Tube starvation/stealing

[Phalanx]

Originally Posted by MaxMax161

Tube starvation/stealing is going to play a BIG part of the match strategy in any higher level match. The question is how do you do it? Which tubes, which bots in what roles, ect? What do you guys think the best way to implement a tube starvation/stealing strategy is?

You saw us in NJ use a tube stealing, tube starvation strategy which got us to the finals against, YOU guys. LOL!!!

Tube starvation, and stealing can't be a blanket strategy, but it works very effectively if your alliance has the faster minbots.
It worked really well for us.

While we didn't qualify for Championships, I'm already in St Louis and our chief strategist will be here as well. I'll stop by and talk to you guys on Thursday about if.

[rcmolloy]

We used this strategy in NJ and I know Max would probably say that tube starvation is very effective. It pretty much took us all the way to the finals when we relied on our minibots on our alliance to win. It was a great strategy up until when we played 1676 and 2016 and had a difficult time keeping up.

If the strategy is executed right, you could really win some matches. Although, it will not be like a week 1 where minibots can only be the deciding factor. The team needs to put up the right amount of tubes before considering the minibot to be a factor.

EDIT: Mike beat me to it above haha.

[Chris is me]

Tube starvation is one of my favorite plays this year, and I believe it will be extra successful at Champs.

Slowing down tube scoring is key to taking the entropy of the mini bot race out of the picture. If there's 4 logos on each side, minibots decide the match every time. Stopping the creation of a wall of logos is critical.

Like all strategies, execution is key. A balance of feeder loading, holding back tubes, selective piece starvation, and tube "stealing" is key. The strategy, unlike most strategies this year, makes full use of all 3 robots on the field. That's why I think it will be most successful at Championships.

[BandChick]

On the contrary, I think tube starving will happen more in division elimination matches, but I don't think we'll see it quite so blatantly on Einstein. It worked so well in NJ because teams weren't ready for that kind of strategy, but the game has changed a lot since then, and so have the way teams develop their strategy for the game.

I think you might see ONE elim match for each division go by the way of starvation, but I think the adaptability of the higher-level teams will result in a big change of game.

Only time will tell!

[Mark Sheridan]

I think we will see some form of tube starvation on Einstein. Though I think it will be much more dynamic. When the opportunity present itself, a team will go for it. Like if the opposing team pops a tube, or throws a tube not far enough across.

I think most teams will have two robots focus on scoring. The third robot is going to have to juggle defense, stealing tubes from the opponents side, herding stray tubes into their own alliance lane and feeding tubes to the alliance partners.

[MaxMax161]

Originally Posted by Richard

What is tube stealing? Picking up tubes on your opponents' side of the field?

Yup, drinking their milkshake as it were. Pretty much taking any tube that a opponent bot would have wanted to grab as opposed to getting an easier tube.

Originally Posted by Norman J

I contest that tube starving will be utilized at high-level play. All teams that make it to Einstein will have such practiced human players that they should be able to drop all three shapes into the scoring zone.

I personally think we have a pretty good human player but he is effectively never able to throw a triangle anywhere but to the end of the feeder lane and give or take midfield. I highly doubt that the HPs on Einstein will be able to throw all their tubes in to the scoring zone. I think the shape of choice to starve would be the triangles, squares depending on the first 15-25 seconds of the match, but never the circles.

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

One particular strategy that I feel will be extremely critical in St. Louis is starving one particular tube on the field. For example, your alliance can decide that you will NOT throw any squares on to the open field. You will either human load them, or pick them up from the lane, but you will not place squares out into the open. The defensive team on your alliance will then have one clear mission, and that is to defend all squares. Whether they push them into your lanes, or pick them up themselves, their mission will be to keep squares out of the grasp of your opponents.

I totally agree. In Virginia tube starving was the only way to win the game in the elims. For example in our first elims match the other alliance was starving triangles and won the match because of it. We couldn't make logos and it hurt. Our alliance then modified our human player strategy to compensate and went on to beat them. Another good example was when in match Q71 we were toughly outmatched but because of a good square starving strategy the other alliance couldn't make logos and we had a 81 to 81 tie. Man was that something.

Originally Posted by Phalanx

I'm already in St Louis and our chief strategist will be here as well. I'll stop by and talk to you guys on Thursday about if.

Awesome! You guys were great to work with in the qualifying matches, I'm looking forward to seeing you there.

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Like all strategies, execution is key. A balance of feeder loading, holding back tubes, selective piece starvation, and tube "stealing" is key. The strategy, unlike most strategies this year, makes full use of all 3 robots on the field.

The name of the game isn't hanging tubes it's game piece control. If you control the game pieces then you can hang as much as you want and you can stop your opponent from hanging. The good/bad thing is, as you said, it uses every robot on the field. There are a LOT of things factoring in to every decision on the field this year.


A successful tube steal does four things; gets you a tube, takes away a tube from your opponent, wastes your opponent's time, and takes more of your time (then getting a different tube). I think that, generally, the first three factors are greater then the last even when coupled with the risk of being on the losing end of a tube fight. That coupled with a good starvation policy make logos not happen, and if logos don't happen then the game is over.

[Norman J]

Originally Posted by MaxMax161

I personally think we have a pretty good human player but he is effectively never able to throw a triangle anywhere but to the end of the feeder lane and give or take midfield. I highly doubt that the HPs on Einstein will be able to throw all their tubes in to the scoring zone. I think the shape of choice to starve would be the triangles, squares depending on the first 15-25 seconds of the match, but never the circles.

I'm not our team's HP scout so I don't know how common this is, but 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.

[Lil' Lavery]

I certainly hope there's enough time over the weekend for the natural evolution of strategy to take place. The disparity in quality of machines during the qualification matches makes me a little bit hesitant that it will.

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.

And the human players are almost a game within itself.

[AndrewMcRadical]

Our team played tube scarcity through almost all of Cleveland, worked well especially against productive offensive robots. I HP for our team when we throw, and triangles are definitely the most difficult to throw effectively. I can get them to our minibot pole 90% of the time but not too much farther. The squares and circles I can hit the other wall with (soccer player). tube scarcity is a quality strategy if you can dedicate one alliance member to lurk outside the opponents' scoring zone for the majority of the match. also, triangles are not always the best option. if the opposing HPs are weak, scarce circles can prevent an ubertube cover, preventing even more points by the opposing alliance. 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.

[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.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

And the human players are almost a game within itself.

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

I'd be willing to say that most of the teams on Einstein will have Human players that reliably throw past the caution line 9 out of 10 times.

[rmhooks573]

the strategy of tube starvation of a shape is a strategy that can really backfire on you though; which happened in MSC. i think that the strategy will be used a lot but a lot of teams will see how it can backfire and we will for sure see an all out brawl of who can have the perfect strategy

[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.

surely not a blanket strategy (if a successful one exists) but it worked well for our alliance

[rmhooks573]

the only thing that could virtually go wrong for the strategy is overusage. teams catch onto it and then BOOM!

[rcmolloy]

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.

surely not a blanket strategy (if a successful one exists) but it worked well for our alliance

Even with that, 25 used a similar strategy in our match and we used it throughout NJ and Philly depending on which bots we were playing with but in STL this strategy could be really effective for a team with great bots.

DS1 (Left) is in front of mainly squares and circles. DS2 (Middle) is in front of Triangles and Squares and DS3 (Right) is in front of Triangles and Circles. From there, the teams would go and get their respective game pieces since they were the stations right in front of them. It helps if all 3 bots can score and really takes the confusion of trying to score across partners.

Most of the time though, 2 teams will take a single rack area and try and fill it up. If you're stuck on Einstein with 3 good bots, take this to your advantage.