Full court shooting strategy

[NotaJoke]

Originally Posted by nikeairmancurry

I believe it may..

It didn't during the finals at Detroit. 314 and 1701 both attempted full court, and both were blocked, the field was still maneuverable, it just wasn't a walk in the park is all.

I think the 'blocking the flow' rule is really about intention. It would not be advisable to allow the FCS in the unprotected zone to continue to score all of the disks, and logically, pinning them away from the feeder slots would not effect the flow of the court, but just the mobility of said pinned bot.

Edit for clarification:

Crude paint skills aside, the field (for the most part) still remains accessible. Perhaps the rule implies that blue robots (in this situation) are not allowed to stop the red robots from passing the auto line, but the blocking of the FCS in question is perfectly legal.

[nikeairmancurry]

Originally Posted by NotaJoke

It didn't during the finals at Detroit. 314 and 1701 both attempted full court, and both were blocked, the field was still maneuverable, it just wasn't a walk in the park is all.

I think the 'blocking the flow' rule is really about intention. It would not be advisable to allow the FCS in the unprotected zone to continue to score all of the disks, and logically, pinning them away from the feeder slots would not effect the flow of the court, but just the mobility of said pinned bot.

I guess it's all up to what the head ref feels is a blockade..

[bduddy]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

What I have yet to see is an alliance prepare for this ahead of time and draft a robot with the specific task in mind to stop the defender/mobile wall from blocking the cross-court shots. When alliances realizes that there is a legitimate way to prevent your cross-court shooter from being blocked, this game will get really interesting. For now, it's relatively predictable.

While I can't speak for their intent, that was basically the strategy used by the winning alliance at Central Valley Regional:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaSIo4VUm74
The execution wasn't that great on either side, but that's Week 1 for you...

[Yalib]

The Israeli Regional Finals had one full court shooter on the Red Aliliance (1574) and one on the Blue Alliance (2630)

1574 was a 60" robot and was unstoppable in qualification matches - great accurate full court shooting for 2 and 3 point goals.

The competition was won by blocking 1574 with a 84" net put up by team 1577 - Steampunk from Raanana.

2630 shot full court with the help of team 4320 doing both great defense and offence and won the competition after losing final 1.

The games:

F1.1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKHTZT-xJB4

F1.2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeSe1Wv7Xdg

F1.3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rKuyx3RQD0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VPVb1G1Sg8

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by bduddy

While I can't speak for their intent, that was basically the strategy used by the winning alliance at Central Valley Regional:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaSIo4VUm74
The execution wasn't that great on either side, but that's Week 1 for you...

Thank you! I am very glad to see that somebody somewhere was wise enough to employ this strategy. And as evident, it was wildly successful; won the regional as the #6 seed. Despite being a week 1 event.

Some really nice human player throws by blue too.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by Jeffy

I'm very surprised most teams aren't taking advantage of the 84 inch rule when making an "on the fly" wall bot.
Seems a bot with a wide appendage at 84 inches would block any shot.

It's a hard call to make on the fly, especially in between elimination matches if you want to do it legally.

A wide enough 84" tall robot in the right position is pretty much the end all be all to the FCS game. Even with a high exit point on the FCS (50" or so), the 84" wall would only need to be within 30-36" to render that FCS useless, assuming they're exit angle is somewhere less than 30 degrees from horizontal. (haven't seen something more steep yet)

That being said, there are some interesting trade-offs to this decision.

- Assuming it's something being done very quickly, odds are the 84" tall wall is going to be stuck at 84" tall. If it is, you've now limited your defender to playing on a third of the field... And of that third, you lose quite a bit of it to both the pyramid and your opponents loading zone.

- Assuming you're building blocker that can withstand repeated shots at point black range, it's going to have to be well constructed. Odds are, this is going to shift the CoG of the robot up quite a bit, which could make playing effective defense a bit difficult.

- If the opposing alliance has a capable floor loader, the FCS robot only needs to get discs to the other end of the field, not necessarily score them. In this case, shooting over the blocker becomes a viable option.

Now, if you can make the blocker removable and/or actuate into position, you can ignore a lot of this stuff. But, if you think about it, if your alliance is willing to sacrifice a machine to be an 84" tall wall then odds are, the opposing alliance is willing to sacrifice one of their machines to remove the wall from the equation.

Also, at CH, in multiple matches, the opposing alliance would send two or even all three of their robots after 225's FCS in an attempt to prevent it from getting to the feeder station. One of the things to remember when trying such a strategy, is that you can't win if you're not scoring points... Specifically in Semi 2-1, the Blue Alliance spent the first 45-50 seconds of the match playing defense against 225. During this time, we (341) essentially were playing offense on a completely open field which let us put up some solid points and win the match...

[B Dot]

Originally Posted by Jaxom

Were they not calling violations for robots > 60" completely outside of the auto zone, or do you mean something else? I'm having trouble parsing your post.

What he means is that a robot configured such as 3284 is so tall we are unable to shoot over them when they are in their auto zone and our head ref determined that our pushing him out of the auto zone was us breaking a rule and having the sole intent on making that robot get penalized when we were just trying to shoot over them

The refs were also not looking out for those robots and consistently said that they would do better next time after they were questioned about missing the calls

[Siri]

Originally Posted by B Dot

What he means is that a robot configured such as 3284 is so tall we are unable to shoot over them when they are in their auto zone and our head ref determined that our pushing him out of the auto zone was us breaking a rule and having the sole intent on making that robot get penalized when we were just trying to shoot over them

Were you assessed a foul, or did the tall opponent just not receive one? To the former, the G18-1 call is a judgement issue, but it really depends on exactly what you're doing. For instance, if you appeared to have a choice of pushing them a different direction, but you elected to push them out, I could see how a head ref might call that.

[faust1706]

We were given a technical foul, actually.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by faust1706

We were given a technical foul, actually.

Yes, so G18-1. Again, judgement call, though luckily you're allowed to Question Box technical fouls. There are certainly scenarios in which a G18-1 technical would be warranted doing what you describe. Perhaps we could all also ask at our respective next drivers' meetings.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by thefro526

One of the things to remember when trying such a strategy, is that you can't win if you're not scoring points... Specifically in Semi 2-1, the Blue Alliance spent the first 45-50 seconds of the match playing defense against 225. During this time, we (341) essentially were playing offense on a completely open field which let us put up some solid points and win the match...

Thus illustrating the true advantage of an FCS. Not that you can score points -- which will be vigrously defended against -- but that you're enough of a threat to open the field for your alliance partners.

[Alpha Beta]

Originally Posted by Siri

Yes, so G18-1. Again, judgement call, though luckily you're allowed to Question Box technical fouls. There are certainly scenarios in which a G18-1 technical would be warranted doing what you describe. Perhaps we could all also ask at our respective next drivers' meetings.

I think G18-1 is being called too quickly in most circumstances.

Strategies aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule are not in the spirit of FRC and are not allowed. Rule violations forced in this manner will not result in assessment of a penalty on the target ALLIANCE.
Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL
(emphasis added)

IMO if there is any conceivable reason for the game action other than forcing the penalty G18-1 should not be called.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

IMO if there is any conceivable reason for the game action other than forcing the penalty G18-1 should not be called.

I agree. Alas, we're not refs, are we?

[RonnieS]

We have what I would call a very good full court shooter (314 Bigmo). We are able to empty all disk from our feeder stations in about 1:15. This is into the 3pt goal, way faster in 2pt. We do find trouble keeping the disk in after about 30 disk because the goal is almost filled at the bottom and they tend to bounce out but we do believe we have this fixed for MSC. No one knew we were also able to shoot from up close and do cycles. This was a good strategy for us but I would do whatever works for you! remember, you can be blocked so don't base everything off of one task!

[B Dot]

Originally Posted by Alpha Beta

I think G18-1 is being called too quickly in most circumstances.



IMO if there is any conceivable reason for the game action other than forcing the penalty G18-1 should not be called.

I wholly agree