 703 keep robots away from the rack for most of the game, and rows of 3 became way more frequent than 6's, 7's and 8's. The final matches at Detroit Regional probably exemplify this aspect of the game: 469 and 302, two decent scorers, were shut down by 903 and 247 who ended up taking the gold with their ramp points.

Ramp: Ramp is decisive. Whether or not this was the original intent of the creators of the game is up to debate, but the facts are here: all semi finals and finals at Detroit regional were won with ramp points. The best alliance partner ever? A great ramp with good defense capability and decent scoring capability. Climbing a ramp is still a challenge for many robots, but as the days go by, drivers are sharpening their skills and engineers improving upon their ramp for, I believe, a ramp dominated game in Georgia.

Overall, alliances are key to this game. I am now convinced that a winning alliance must contain at least one (1) scorer and one (1) ramp bot, and would even speculate that the ultimate alliance encompasses the following robots:
1 good scorer (1114, 25, 67, 217, 302, ...)
1 ramp bot with scoring capability (469, 27, 503, 1023, ...)
1 other scorer

The scorers MUST have the capability/ground clearance necessary to climb the ramp.

Decent scorers are usually all gone when third pick comes back, in which case a good defensive bot will make the difference. Also, an all defensive strategy, such as that pulled out by the Da Bears alliance is still valid.

I love that game ;). Driving was incredibly exciting. No prediction ever holds and the winner isn't set until the last second.

Excuse all the grammatical mistakes and other redundancies.

Francois.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

While the refs got better from inventing rules, they now decided not to enforce the rules. Sometimes, they don't call penalties because it seems like they don't want to play the "bad guy" role. This is ridiculous. Usually I am very pro-defense, but when it gets to the point where teams arms are breaking, I think the refs should use the rule book. At this point, there is no rule book. Its more like just guidelines and pick what you want to use. This is not meant to be an offense to any of the refs, because you are all good people, and some of you are my friends. However, this year FIRST created a game that is NOT so hard to ref and there are not too many close/hard calls, and yet it doesn't look like the rules can be followed. If I were the one making the game I would be telling myself - what more can I possibly do to make the game referee friendly.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Contact is allowed with the robot when that portion is outside the bumpers (like most arms are), and arms can also be broken when legal bumper-to-bumper contact is made and the arm is attached or hung up on the rack.

Teams need to make sure their arms are strong enough for rigorous contact when they are not within the bumperzone.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

At the Chesapeake regional the winning alliance consisted of two exceptional scorers and a defensive robot. Some of them had ramps, but never used them. 293 and 75 just overwhelmed the other alliances with scoring on the rack. However 293 and 75 were the best scorers at the competition so in normal qualification matches ramps will probably play a bigger part.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I definatly think your over exagratting a bit on this. I have seen many ramming penalties called, and I haven't even been to a regional yet. And I am pretty sure the rack itself can do that much damage to your bot on its own if your not careful. I think the refs are doing just fine given the amount of things they have to consider. if your arm breaks during a match you obviously didn't build a strong enough arm and/or it got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. accidents do happen, and the rack is a beast of its own keep that in mind.

Edit: in response to Bharat Nain

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Brat, i see what you mean, i have been on your side and the Defense side before as well, i feel that this game has alot of contact and Defense to play this game. i think game play is going to get alot different from this week and nationals. that rack is not so forgiving and robots will break. Defense is some teams main game plan, just learn how to play around it.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

You sound like you need to take a second to breathe. Our arm was also broken at Detroit: it got tangled in the rack while or opponents where pushing us sideways. I agree that ramming penalties are not always called, but I can not fine anybody but myself to blame for our arm breaking.

Please, let's focus on how the game as a whole is played rather than complain about specific calls from the referees.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I really enjoyed the Chesapeake Regional. The finals had some great high (in both senses of the word) scoring allianaces playing together. It was a blast.

However, I'm still confused about the whole inspection schedule.

In Annapolis they were saying that you had to be inspected by the end of Thursday if you wanted to compete.

However, when we started queing for our first seed match on Friday (match 9) one of our alliance parners still didn't have their inspection sticker so they didn't turn up.

What's the point of having an inspection deadline if un-inspected teams will still be included in the next morning's match rotations anyway.

It seems to me that if a team misses their inspection deadline on Thursday, they should NOT be included in the match rotations the next morning.

This may sound a bit brutal, but the game WAS structured such that an alliance REQUIRED at least two robots to score bonus points. Only starting out with two robots (or even one) makes it really hard to compete against a full opposing alliance.

Maybe there could be some extra slots added later in the day for Late Inspections.

I'm just trying to think up ways to eliminate having to explain how "Life isn't always fair" to the kids.

Phil.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

My question is, when playing defense, why must a team feel compelled to raise their arm/manipulator to interact with the defended robot's arm that is holding a tube? Obviously the team is not using their end effector for its intended purpose, scoring, and therefore the interaction has been done on purpose. Why should they not be given the 10-point penalty?

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

As far as I read this you are allowed to knock game pieces out of there end effector as long as you don't grab the piece.

Other than that, Week 3 is proving to be much better than week 1 & 2 as always

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

You may still be missing my point, <G36> coupled with <G35>:

It is clearly not incidental contact if there is no need for the end effector to be raised/used for interaction in the first place. When acceptable bumper-bumper defense is being played, any arm/manipulator that is used out of the bumper zone (5' in the air) to interact/contact with the defended robot's manipulator is unnecessary, and clearly done intentionally. I ask again, why should they not be given the 10-point penalty if the interaction was done intentionally?

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

At Peachtree, they basically required that all teams at least be initially inspected by 6pm Thursday, to provide time to fix/change whatever necessary and get re-inspected Friday morning. In all of our qualification matches, we never had an alliance partner that had not yet passed inspection...in fact, I don't remember ever seeing a QM with less than 6 robots on the field. Granted, there were a few robots in the early Friday matches that did not move at all, but that is the fault of the team and has nothing to do with inspection, as they were allowed onto the field.

As for the scoring and gameplay, I think it is perfect. At the beginning of the season, when we were trying to decide what approach to take with the design of our robot, I made the case that we'd be better off statistically to be a strong scoring bot. Just like in 2006, there are to main ways to score points -- a more difficult method that allows for a greater potential of points, and an easier method that doesn't provide as much of a reward. I knew that the optimal alliance this year would be two scoring bots and one ramp/lifter, but I was sure that more than one third of all robots at the competition would be ramps (sure enough, that was the case), and that we'd have a better chance for getting picked if we could hang ringers, and hang them well.

For the quarterfinals at Peachtree, when we had more of a chance to coordinate with our alliance partners (1746 and 1057, you rock), we thought of an offensive strategy that was partly defensive. 1746 and us both could pick up ringers quickly and easily, so we hung our first ringers not on our side, but theirs. This helped not only to hinder them from hanging, but also from blocking us from making a long row. After we hung up around to the sides, they then would have to get in between the rack and the wall to get to our side, and it was much easier to block them.

I do think, however, that the GDC thought that matches would generally have scores in the 100+ plus range, so that the ramp bonuses could be a deciding factor, but not the extent it has shown to be. Conversely, I think that teams generally underestimated how difficult it would be to hang when getting pushed around and such.

Either way, I think this year had the most exciting game yet (but I've only been around since 2004), mostly because of the end-of-match developments that decide the results. Whether it's hanging just that one last ringer to double your points or getting both robots off the ground, nothing's more exhilirating than squeezing out a win with just seconds left.


P.S. - Another clever strategy I noticed was trying to throw ringers onto opponents robots when they were over on your side of the field, to cause them to get a penalty if they tried to pick another tube up. Ringers only got stuck on a robot like that once or twice, but it definitely helped.

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1> Arms are specifically not allowed to be used to block, so arm-to-arm interference is not allowed.

2> contact (even hard contact) with an arm that is outside the bumperzone is legal. Arms that exceed the bumperzone (IE most arms) must be built for vigorous action.

3> Ramming and pushing are allowed within reason. Highspeed ramming is not allowed. I saw many 10-point penalties assessed for high speed ramming at BAE GSR. The refs are definately not 'ignoring' this rule. To show the forces involved, we never high-speed rammed anyone while at BAE but we did break our 'FIRST approved' front bumper ..... twice.

4> Many arms survived the rigors of a regional with little damage. When I walked the pits at BAE GSR one of the things I looked for was the robustness and flexability of the arms that were being used, because I knew they would be seeing forces that they were not designed for. For the most part, I was able to pick out the arms that would not survive the weekend.

5> Intentionally breaking another robots arm is grounds for disqualification. Rigorous defense that unintentionally breaks a robots arm is within the rules.

As always, the above is JMHO.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I was upset when the refs gave (i think it was 1720) a team a yellow card for tipping us over (accidentally), and further into the elimination rounds, they didn't give another team a yellow card for tipping us over (purposely). About 75-85% of our robot's weight is 18 inches or below, and has an extremely low center of gravity (although its all near the back, so hitting us from the front will tip us easier).

I think i've got both on video, I'll have to post both of them up. The first tip was accidental, and the team immediately apologized after the match (also the video reveals that we stopped, went forward, and so when they hit us, it didn't take much for us to go over). The second time, we were tipped in the air, and stayed that way for a good 15-20 seconds, all the while the team kept hitting us, trying to knock us over. The refs considered us in a position to score, even though none of our wheels were on the ground, and couldn't move anywhere. All in all, a big disappointment in the ref's inconsistencies.

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Ringers intentionally put on opposing robots should not earn penalties for those robots. Ill go find the rule in a sec.

EDIT:

Emphasis mine. However, there is no rule against throwing ringers at an opponents gripper in an attempt to knock the tube out of it. I've seen that work.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Because contact outside the bumper zone is legal, teams should have built their arms to withstand contact. Because team 1727 was worried about our claw being bent we mounted it on a doubled door hinge so that if it was rammed it would give and then spring back into action.

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Same here, but if you beat anything with a sledge hammer enough times, it will break.

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I understand what you mean, and although some may find it intentional, other may find it as they were trying to there arm out of the way, or trying to get it clear of the rack, or just trying to move it into a better spot for future pick ups.

I do understand it is upsetting, but look at the possiblities of raising an arm, the team could of been doing a number of things besides attacking your arm, so the refs have to take that into account, or people will complain about that side of it as well

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Ref calls between LA Regional and Silicon Valley Regional emphasized different parts of the game. The LA refs were very particular about robot aggressiveness but SVR refs, though they warned against it, didn't make too many calls when robots were pinned or rammed.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Once again, let's not make this thread a succession of complaints about such and such referee.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I found that the game went in an interesting direction. My team competed at the BAE GSR and we expected ramps to be an important part, but not a crucial part like they turned out to be. We were unable to ramp, but managed to make it to the semi-finals by scoring quickly and efficiently. It seems that a combination of two fast scoring robots, and one good defensive ramp bot is the key to winning.

Speaking of defense, and having read the feedback about refs, i suppose i'll throw in my opinion. I think the refs have a hard job, which when broken down, really comes down to reading minds and intentions. Despite all our best intentions, some teams may take advantage of this grey area and purposely cause damage or be a little too rough, but overall, remember almost everyone has good intentions, and in the heat of the competiton, things get rough. It happens. Robots break. Getting angry at the ref's calls, or other teams WILL NOT fix your robot. You need to learn to roll with the punches, fix your robot, exercise gracious professionalism and move on. If your defense damages another teams robot, offer to give them a hand fixing it if needed. Instead of arguing about what should have been, learn from the breaks, and celebrate the gracious professionalism being displayed by the other 99% of teams. Word.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I believe that this game is becoming very defensive. Anybody can build a 120 lb chassis with 8 motors on it and just beat everyone and win, and alot of teams have done this because they think it is to hard to score on the rack. There was one point in Detroit when we were pinned against the rack by our opponents on friday and we were not moving and they just continued to push and broke our cross pieces. The refs did not call anything and. I believe that 3 defensive robots with no tube scoring abilities and 1 ramp will win this game more than any alliance that can score the tubes. This is just my opinion.:)

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

This rule would have created a stir at the LA Regional - about half of the teams had not completed inspection when the pits closed at 8pm on Thursday! Robot inspectors really scrambled to get teams in the first three matches inspected before opening ceremonies.

Of course, if teams knew that they wouldn't be allowed to compete if not inspected by end-of-day Thursday, they'd find a way to be ready for inspection earlier..

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

very well said! Couldn't of put it better myself

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

With all due respect Bharat...the refs in fact did call ramming, multiple times. Heck...they even called it on your team once, in your last round when you guys decided to go kamakazie on team 230.

You are not as familiar with the regionals up here, but that is in general how it gets. When I come on here boasting about New England defense, im not just blowing a bunch of smoke. Its always been a little more brutal at the regionals up here, and to be honest...thats how all the teams like it. And ya know...at championships, many times the New England teams pay for it, because they will get called for it more often. So now it becomes a matter of personal preference. Some regionals are more sensitive than others when it comes to various rules. If you guys were unhappy with how ramming was called at the CT Regional, well then I wouldn't recommend you come back, because unless FIRST cracks down big time, it'll continue to be that way.

You guys should be proud, you did a great job this weekend. Just take it in stride and move on.

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I'm going to say the same precursor as Francois; my analysis here is based off of only the Detroit regional. Also, without seeing any of the videos from above (my view from behind the player station is somewhat tunnelled), I may be making some incorrect calls here. However, this is what I, as the driver of a primarily offensive robot, emotionally feel about the game now.

I think the ramps have destroyed the point of the Rack n' Roll game. They have become not a bonus, but a requirement for elimination matches. I think that the GDC was expecting more rack scoring to be done and fewer matches like in the brutally defensive Detroit finals, which is why the ramps are worth so many points. Think about Aim High last year; the maximum bonus you could get (excluding auton) was 25 points, and that was if all 3 robots could make it up a 30 degree incline with barely enough room. Now, you have more than double that (pointwise) for two robots to get up a nice shallow ramp with plenty of room (look at the ramps on 469 and 27 for what I mean).

However, I'm going to have to disagree with ya, frenchie. I now have a personal stigma about the whole offensive vs defensive issue, and anyone who was at Detroit knows why. Defense is absolutely key in this game. In one qualifying match, 703 pushed us literally in a circle around the rack, and in the elims obviously 247/903 were dominating (more about that in a second). Defense doesn't just mean stopping ringers anymore; it now also means stopping the opposing defense from getting to your scorers so that they can be given the chance to do what they do best.

Segway-ing from that last line, there is NO scoring robot that can make it through a double team from the other alliance's two defensive bots. This was proven wholly at Detroit. The double team of 247/903 was able to easily shut down 217, and were together able to give 469/302 a ridiculously hard time. I like to think of us three as being fairly good scorers. If it was my own alliance, I would still prefer 2 offensive + 1 defensive ramp as always, but 2 amazing defensive can really frustrate the other alliance (especially if that other one only has one scorer).

Finally (and this goes along somewhat with the defensive notes), driver skill is an enormous asset to have in this game. For defending teams, being able to hold your ground against a squirrelly offensive bot can be tough at times. For a scoring team, being able to drive around a team like 247 or 703 is key. You have to try and make best of whatever is happening; things like picking up a tube while being pushed, or placing the tube on whatever ringer you're pushed into (regardless of what your original plan was).

Disclaimer: My head is kind of scrambled with a lot of thoughts about the insane weekend, so there may be half-finished statements here and there, but I stand firm (for now at least) about everything said here.

Edit: wow, you guys reply fast :rolleyes: a lot of the stuff in here was said above while I was typing this, I guess

Is that the match where the pushing was moving the entire rack? That was unbelievable to watch, and I was stunned when there were no penalties called. I grabbed a quick picture of it on my camera, I don't think I've ever seen the rack (or a robot) being mangled so much.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

As I saw in the UTC Regional and a little bit in the NYC Regional, ramping did mean a lot, especially in the end. If an alliance just played pure defensive and ramped both robots at the end while the other tried to score within the last few seconds [without being blocked] nor ramped, the team that ramped won. If it was even a close match, getting one robot for 15 bonus points helped lead to a win. Ramping just seems to become more and more important as the weeks are going on; best alliance [i think] will have 2 great scoring robots and a ramp robot that can play defensive and the 2 scorers can get on the ramo robot [just my 2 cents]

I also noticed that the rack didn't seem to be moved [many times] prior to starting the match. Now this could have been due to the fact not many teams were using autonomous mode, but who knows. And when autonomous was being used [by the few robots] they did pretty well. Things just seem to be getting much better and get higher scores as the weeks are going on =)

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I agree with this. From what I saw from several week 3 regionals was that teams began deviating from the rack and started playing more and more defense. In theory, an offensive bot can out-push any defensive bot in their way. In reality, due to the threshold on pushing power, defensive bots can effectively stop offensive bots from putting up any points at all. On top of this, the offensive bots are receiving no help from the refs while the defensive bots pound away at their base/manipulator. I understand this game requires a lot of contact, but machines can only take a certain level of abuse. I think this can be fixed if the refs pay more attention to this[defense penalties] aspect of the game. (I'm not bashing the refs in any way; I'm friends with several of them and I know it's a hard job watching several different things at the same time- this is just a suggestion for the future.)

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Oh, my mistake, I didn't realize that. The one time I saw a ringer get thrown onto a robot, that robot then did not pick another one up....but now that I think about it, the match was almost over and they were going to their alliance's ramp.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I think it may have been because we were getting pushed pretty good and I finally just said heck with it and let go of the controls and our ramps got deployed and they continued this for about 10 sec non stop and no penalty was called. There was also a time on friday where we were triple teamed. Oh well this is the game and we have to play it.:)

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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.

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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.

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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.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

With all this D being played, the first 15 seconds is even more important. If you can get 1-2 keepers on the rack it allows you to get those rings extended that much faster. auto-period will make or break close matches.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

With all of the defense played at detroit, auto mode helped out. It gave the alliance 1 more keeper to add to the final score. Although this year there isnt a whole lot of a point to making auto mode (it only awards you 2 points, unlike other years when you would get a bonus for winning auto). In the end it gave those alliances an advantage over the other alliance.

Yes the first 15 seconds are the most important, in our allaince (469,302,1502) we could put up about 3 in the first 15 seconds untill the defense was coming at you.

The only default i see in this game is the points awarded for ramps. Like one of our team members said "everyone is going to make a ramp because their easy points so its not worth adding on our robot". The ramp bonus is making this game more defensive, because teams can go and push and pin the scoring teams until the last 30 seconds then get on a ramp and win. We have all seen this happen time after time.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

What about pushing the pushers? Some of the best rushing offenses in the NFL have great fullbacks lead blocking for them.....

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

There are 3 types of defense this year. The first is defending the rack from the opposing alliances best scorers. The second is defending your best scorers against the opposing alliances defense. And the third is blocking the ramp bot from getting back to the home zone.

Strategy, Alliance compatability, and teamwork are essential this year.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

A lesson learned for Atlanta.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

So far in this thread, I hear alot of whining, and not enough chatter about how to improve, how to make this game better.

I think this game is getting better as it progresses, still not the best FIRST has mad...by far. But its becoming a little better to watch. I actually saw a QF match this weekend that had half the rack full. I was astonished.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

...speaking of which:
It seemed to me that /EDIT/ QUARTER final play was more fun to watch than final play.
The matches weren't blown out either. As you said Corey, there were many tubes on the rack from both alliances.

interesting...

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Are you talking about any regional inparticular or just overall?

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Teams are missing (understimating) the value of automomous. The true value of the keeper is NOT 2 points. Look at the match a different way (backwards rather than forwards). Evaluate the keeper's worth by looking at tube positions at the END of the match. The keeper is an incremental tube scored in a row. Without it, an alliance would have one fewer tubes creating the exponential score. Example: At the conclusion of a match an alliance with a row of 6 including a keeper would score 64. Without the keeper, 32. The keeper value is actually 2^n - (2^(n-1)), where "n" is the series number of tubes in the keeper's row.

With more and more defense being played, and with more strategic placement of tubes and spoilers, the incremental exponential value of a keeper will be much more important than its 2 point illusion.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

One thing we realized at SVR this year is that it is not possible to win a match if there is only one scoring robot on your alliance and the other alliance has a ramp bot. That was the case with us a lot. After we racked up 290 points in the first match of the regional with team 100, they just double or sometimes triple teamed us so we couldnt score then got 60 points for ramps. Our alliance did great trying to keep the opposing alliance away from us but 3 robots coming at us is to much to defend against. one thing I did notice about rough defense was in the first round of quarter finals we attempted to score and 190 pushed us into the rack and ended up spinning the rack about 90 degrees. I was heated and insisted it was a pinning penalty because I couldn't move but I went to the head ref and asked him to clarify. He said that as long as we have a keeper in our possession the other alliance could pin us against the rack as long as they wanted. I thought it was a wrong call but I didnt argue and ended up having to drop many ringers in the match to follow im order to get 190 to stop pinning us... We lost, but props to 190, that was the most intense defense I have ever experienced in 3 years of driving.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

This is correct, as per <G39>. Our alliance received a pinning penalty during the elimination rounds that was announced in such a way as to make it seem like it was illegal to pin a robot that was not carrying a game piece against the rack. I had a long conversation with the head ref. to ensure that both he and I were understanding the rule correctly and, after that, was satisfied that he was calling <G39> correctly.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

thanks for the compliment. It might pain you to know that our driver was actually holding back on the defense to avoid penalties. Back on the east coast, it can get MUCH more intense. Just come to New Jersey or Connecticut sometime to see what I mean.

I don't, however, agree with the ref's explanation. Rule <G39> is a little ambiguous as to WHO exactly is immune, but the way I read it was "you may pin another robot between you and the rack if you are attempting to hang a ringer" as opposed to "you may be pinned if you are attempting to hang a ringer", as the refs called it. Maybe this should be clarified on the Q&A about exactly which robot is immune...

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Specifcly UTC, congrats btw. I saw most of that regional via webcast but I think the same is true for midwest; I am not sure how far in to elims I started watching matches there though. I am waiting for archived webcast of some more regionals before I make a couple of week 4 Boston predictions based on many things, including what happened at UTC primarily because of their relative location.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Don't get it twisted, we expected heavy defense, who didnt. We also expected the same protection from the rules, just as any other team. Not saying the refs were wrong, it jus felt as though everyone wanted us to push back...and when we did, we were the only ones who were doin <G35> and/or <G39> and i will speak for myself, when i didnt know using a different strategy means being shut out.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

When he says "Shut out" I believe he was saying it in the sense of the alliance having a final score of 0.

Seen

Here: http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv...p?matchid=1342

and

Here: http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv...p?matchid=1344


Edit: I would also like to know what matches your team keeps bringing up where things were "not called".

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by burkechrs1
He said that as long as we have a keeper in our possession the other alliance could pin us against the rack as long as they wanted. I thought it was a wrong call but I didnt argue and ended up having to drop many ringers in the match to follow im order to get 190 to stop pinning us...



I'm not quite sure I understand everyone's position as stated above. Madison, could you please clarify what part of burkechrs1's statement you believe is "correct"? As much as I'd love for the defense to be able to pin ringer-possessing offensive bots to the rack all day without penalty, I believe the opposite is actually the rule:






DAVE COULD YOU PLEASE CLEAR THE INTENT OF <G39> UP FOR EVERYONE?

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

To think that the refs at UTC called things differently when 25 was on the field then when they weren't is just being a poor sport. There is no massive conspiracy to prevent 25 from winning. From the description in this thread, nobody violated <G35> OR <G39>. Incidental contact outside the bumper zones (such as arms contacting each other while one team play defense). It is especially permitted here:
If the other team had used it's arm to grapple or latch onto your game piece, it would have violated the rules. If the other teams used it's arm to purposely damage yours, it would have violated the rules. If the other team used it's arm to tip yours, it would have violated the rules. If the other teams used their arm (and arm alone, not movement from the base resulting in contact with the arms) to hit your robot, it may or may not be against the rules. Otherwise most arm-to-arm contact will be permitted, especially by refs at a regional like UTC.
As for <G39>, the wording is ambiguous as to who receives protection from the pinning rule while scoring, the scoring team, or the defensive team, but it appears that refs are ruling that the team playing defense can pin as long as they wish legally. No rules violation there either.
From what I have heard in this thread, no rules were violated. When I watch the video, I may or may not change my mind.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Woah! How is the rule ambiguous? It is clear that the rule is intended to allow an OFFENSIVE robot trying to score a ringer to pin a DEFENSIVE robot against the rack while trying to score. So you are saying that a ringer robot trying to score can be pinned against the rack for an indefinite period of time? If this is true, then I am zip tying my arm down and pinning every single offensive robot against the rack at Champs.

C'mon guys, the rule is clear:
It says the ROBOT attempting the HANG is immune to the violation, not the ROBOT defending the hang is immune. Whoever interpreted it any other way is just plain wrong.

I am entering a Q&A tonight.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I agree with you Paul...I thought it was pretty clear.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

so if team A is trying to hang a ringer and team B pins them against the rack for more than 10 seconds then there is no penalty or are u saying if team b is pinned against the rack as long as team A is trying to score there is no penalty?

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

The second of the two. If a robot gets in between you and the rack while you're trying to score, then if you pin them while attempting to score for over ten seconds, you are not penalized (my interpretation).

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

You're right -- I'm just a bit braindead today.

It's about learning
 

We (2104) were fortunate to be picked by the 25, 176 alliance at UTC, knowing we had a crippled drive train, and are grateful for that. Up until the finals, the strategy of 25 & 176 scoring then ramping on us worked well. During the 1st final round, 25 was double-teamed and had difficulty scoring - a great strategy by the winning alliance. I wish we (2104) had done a better job making our drive-train work so we could have done some body-guarding, as our alliance was essentially playing 2v3. Even without any help from us, 25 did a brilliant last 10-second spoiler then missed ramping by 1/2 a second. During the 2nd final round, they changed strategy to just hold down the opponents score, then ramp for the win. During the 3rd final round they used the same strategy and our alliance was unlucky in the ramping. I didn't see anything unfair or overly aggressive in the matches. What did we learn? I love FIRST and we'll do a better/smarter job next year!

Re: It's about learning
 

I am completey suprised with so few Auto-modes. The auto-mode is SOOO important this year. Probably only 1 step lower in importance from Aim High. Seriously, having keepers on the rack before robots can play the defense game is like going twice to begin a game of Tic-Tac-Toe.

And it's not like it's a difficult auto-mode either. Tripple Play was difficult, Aim High was easy, Rn'R is between. I am suprised that no robots take a ringer by the side and run toward the spider legs to hook the keeper on the side.

I think the high defense is a result of the low auto-modes.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Paul:

Dave confirmed your and my assessment of G39 via PM. G39 is written to protect OFFENSIVE robots trying to score ringers. Case closed.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Sean, I believe my teammate did not put things the right way. A rule book is only effective if things are always done by the book, and always the same. That said, it is not fair that at some regionals penalties are called on the field, and at others--the issue is dealt with 'off the field'. The rules have a purpose, and that is fair game play. Matters can be discussed with teams off the field all the time, but a penalty still sends the message more clearly.

The referees at UTC were very understanding by all means--they took the time to listen to our side and made tough judgment calls that not everyone was happy with. But that's what FIRST and GP is about.

We learned a lesson for next time, and we will be ready for Atlanta in the coming weeks.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Paul,

I had the same view you did, but myself and many others were surprised to learn at the SVR this weekend that it was indeed considered "legal" by the refs to pin a scoring robot against the rack the entire match. The only option for the offensive robot being pinned was to drop the ringer - otherwise the defensive bot can pin them against the rack as long as they want. This rule defined the SVR and pretty much took the scoring teams like 100, 668, 254 and others out of the matches....as 668 pointed out, the simple strategy against any alliance with one really strong scoring robot was to double or triple team them and pin them as long as they could - as long as the pinning alliance had a ramp bot, they basically couldn't lose.

Hopefully the Q & A will clarify it for everyone one way or another, but the refs at SVR seemed fairly confident that they were instructed to call it as they did. If they misunderstood the rule or their instructions, then they called it incorrectly throughout the event, which would be very unfortunate. If they enforced it correctly, then whether people think it's right or wrong, or whether we disagree or agree with that type of defensive strategy really doesn't matter. If, as the refs explained it to the teams this weekend, it is in the rules and that's how they've been told to call it - then the ramp/defense bots are just doing what is a winning strategy given the rules and how refs are told to interpret them. If that is the case, then yes, get out the zip ties. ;)

Re: It's about learning
 

Not so much. This year there is no auto bonus. There also is no real strategic value to it beside the opportunity to start a row and get a clear head start. It would be one thing if 3 robots could all land ringers at once, but i scarcely see too many teams successfully placing keepers.
Last year on the other hand, there was a clear advantage. First, you get points, second, there is a bonus, third there was the advantage of playing defense first, which i know at least 25 used to thier advantage when playing. I even think that they lost the final in nationals due to the fact that they were beaten in autonomous in one of the final matches. ( correct me if im wrong)

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Having an auto is huge. It basically doubles your points. If your team can score 6 in normal play having that auto was really worth 64 points.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Actually on Einstein last year I believe 25 came up with the strategy of losing auto mode on purpose in order to save the 10 balls for tele mode since they were more accurate during user mode. This allowed them to score the full 30 points instead of missing half of them in auto mode.


EDIT:
Eric already posted this :
As for auto this year, you have to see beyond the box. It may seem like 2 points but its not. A keeper in automode is doubling any ringer points you may get in user mode. 15 seconds for the possibility of DOUBLING your score? That is HUGE!

Re: It's about learning
 

Our team discovered a fairly specific but still notable advantage to scoring a keeper: the sixth tube in a row is quite critical when you're the only scoring bot on an alliance going up against an alliance hoping to score 60 bonus points. We could fairly consistently score five by ourselves, but had trouble getting that elusive sixth one that would have given us the win in quite a few matches. If our autonomous mode had been working before Saturday morning, we might have had different outcomes in quite a few matches.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Credits for that strategy actually go to the guys over at 254. I don't know who it was but they helped us think on the fly.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

At SoCal last year, 968's autonomous mode simply scored 10 in the low goal, and they turned that off in order to lose auton and score the 30 as well, worked quite well and helped win the regional.

~Michael

Re: It's about learning
 

The fact that teams aren't placing keepers is what I can't believe.

Here is the Rack:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Here is the rack if Red alliance hits 2 keepers apart from each other:
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 R 0 0 0 0 0
R 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Here is the Rack if than two robots on each alliance score two ringers each after the first 30 seconds of play:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 R R 0 0 0 0 0
R R R R B B B B - Red 28 / Blue 16

12 point difference is just like the 10 extra bonus points you got from winning autonomous mode in Aim High.


Now these are perfect conditions, and it is actually possible for red to get their tube where one of the blue rings are, therefore making the stretch even larger between the teams, 20 points to be exact.

5 tubes is as much as lifting one robot 12 inches. If you start off with even just one of those tubes on the rack, thats just as powerful as laying down the ramp and going up about 15 seconds early than normal.


Auto-mode may not seem like it...but it is a powerful weapon, and I am so surprised on how many teams don't take advantage of it.

Re: It's about learning
 

You know-- I never thought autonomous wasn't important. I'm not sure many others did, either. I saw the benefit in scoring 2-3 keepers by the end of autonomous, what I didn't see was the positive likelihood of many teams being able to score those keepers in autonomous. It was more, "I don't think teams will be scoring very often in autonomous, making it pretty boring and useless" than "scoring in autonomous will be pretty worthless."

Heh, I do think that scoring only one keeper in autonomous doesn't present much of an advantage, and I think that if 2-3 are scored, then they have to be on the same row, to really maximize their impact.

Re: It's about learning
 

My look on auto is that the 2 points from a keeper may not seem like much, but if you use that keeper to start a row and place your tubes strategically. Such as making that keeper your center tube in the row, then the keeper will stop the opposing alliance from placing a spoiler to disrupt your row in the middle, thus scoring you more points. Not to mention that if you can get 5 tubes on per match, and the keeper makes a 6th then you outscore the 2@12" ramp bonus.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Not to mention the fact that they were giving the auto counters a headache--15 pts on 10 in the low goal? I thought that that's why thye changed it. Either way, it worked really well.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I don't think you saw much of the Detroit Regional. The defense was absolutely the most vicious I've seen so far (watched the others on-line). Our robot (1718) had done quite well up to the elimination rounds. We hadn't had to replace many parts or do a ton of "fixit" work on the robot.

That all changed. We generally had at least 1 robot if not 2 playing D on us. On several different occasions we ended up with robots on top of us because they would accelerate toward us, pop a wheelie, then come down on top of us. We were lucky that we had decent guarding, but it still smashed one of our air solenoids.

On numerous other occasions we had our gripper mangled. We were pushed into the wall by a robot from behind repeatedly (same robot). Our air cylinder that actuated the gripper had the tangs bent closed so we had trouble getting it on and off. Our lower gripper fingers were bent upwards. A deep dent was put into mast when someone poppped a wheelie and nailed us from behind.

I can't count the number of times we got slammed into the rack while scoring, got caught up in the rack because we were pushed, or engaged in fencing matches with other bots arms.

That's why we added a second motor to the arm, lexan guarding on everything, and a gearbox on the wrist. I expected it to be brutal. It one was great competition, and I can't fault anyone there for playing hard and doing a great job.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

The finals of the Detroit regional were VICIOUSLY defensive. Double teams were all too common (as stated above), and the single matchups (247 on 469, for example) were just absolute power struggles.

However, I think it may have been somewhat of a preview of some of the Atlanta matches. There will be a lot of good scorers, but there will also be a LOT of good defensive bots to counter those scorers.

I just don't know. It's going to be an extremely interesting championship to watch, with the strongest robots from the regionals coming together to form wicked scoring alliances or ridiculous defensive alliances (or perfect alliances, with a mix of both).

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I agree that what you are starting to see in the regional elimination rounds is what you will see at Atlanta (and I'ts going to be really fun to watch, and participate).


@ Tom Line

I didn't have to see the Detroit regionals to see how rough things can get. Here in the NorthEast strong defense is the norm. I fully expect defenses (and offenses) to get even stronger as the regionals (and championships) go on.

and it'll be glorious.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I question the word "vicious". Rough games, yes. Defensive, often 2-on-1, yes. But vicious? Doesn't that imply cruel, nasty, ferocious, sadistic? I think teams were out to win within the confines of the game, not out to murder their opponents.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I saw 47 pushed so hard for so long that the rack actually moved several feet. I saw 469's arm literally in pieces at the end of the day.

Cruel and sadistic, probably not. Ferocious and overly-powerful, maybe.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

Agreed, I would not call any of that defense "vicious", but ferocious is definitely right on the spot. By the end of the day, our robot had taken some serious beating, and needed, among others, a new arm, new side panels for part of the ramp and some new structural members on the telescope.
I would not say our alliance lost because our opponent was using the rules unfairly or ramming us, but rather because we:
1) did not score fast enough: even with double teaming, we still managed to score. With more driver training/a better arm/god knows what, we might have been able to score enough to counter ramp points
2) did not coordinate well enough with our alliance with the final ramp points. During the Finals - match 2, 302 and 1502 got in the way of each other while trying to climb the ramp. Taking a second to think about it might have let us all depart with a gold.

I created this thread with the intent to discuss how the game was evolving strategy-wise and reflect on the best way to play that game. What I would like to see is people highlight their own mistakes and take a second to decide on a way to avoid such mistakes to be made again. As a team, 469 doesn't blame 247 for being "ferocious" but we rather try to see what WE could have done to win that match. The rules are how they are, referees are imperfect (guess what, they are human beings like you and I). To win this game, a team must take those shortcomings into account and make a robot/follow a strategy, that can win WITHIN those conditions. It might be very blunt to say it that way, but if a team is not able to win against a defense that would be qualified as "barely legal", then it is not meant to win. For now, 469 falls within this category.247, 124 and 903 deserved their win for a very intelligent approach to a match they knew they would not be able to win with the rack only.

Francois. Sorry for the big block of text, i might come to edit later. Right now I just had time to throw a couple of ideas together.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

True, but i remember their strategy was originally to win auto by hitting 6-8 balls on average. Then on the defensive they would reload a great deal of balls(more than ten) and then hit just about all of them in the offensive period. This was definately a strong strategy, but losing autonomous really messed things up because then they were force to play defense and could not make a great strike with a lot of balls untill the free-for-all.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

This is true, but my original point was that it seems much less significant compared to last year. It can do some good, but i think there should be a greater reward for doing it especially since it is nearly impossible to hit anything without using the camera. I think I have seen one or two teams luck out and hang a keeper in auto without the camera. It was messy but it actually worked...once.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

This all comes together very nice.... Yes, there was a lot of crazy defense being played and yes, i believe there were many times that penalties should have been called and they wernt, but thats not up to us.

On a second note: Driver communication was definitaly at a minimum on those last few matches, I truly believe we had the best alliance at detroit. However there is nothing more we can do now. We will learn from our mistakes and bring them to West Michigan :D.

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

There are some interesting comparisons to be made between this year's game and last year's.

In my mind, this year it was much MORE important to be on an alliance with other capable robots. Just like the scoring was exponential, so was the benefit from having capable partners.

Last year, if you had a robot that was able to score in autonomous, you could get a reasonable score even if you were missing one (or even two) teams in you alliance.

In autonomous, first you got the points that you scored (up to 30), then you got a bonus (10) and then you got to play defense which meant you had time to pick up more balls.

During the offensive period, the opposition could only use two robots to block you, and finally, you could score more bonus points if you were able to get up the ramp by yourself. (More robots were great, but they weren't "required"). A single good robot could end up with a respectable score.

This year, if you could score in autonomous you got 2 points, then all the opposing robots could play defense on you (which eliminated the real bonus of scoring the keeper) and then without a capable partner there is NO WAY to score a bonus. A single good robot didn't have much of a chance.

So, the randomness of the seed matches is a BIG deciding factor on how well you rank. eg: We ranked 35, but were the second robot to be picked during alliance selection. Thank goodness for scouting :)

Personally, I liked the way that last year's game enabled a technically proficient robot to lift an average alliance's score (inspiring and encoraging). This year is seems that a poor alliance canceled the impact of a proficeint robot (dissapointing and frustrating).

As a mentor, I appreciate the competition as a great way to demonstrate the engineering challenge, regardless of the final score.... but I have 25 years of real world experience behind me. It's easier for me to say "oh well, that's how it goes" afterwards :)

As a programmer, next year I'd like to see more importance given back to autonomous mode (as a stand alone event). This would encourage the rest of the team to start thinking about it right from the start, rather than as an after-thought. I'd like the Smart-bots to be able to beat out the Brute-bots ;)

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I'm in Austria on business this week so while my team is busy at work with practice and getting ready for the fix it window on Sunday, I thought I would share some of my thoughts about the year so far. Like them or not:

1. I think the see-sawing of FIRST and GDC support on CD is quite amusing. One update comes out and everyone hates FIRST and the GDC. The next update comes out and everyone can't praise them fast enough...the next update...they suck again... While I agree that some rules don't make sense to me and costs my team time and money, it is what it is...a game to inspire...

2. I think the game will really be played as it was designed to at WMR next weekend. With a high number of high caliber teams, I think we are going to see some incredible alliances and scoring... I would love to see a 256 to 286 or something round...

3. I think throwing ringers onto a spider leg is not in the spirit of the game and the only reason it is allowed is to allow it to count if it actually happens. It's sad that I've seen many rounds where people are more excited about the tubes flying through the air than the robots that are placing them there.

4. I think defense is still a very good strategy for the game, but having three strong scoring robots with one of them have reliable 60 point bonus capability will win it all... And the teams with that capability will be able to use it in Atlanta where the divisions are deep with scorers, and even deeper with robots that can just play defense. If that's all you can do, you better be the best at it.

5. I understand the desire for the "method" of qualification round alliances, but it doesn't work, especially at small regionals.

6. The game is more exciting than I thought it would be.

Thats about it for now...

Re: Week 3 Impressions of Rack n' Roll
 

I have a unique perpective on the 'impressions' because I had to work concessions with the university swim team at the Waterloo regional in both 2006 and 2007. I'm the only person on the swim team actively involved in FIRST. Every single person I worked with who had done concessions last year agreed that Aim High was by far the better uninformed spectator's game. They said it was more exciting, easier to follow, and faster-paced.

They all agreed that Rack n Roll was pretty boring to watch, because so few ringers actually ended up anywhere near the rack on a regular basis (yes, there are a few matches with high scores, but they are far from common). I think part of the boredom stemmed from R&R's tendency to devolve into pushing matches around the effective scoring robots near the rack.

In Aim High, a robot without a shooter still had to do an offense period, pushing balls around into the low goals or trying to impair an opponent's reloading. This required skillful driving back and forth across the field. There was action as robots flew from one end of the field to the other on the period changes. Because of the way the period/backbot system was set up, for 2/3s of the match there was at least one robot free to shoot or set up to shoot. Even a robot who missed was fun to watch as they showered the crowd with balls.

My own thoughts: I think the game is skewed a bit too much towards the defenders. It is too easy to disrupt an offensive robot. Some might say "but, in Aim High you had to accurately aim a shooter!". I respond that even the smallest jitter to the robot base multiplies itself at the end of a robot's arm, making it difficult to score. Simply driving near the rack can shake the legs, making it even more difficult to score. In Aim High playing as a purely defensive robot, 1281 encountered many robots with drivetrains built solidly enough or camera guidance programmed well enough to be nearly immune to everything but a full-speed ram (which is obviously illegal for good reason). In R&R, you just have to drive into the rack and knock the opponent around to get their arm swinging wildly. This results in a slower-paced game, and a tendency for a regional to get slower and slower as teams damage arms or realize that they can prevent far more points from being scored by defending than they can score themselves.

Other:
-Autonomous is really only as good as your alliance is. If you can't put up any more points or are defended from doing so, then those 2 points are useless (and can get negated by a skilled human player).
-I like that human players can score. Since it is such a difficult shot to make, it is pretty thrilling when someone makes contact and changes a match. It'll be interesting to see if some teams start training their human player so that this starts happening more often
-I don't like the "only 1 ringer at a time" rule. I think it'd be more of an engineering challenge and higher-scoring if you allowed teams to handle as many ringers simultaneously at once as they wanted. I imagine this rule was adopted because they didn't want robots internalizing ringer handling pez-style and popping them all, since they are less durable than balls
-I like the logo for this game better than Aim High's logo
-Autonomous might be worth doubling your points, BUT that's a bit disingenuous: the front three spider legs are much easier to score on in teleoperated mode than the side and back ones that you must stretch to in order to make your autonomous _really_ worth it. If you can score 4 in 90 seconds and run out of time getting a back ringer, then autonomous has really done nothing for you, since the 10 seconds it saved you is time that you had anyway.
Note: I wrote this without reading the thread (or any of the other impressions threads) so I could give my unfiltered opinion.

Biases:
-I was more involved last year, so it was probably inherently more exciting simply because I knew the challenges we faced better.
-I have 2 regionals and the championship to draw on Aim High impressions, while only 1 small regional of R&R impressions
-Humans forget bad things faster than they forget good things, so the rose colored glasses effect is probably biasing me as well.

Improvements I can think of, if the game were to be designed again:
-Find a more durable game piece and remove the "only one ringer at a time" rule. I think some interesting multi-ringer robots might come out of that
-Greatly dampen the swinginess of the rack: it makes it too easy to disrupt scoring, snags robots, and generally slows the game down
-Reduce the required heights and the points given for ramping by a small amount. This would make it more common, but also reduce the incentive for teams to sacrifice maneuvarability and scoring ability with enormous ramps. So we'd hopefully see more scoring AND more ramping.
-Put lights over every spider leg. This would encourage use of the camera to guide your robot on the other side, if you knew that there was ALWAYS going to be a light to guide you.
-Allow teams to score over top of other ringers. I think this would make for a more score-intensive game