Strategy for success

[Sully]

Considering this year's game I would like to suggest;

Both the Red and Blue Aliances cooperating.

If each aliance claimed half of the bins (22) and worked as hard as they could to maximize their own score we could see some amazingly high scores. Knocking over opponents stacks or stealing bins will, in reality, was time and drive your QP's down.

This would mean - you would be competing against yourself - how well can your robot perform with a partner. You would be cheering for the other aliance to do well. You would win if your aliance did better then the other aliance.

Is this in the spirit of FIRST? I think it is.

What do you think?

[Bduggan04]

I agree it would be in the spirit of FIRST. However, I think it would be harder to intentionally tie, than to win by a landslide. Making sure that each alliance scored exactly the same with alliances on opposite ends and with an odd number of tubs wouldn't be easy. Also hard feelings could arise if one team scored low in order to tie, but the other alliance accidentally beat them.

It's an interesting idea, but the difficulty is a bit to much.

[MikeWherley]

Actually, each alliance would not want to tie since their QP would be lower. e.g.:

Example 1: Tie
Red Match Points= 25 points
Blue Match Points= 25 points

Red QP = 50
Blue QP = 50

Example 2: Close, but no tie
Red Match Points= 24 points
Blue Match Points= 25 points

Red QP = 24
Blue QP = 73

So, there is incentive not to tie ... hmmm

[Mark Garver]

I am reading the rules and doing the scoring like you I guess, because I feel that it is not a good idea to tie because niether one of the teams get a multiplier. Come close but don't tie!

[Tom Schindler]

Sully-

In theory i think your idea works - if ALL teams followed this, the "average" score would be higher. The problem is, most teams are greedy, and would rather get the higher multiplyer, so they would not want to tie.

In addition to this, it would be incredibly difficult to tie exactly. I think there will be so many bins on the field that it will be extremely difficult to count on the fly from the driver stations.

Tom

[sidewinder]

Last year in grand rapids my team triped working together with the opposite alliance, for our own favor. But they tried still to beat us in the last seconds, When you play to win few promises are cept.

[carlye]

aren't there an odd # of bins on the field? i think so...a tie would be impossible! has anyone played the game diplomacy? it would be like that because the red and blue teams might be in alliance but the red team is really lieing so at the last second they screw over the blue team and win....diplomacy is really fun.

[Mark Garver]

Originally posted by carlye
aren't there an odd # of bins on the field? i think so...a tie would be impossible!

A tie is possible because of being able to tip boxes to count for two boxes in a stack.

[Noah]

Also, it IS conceivable that there will be boxes outside the scoring zones. This can lead to a tie.

[MRL180YTL2002]

Originally posted by Mark G
A tie is possible because of being able to tip boxes to count for two boxes in a stack.

read the team updates (no. 1 I believe) and it says states it will be done by SHU...stack hieght unit which equals 14 and 3/4 inches

[Hubicki]

I think in many ways, tieing with a rather large score would be much more difficult than aiming to win. Also, I believe a match where all the robots cooperate on the field would be a lot less interesting (especially for the average viewer) than head to head competition *cough* 2001 *cough*. It also takes away from the excitement for the other teams. In my experience, in 2 v 2 competition, you're always rooting for the underdog to win and it makes audience participation greater. A valid suggestion I believe, but when FIRST is "competing" against sports and entertainment (which are "evil"), a coopertition isn't what the organization needs.
~Hubicki~

[MRL180YTL2002]

I agree, ties are going to be rare and many teams want to be in the top 8 to be picking for elimination rounds.