How Will Logomotion Play Out and Develop?

[Chris is me]

Why even bother with the defense in that scenario? there's no way they'll make up a 62 point deficit faster than the best two teams at the regional.

[Swampdude]

because the only way they can beat you is with more tube scores, so you slow that down as best you can. plus you jam up there end of the field with 4-5 bots. also at the end game your right next to your post.

[rees2001]

How much will the average scores increase over the course of the season?In early weeks (1-3) you will see some teams not scoring over 12 and others putting up 40+ on their own. As it gets to Championship most scores will average out around 60 to 30.

- How effective will defense be?during the first 1:30 of the match the best they can do is hope to knock a thrown tube down but they will just end up keeping their own alliance’s score down. In the final 30 seconds they can possibly keep teams with weak drivetrains from even getting to the pole to deploy. (any wonder why you are seeing teams that have had dominant swerve drive using 6 or 8 wheel drive with 2 speeds. They are getting to the pole, good luck stopping them.)

- Will alliances use feeder bots & hangers, or will it be every team for itself?A good alliance will coordinate efforts. Help push thrown tubes to scorers. If it is every team for itself it had better be an amazing bot.

- Will tubes be fed through the slot or thrown?Why drive 50 feet when you can have the weakest scorer on the alliance push thrown tube a couple of feet?

- What will dominate - Grippers or Roller Claws? Rotating arms or Elevators?Fast pickup & delivery to the peg. I don’t discriminate on type.

- Will floor loading be as important as many think?If you want to score quickly.

- Will the minibots define the winners, or will their influence decrease as more teams get them working?In the first 2 to 3 weeks minibot will make or break the game. If you have 2 good minibots on a qualification alliance there is no point in even playing with the tubes. There will be matches in the early weeks where NO minibot scores. 1 working minibot will make or break. You will also see teams with weak drive systems needing to leave the tubes with a minute left to make sure they can get to the pole.

- How will minibots develop? Will they all be similar by Championship?By Championship most useful minibots will be under 3 seconds. No team with a greater than 3.5 second minibot will make eliminations at Championship. Many teams will not stop working on the minibots others will not make any improvements. Improve or perish.

- How would you like to see the game played?I agree that the rules need to stay the same. I hope defense is limited to keeping teams from minibot deployment. Dexterity and speed with the tubes will make the game fun to watch. The minibot will make the end game exciting. I just hope penalties don’t become the deciding factor in this game.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Swampdude

Hmmm. So seed 1 (with the fastest minibot at the regional) picks the second fastest minibot and both with consistent ubertube auto scorers. Then 2 play defense the whole match, with 1 scoring, shutting down the other team. Then deploy and win the 30 and 20 point bonuses getting 62 + the tube scores... I like it...

This is actually a pretty good idea.

My hypothetical situation was based on a Qualification match, so I just assumed that the two powerhouses were playing against an alliance of two "normal" teams.

But, in your elimination strategy, defense actually makes sense. You can play defense right around the gap in the towers, and at no time are you ever really that far from the towers. At 20 seconds or so, you get into position for the end game and then once the towers go live you deploy and win.

Shoot, you still have your 3rd robot too, they could put up tubes the whole time or something.

[rees2001]

Originally Posted by Swampdude

because the only way they can beat you is with more tube scores, so you slow that down as best you can. plus you jam up there end of the field with 4-5 bots. also at the end game your right next to your post.

Update #13
<G48-C> ALLIANCE ROBOTS may not work together to blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. This rule has no effect on individual ROBOT-to-ROBOT defense.

Violation: PENALTY plus RED CARD

[JesseK]

This is from an elim's perspective; quals are up in the air.


- How much will the average scores increase over the course of the season?
50%, From Week 1's top score to Einstein's top score. Not sure about averages.

- How effective will defense be?
Effective against the top bot; however this year there are more pictures and videos of good-working bots than ever; either we're getting good with video or more bots really do work prior to ship. Given penalties and such, it will be effective in assisting to close the scoring gap, but I do not believe it will shut down an entire alliance.

- Will tubes be fed through the slot or thrown?
Thrown. It's too crowded in the lane.

- What will dominate - Grippers or Roller Claws? Rotating arms or Elevators?
It didn't matter so much in 2007 (lift vs arm) or 2008 (lift/arm vs launch). So long as the tube gets to the high pegs, it doesn't matter tbh. Well-built roller claws have the advantage, but tenacity and driver practice will close the gap for quick grippers. Quick grippers are typically simpler to maintain as well.

- Will floor loading be as important as many think?
Heh. If the "many" were to answer this question then the obvious answer is 'yes'. I'm in that group of "many".

- Will the minibots define the winners, or will their influence decrease as more teams get them working?
A bonus is a bonus, during a different part of the game. I think that minibot influence will remain the from the perspective of those who do not have two: they will remain at a disadvantage throughout the season. Those alliances that do have two minbots to go up will always have the advantage. 0.5 seconds will matter in a match or two. Minibots will only define winners (per se) in matches where 3-4 of the 6 are defenders (typical of elims with the 7th/8th seed).

- How will minibots develop? Will they all be similar by Championship?
I'm sure they will be, just like we'll see teams scrap their skinny roller claws for wider roller claws. It's iterative and open. That's the fun about this competition -- it's so frustrating to design your own bot only to have it trumped by bots with many more resources/ingenuity -- yet it's just as inspirational to compete against those robots, learn, and come back for more later. Plus, those bots typically have more than just 1 great design on their overall bot -- so copycatting really isn't as huge an advantage as we'd think (imo).

- How would you like to see the game played?
4 minibots every match; "Epsilon" formations; "wingmen", etc. It would be interesting to watch organized strategy, not organized chaos.

[Swampdude]

I'm thinking the latter part of that rule where it's essentially 2 on 2 (or man on man coverage) and not an organized blockade. My primary defense method would be to hit the tube that they want to pick up. But I guess it's debatable as to what your trying to do when things get congested. Maybe we need clarification on the logistics of that rule. Interesting...

[pandamonium]

Update #13
<G48-C> ALLIANCE ROBOTS may not work together to blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. This rule has no effect on individual ROBOT-to-ROBOT defense.

Violation: PENALTY plus RED CARD

Is putting 2 robots in between your two towers preventing robots from getting to or from the scoring grid considered a blockade? Because the robots can still travel around the towers through the lane.

does this rule pretty much mean that you cant have 2 or 3 robots from your alliance near each other on defense?

[JesseK]

Go around through the lane??? You mean go into the lane that costs them a red card??? How is that not a blockade?

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

For the teams touting the advantages of defense, where are you going to play it?

Consider a simplified two runners, one scorer strategy. Scorer stays in or near the protected zone. Runners get tubes. Do you defend the runners? Which one? Both?

You can't stop the scoring - the scorer is protected.
You can't stop the running - it's a 2 on 1.

What do you do?

This isn't defense's greatest game.

Hmmm,

Lemme see here, my little defensive bot against the entire other alliance? With 30 second cycle times, I'd pin 1 runner. The Scorer is staying in the 'safe zone' to stay away from me. So that means the other runner can get a total of 2 tubes gets delivered to the 'scorer' (and scored) while my offensive partners are free to score at will.

I can even go after and pin their best minibot deployer at the 20 second mark (keeping them far away from their towers) to try and allow my partners to win the minibot race.

I'll take that strategy for the win.

I'm on the opposing side. I think that this year may be one of the most boring yet. It is essentially a copy of Rack 'N' Roll for the most part, which means that we will mainly see teams either repeating what they did for Rack 'N' Roll, or doing whatever a winning team did.

Defense, one of my favorite things to build a robot for, will be either too weak, or impossible to get around. Early on, teams will focus on scoring ONLY, and when teams try to defend, it will be too easy! There are many places where it will be hard for a robot to maneuver, and blocking those places will be a small challenge for the other teams. For the most part, robots this year are going to have a lot of telescoping arms, or elevator-like mechanisms, that cannot go out far, just up. It will be easy to block an incoming robot from scoring if they cannot move their hanging mechanism near the pegs. I've also seen many designs built for defense that cannot score, but completely block off an opponent when they try to come back after receiving a tube, or when they try to get near the feeding station. The competition will be fun, since all FIRST competitions are, but the creativity level and exciting new robots will be at an all time low.

Of course, this is just my opinion, but it does make sense.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

Hmmm,

Lemme see here, my little defensive bot against the entire other alliance? With 30 second cycle times, I'd pin 1 runner. The Scorer is staying in the 'safe zone' to stay away from me. So that means the other runner can get a total of 2 tubes gets delivered to the 'scorer' (and scored) while my offensive partners are free to score at will.

I can even go after and pin their best minibot deployer at the 20 second mark (keeping them far away from their towers) to try and allow my partners to win the minibot race.

I'll take that strategy for the win.

How does it take 30 seconds for a kitbot to run across the field twice? You can run a tube in 15 seconds, easily.

This is assuming that one of the runners is completely unable to do anything the second you decide to play defense on them (not true), and it also assumes that the scorer never has an opportunity to take a tube.

You can't take a robot out of a match that easily, between the pinning rule and protected zones.

- How much will the average scores increase over the course of the season?
Depends. If you have scoring machines coupled with an amazing defense, and good throwers, then it's going to be high to low. Otherwise, it'll depend on the robots.

- How effective will defense be?
Personally, not very much. I say it depends on the robots you go against. Elevators will be easy to block, while arms may be harder.

- Will alliances use feeder bots & hangers, or will it be every team for itself?
It all depends on the strategy of the alliances. Whatever works, but in order to have feederbots, you'll need good throwers that can get the tubes half way across the field, and feederbots that can get the tubes off the ground quickly.

- Will tubes be fed through the slot or thrown?
If teams have good throwers, who can accurately throw the tubes across the field, then throwing is what they want. Feeding is only viable if you have a robot that can easily get fed from the feeder and get out of the feeding area, and across the field safely.

- What will dominate - Grippers or Roller Claws? Rotating arms or Elevators?
All will be good. Elevators are easy to get up to the maximum height, but can be inaccurate and must be next to the pegs to score. Rotating arms (like the one we use), can score on the pegs from OUTSIDE the scoring zone, which is useful if being blocked, and can throw tubes far ahead of them if they are blocked, so that a teammate can get it. Arms would have to be accurate, and fast to move, though. (Which ours is)

- Will floor loading be as important as many think?
Like I said before, if an alliance has good throwers, then robots need to be ready to get tubes anywhere, from ANY position. This includes leaning up against a wall.

- Will the minibots define the winners, or will their influence decrease as more teams get them working?
Early on when the minibots are still in development, they could make or break a match. Later on when all teams have seen the other minibots, they will be just a scoring factor, that everyone has.

- How will minibots develop? Will they all be similar by Championship?
I think that by the championships, everybody will have a similar method of traveling up the pole. I've already seen 4 teams use our method, but they probably didn't steal it.

- How would you like to see the game played?
I would like to see the matches played with different strategies in the beginning, but having teams mix their strategies together in the elimination rounds.

[boomergeek]

- How much will the average scores increase over the course of the season?
Qualifying- average 20-40 (over half points will be minibot points)
Elimination Winners: 70-90
(45 or 50 points of the Winners' total will be minibots giving a 25 or 15 point advantage over the losers)
(scoring on the lower two rows will be relatively meaningless in the eliminations- completing two logos on the top row will be critical)

- How effective will defense be?
One good defensive bot can reduce logo scoring by 30-40% just by getting in the way and not trying to pin.
In other words, very effective if they pay attention to the rules.

- Will alliances use feeder bots & hangers, or will it be every team for itself?
2 offense: 1 defense will become the norm as the game develops.
Feeders will have a hard time handing off to scorers if there is a good defending bot. At the other end, two run/scorers will be free of hassle if an opposing alliance chooses to use a feeder instead of a defender. Also, a feeder bot means your opposing alliance can throw logo pieces without risk.

- Will tubes be fed through the slot or thrown?
If no defender, throwing is viable if HP can get it 3/4 down field.

- What will dominate - Grippers or Roller Claws? Rotating arms or Elevators?
minibots

- Will floor loading be as important as many think?
Floor loading will work against alliances that don't strategize about defense.

- Will the minibots define the winners, or will their influence decrease as more teams get them working?
Minbots will define 15-25 point advantage over lesser teams. If minibots equalize- it becomes completely a game of chance - the difference in logo scoring will almost never define the winner at the regional nor the championship.

- How will minibots develop? Will they all be similar by Championship?
ALL 4 minibots in the championship will hit the top of the towers before the clock hits 8 seconds left.
The referees will have no realistic way to know if a minibot jumped the gun by 20-70 ms. (high speed instant replay will show the referees getting it wrong).

- How would you like to see the game played?[/quote]

Bobby Locke:
“You drive for show but putt for dough.”

Putting large bright logo pieces high in the air will provide the arena with SHOW.

Most people in the arena won't even see the minibots scamper up the poles so fast- they will just look at lights and the scoreboard- they will define the winner of LOGOmotion.

The minibots are the PUTT of LOGOmotion.

Maybe the game should be renamed MINIBOTmotion

[Hawiian Cadder]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

How does it take 30 seconds for a kitbot to run across the field twice? You can run a tube in 15 seconds, easily.

This is assuming that one of the runners is completely unable to do anything the second you decide to play defense on them (not true), and it also assumes that the scorer never has an opportunity to take a tube.

You can't take a robot out of a match that easily, between the pinning rule and protected zones.

one thing that may factor into that is an all time high in mechanum drives. personally i think that a good tank drive will be able to push all of the mechanums around without difficulty. thus i conclude that in in elims, where the primary feeders and things to play defense on will be kit-bots (super fast, no pushing power, cant turn well) and mechanums (not as maneuverable on the open feild as a good tank, and not as powerfull either.) thus i think that the stated strategy is only good if you have a custom setup tank, and it is early in the day Friday.