[MaxMax161]

WOW, my posts are getting loooong.

Originally Posted by Norman J

I've watched a match in which 469's human player landed all three shapes in the scoring zone with an over-the-back throw with at least 60% success. It's possible for a great HP to feed one effective scoring robot if they're quick.

Really? That's impressive, but I still don't like the idea of only 60% success rate. That's relying a lot on luck and could give your opponent tubes in a pinch putting the nail in your coffin.

Originally Posted by pandamonium

When 3 robots try to pick up tubes from the same general are the same thing happens. What this strategy does is it spreads out your alliance making your team more efficient.

I totally agree that spreading out the robots on an alliance is very important and establishing a game flow and tempo is crucial however I think that this strategy works for more reasons then just that.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

But tube starvation can and will be effective in the right scenarios, but by no means is it an end-all, be-all strategy. Teams that are going to rely on it as their primary strategy without an idea of how to counter their opponents are going to be in for a rude awakening once they reach the eliminations.

What are some of the other strategies you had in mind? I can think of the play the game, hang tons of tubes strategy (with and without a defender) but is there another?

Originally Posted by AndrewMcRadical

Our team played tube scarcity through almost all of Cleveland, worked well especially against productive offensive robots.
...
it is best to make a call within the first ten or fifteen seconds of a match, but choosing white in the proper circumstance can save twelve points a game when done properly.

I agree, this is definitely a strategy to use against an alliance that can put more tubes up then you can, and a strategy to be prepared to work against if you have a good alliance and your opponent knows it.

I agree with that as well, tube starvation needs to be coordinated between all the alliance members and they need to know which tubes to get ASAP. It's also important that the HPs know this so they don't throw out the chosen starvation tube.

Originally Posted by GGCO

I think you'll see one robot just dominate the field by collecting tubes and harassing their opponents as they pick them up.

If this robot is good enough, I think we'll end up seeing two of it's opponents sent over to stop it.

Now I'm thinking about it, if the defense is good enough on both teams, the 3rd robot on each alliance might just end up harassing and playing defense on each other.

I definitively see a defender as part of a strategy however I don't think that any alliance would devote two robots to stopping one. If a defender can tie up two robots then the defender is accomplishing what they want and the other bots aren't scoring.

Originally Posted by thefro526

The Skill Level of some of the Human Players at this point in the season can essentially make a tube starvation strategy useless.

You really think so? I see where you're coming from but I still think that control on the game pieces on the field via tube starvation stealing is still going to aggravate someone on the other alliance.

Originally Posted by kornjones

I know that our team used tube starving very successfully at the VA regional with 1676 and 25. Now this was for multiple reasons and these reasons will definitely not work for every alliance, it just happened to for our alliance. Our bot can only pick up from the feeder station (hindsight is 20/20) but 1676 and 25 could both pick up and score successfully from the floor, so instead of us all trying to pick up and score tubes on the same pegs at the same time (I believe someone said this was analogous to 1st graders playing soccer which is spot on), we went and picked up squares from the feeder station, 25 scored circles and triangles and if i remember right, 1676 stole whatever pieces didn't make it from the other alliance's feeder to their zone.

Not to argue with our wonderful alliance partner but I would call what we did in VA more tube stealing and less tube starvation. We never picked a shape to not throw out or the try specifically hard to steal so it wasn't really a starving strategy. That said we did focus a lot on tube stealing and control of the game pieces.

Originally Posted by Bryany

So what kind of strategy is useful to counter a tube starvation?

Alternately, what happens when both alliances both try to starve the same shape?

Originally Posted by Blackphantom91

Feeder slot and If you know ahead of time let your human players know to not throw the tubes because of the starvation 1114 and 2056 did a successful counter of this in waterloo I believe and it was quite effective.

I agree, feeder slot is a guaranteed whatever tube you want. The HPs have to be very aware if you're getting starved so they can get the right tubes out to you ASAP.

If both alliances try and starve the same shape then there isn't much of that shape on the field. I think since then they would both have to go to the feeder station at least once per logo it becomes a foot race to see who can hang faster and who can get there and back faster.



I'm just spitballing here but what do you guys think of an alliance made up of three hanging bots that rotate in and out of defense/tube stealing. For example at first bot 1 and bot 2 hang tubes and bot 3 goes over and plays defense/steals tubes, as soon as bot 3 can get a tube bot 1 or bot 2 go in and play defense/steal tubes while the other two hang and so on and so forth. The idea is to get as many of your opponents game pieces as you can while still making your own logos. Do you guys think it would be to hard to coordinate? Wastes time running across the field? Maybe would work better if two bots rotated and one was a dedicated scorer? Something else?