Observations after week !

[Creator Mat]

What did people notice about the game after the first week of regionals is over?

Our team noticed that while the super cell is a game changer it does not just happen. you need a plan, teams where down and a super cell could have saved the match. but with like 25 seconds left teams where like (bleep) no empty cells, o well just have to hope for the best while there teams payload specialist still had all four. My suggestion to get around this by having teams get those empty cells out into play EARLY. You do not have to put it into a bot just stick it on the ground and hope someone gets it. The empty cells look similar enough to moon rocks that if their is a big pile in front of the outpost the payload specialist could put it into play without any one on the opposing team noticing. Then your alliance would just pick it up, put it in a air lock, and tada super cell for your scoring pleasure. (for all payload specialist please do not throw the empty cells that is a penalty, you have to shove them through the hole!!!!!!!!!)

Another thing we noticed unlike last year a broken or a no show bot is a killer. It is easily 30 free points to the opposing alliance. I saw a lot of teams get burned by this. yes i understand missing a match because your robot will not drive and you need the time to fix it. I understand a robot just not working on the field do to something going wrong. but please tell your alliance before hand. however, if your robot can drive but your ball handling systems are not working and you don't show, that is just not right. This years game from what i saw is not as brutal on your bot as last year. there is not as many (extreme) high speed collisions and robots tend to be more rugged because you can't have any parts sticking out that could be easily broken due to a collision. yes you lose repair time but this year you never know if your team will win (think Midwest regional number 8 seed beating number 1 seed 71,1114, and 1000). This is where i will also apologize to one of our alliances for being a broke bot and pretty much costing the alliance the match. our code didn't deploy right, so we would not run. SRRY

[Tottanka]

Empty Cells must be delivered early, as a strategic move.

No robot is dominant enough to win by itself - good strategy can stop any 1 robot...if you're against 2 good once it's a different story.

Also, moon rocks tend to roll to the sides of the field, where they are harder to be picked by robots. A good strategy is just driving the whole way with one of your sides touching the side border, and this way you can easily gather 90% of those balls, in 10 seconds.

[schaffin]

At the KC Regional, we didn't have to put empty cells and moon rocks through the hole. The refs didn't give penalties for throwing them.

[lafawnda]

wow that's really weird...did they tell you they changed the rules??

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by lafawnda

wow that's really weird...did they tell you they changed the rules??

Which rule?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by rc_cola1323

Which rule?

Refs at KC weren't enforcing <G21> properly. Apparently, they weren't issuing penalties for throwing ECs.

[bigbeezy]

My $0.02 on this game is that it can be really exciting, at times.

Matches where teams didnt show up, which i was extremely surprised was rather common at Midwest, make the match a cakewalk for the opposing alliance. If all you are is the kitbot frame and electronics thats fine. I can respect a team that at least goes out there and makes an effort; if you break down half way through the match, o well.

To me, the supercells were important but not reliable. I only watched Midwest, and wasn't able to catch every qual match, but it seemed that, yes, while supercells won matches, they're not something that can be counted on. From what I saw the only reasonable way to score a SC is to throw it. Even then you have to hope there is an opponent near that human player, and they still have to make it. It is a good strategy to have the ability to use the SC, but if it takes you a while to acquire/dispense the EC then I advise you not to take on the EC transporter job.

It was really cool to watch teams chase after a trailer and keep scoring on them without having to pin, which would make yourself a target. I applaud you on your driving.

All in all i think this will be a great game, wish they had it last year so I would have been able to drive Can't wait to watch it in person at Florida.

[davidfv]

I started this by just wanting to see how often G14 was applied in the eight regional events. In the qualification games, G14 came into effect only about 11% of the time. [NOTE: The only scores I found were AFTER Penalties were Assessed, I do not have the scores without penalties, so the numbers do not take into consideration the G14 prior to penalties, basically numbers might be off]

If my spreadsheet is correct here are the numbers:

With about 86% of the scores reported:

Qualification Games
Number of Games: 577
Scores Reported: 495
Red wins: 255
Blue wins: 240
High Score: 151
Average Score: 50.55
Largest Point Differential: 126
G14 Penalties:
No Penalty 437 (88%)
2x Penalty 21 (4%)
3x Penalty 37 (7%)

Quarter Finals
Number of Games: 73
Scores Reported: 73
Red wins: 45
Blue wins: 28
High Score: 126
Average Score: 60.10
Largest Point Differential: 68
G14 Penalties:
No Penalty 68 (93%)
2x Penalty 4 (5%)
3x Penalty 1 (1%)

Semi Finals
Number of Games: 40
Scores Reported: 40
Red wins: 25
Blue wins: 15
High Score: 115
Average Score: 63.7
Largest Point Differential: 62
G14 Penalties:
No Penalty 39 (97.5%)
2x Penalty 1 (2.5%)
3x Penalty 0 (0%)

Finals
Number of Games: 17
Scores Reported: 17
Red wins: 14
Blue wins: 3
High Score: 121
Average Score: 63.9
Largest Point Differential: 69
G14 Penalties:
No Penalty 17 (100%)
2x Penalty 0 (0%)
3x Penalty 0 (0%)

I would be really interested if someone could parse the Twitter information and report on all the great data contained in those posts.

[GarrettF2395]

I attended the OKC regional and here are a few things I learned.

Make sure, you let the refs know if you are having any kind of communication problem with your robot. We lost signal with our robot in 3 separate matches.
This possibly lost us our chance of being in the top 8 teams at the end of the qualification matches.

Make sure your Payload specialist knows ALL of the rules that apply to them.
So many teams (including a team in the finals) lost matches because of stupid mistakes by the PS's.

Make sure your trailer hitch pin is set securely! During our first quarter final match, our robot was hit so hard in auto mode that our hitch pin flew out and our trailer came undone. The refs disabled and we lost the match because there was a free trailer. We had the pin in properly and everything, the head ref checked it before the match. So just because it looks and feels like its properly set... doesn't mean that it is... keep that in mind.

When picking alliance partners after qualifying matches are over, make sure you have a list of teams you want to pick, even if your in 15th place, you may end up in the top 8. A lot of the top 8 teams picked from the other top 8.

At our regional, supercells and strong defense were the way to go.
Several teams did really well because all they did was get a few emptycells moved and then used team work to corral an opponent into their corner.

Having the camera system on your robot will help you do well, but isn't essential to winning. The number 1 ranked robot had a really good camera targeting system on it. The number 2 robot didn't even have the camera on it.

As was said before, having a good robot and a good human player is really important, but means nothing if you don't have a good strategy with your alliance partners. 3 basic robots with a good strategy can easily take down a great robot and its alliance if they don't have a strategy.

I will keep adding as I think of things.

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by davidfv

Semi Finals
Number of Games: 40
Scores Reported: 40
Red wins: 25
Blue wins: 25
High Score: 115
Average Score: 63.7

I don't know why that stat stands out to me, but it shows how the matches are even, or at least aren't soley decided by one dominant robot. The higher seeded alliance was only winning half the time in the semi-finals.

[Laaba 80]

Originally Posted by Sgreco27

I don't know why that stat stands out to me, but it shows how the matches are even, or at least aren't soley decided by one dominant robot. The higher seeded alliance was only winning half the time in the semi-finals.

How do you know the higher seeded alliance wins half the time? This only shows red and blue wins.

[tim_reiher]

Originally Posted by Laaba 80

How do you know the higher seeded alliance wins half the time? This only shows red and blue wins.

In elimination rounds, the red alliance is the higher seed. The cited stat was from elims, not qualifiers.

[cziggy343]

Originally Posted by Laaba 80

How do you know the higher seeded alliance wins half the time? This only shows red and blue wins.

red is always the higher seeded alliance in the elimination matches

[Creator Mat]

Scouting is also exremly important in this years game. You must always know what teams have a good robot. At midwest everyone pretty much got a good first pick. but come 2nd pick some teams looked like they where digging deep trying to remember the number of the "one bot" they saw.

Ranking doesn't mean anything if you don't have a chance to be a allaince captian. stuff happens during the qualification matches that could drop a team out of the running to be in the top 8. Ill use my team as an example. at the midwest regionals we finished with a record of 2-6. but because team 135 had great scouting and didn't care that we where ranked 47 out of 53. They saw that in the beginning that yes we where not working right and had really bad luck. However we stabalized and where consistanltly a factor in our final 3 matches. They picked us and we then went with 135 and 2039 all the way to the finals. Long story short just because a team is ranked badly doesn't always mean they are a bad team.

Thank you 135 for picking us to be on your alliance it was a great experience

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by davidfv

[NOTE: The only scores I found were AFTER Penalties were Assessed, I do not have the scores without penalties, so the numbers do not take into consideration the G14 prior to penalties, basically numbers might be off]

Yes, your numbers will be way off. In 78 qual matches at Traverse City (did you include us in your counts?), we had 6 penalty-adjusted matches that would look like <G14> applied, but it did not. And there was one match that would look like a 3x but was a 2x pre-penalty. We had 9 >2x and 2 >3x games in quals; 2 >2x and 2 >3x in QF's. None in SF's or F's.