A Recycle Rush Reflection

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Quote:
Originally Posted by evanperryg View Post
Funnily enough, the most precision-oriented game in years rewards speed much more highly than precision, and if you are a high-stacking team who takes even a couple seconds longer than the rest to put up a capped 6-stack, it means you're doomed for the second tier.

This sentence really confuses me, particularly the first part. Can you describe in more detail what you mean by this?

Scoring is a step function--each capped stack is really worth 36 or 42 points. If a team can't fit in that last stack in the last few seconds, they fall 36 or 42 points behind, not just 2 or 4. We can see how teams fall into 2, 3 or 4 stacks per match teams (only 2 or 3 at that higher level, and a dozen at the next level). There aren't really any 2.5 stack teams, because that's largely meaningless due to the lumpiness of stack scoring.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by MaGiC_PiKaChU

This gap is huge this year because good robots will always be able to perform in quals, even with the last seeded ones as alliance partners.

Which is fundamentally different from previous years. It was very difficult for a top team alone to outgun an entire alliance at least in the last 3 years, and even impossible last year if the alliance had competent robots. This year a top team will "win" the match so long as the bot doesn't drop a stack.

And what's worse is that with all of the anticipation for Einstein, the competition may be decided in the first second and all of the amazing stacking power of 1114/254 will be for naught.

That's why this year's game "sucks." (And yes, I agree with my fellow mentor on this point.)

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

I have never seen a case of the highest seed picking a team just to let them "tag along" for the ride to champs. My guess is that you have seen a case where the one seed picks a team they are familiar with because they trust the team to be useful contributors to their alliance. For example, there are generally a couple of teams at each event that I don't trust, primarily based on past experiences with them. Even if one of those teams had a slightly better robot than a team I am familiar with, I would want to partner with the team I am familiar with because I know that we will work well with them.

Yes, that has been the case each time for us, but that has been much more important than previous years where specific robot performance had been the primary criterion.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

Scoring is a step function--each capped stack is really worth 36 or 42 points. If a team can't fit in that last stack in the last few seconds, they fall 36 or 42 points behind, not just 2 or 4. We can see how teams fall into 2, 3 or 4 stacks per match teams (only 2 or 3 at that higher level, and a dozen at the next level). There aren't really any 2.5 stack teams, because that's largely meaningless due to the lumpiness of stack scoring.

I think there are plenty of 2.5 stack teams. The ".X" in 1.X, 2.X, 3.X buys you margin against screwups, dropped cans, cans ending up in the corners, noodles, "defense" from alliance partners, etc.

[asid61]

Just a note-
the problem is no longer how fast you can get the cans. Anything between 0-0.3 seconds will probably get the can, depending on if they are going for the handle or for the center. It's how well you can hold on that's the deciding factor now.
Unless you can block teh center of the can against another center robot.

[George Nishimura]

Originally Posted by asid61

Just a note-
the problem is no longer how fast you can get the cans. Anything between 0-0.3 seconds will probably get the can, depending on if they are going for the handle or for the center. It's how well you can hold on that's the deciding factor now.
Unless you can block teh center of the can against another center robot.

Tug of war scenarios opens up a new avenue of strategy: determining the price a team is willing to pay to hold on to the can. Is it worth 5-15 seconds of tele-op for something you may not win? Is it worth a broken arm?

It becomes a physical auction of sorts that drive teams will have to manage very carefully.

But based on the canburglars I've seen, I'm not sure how often such a scenario will occur.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by George Nishimura

Tug of war scenarios opens up a new avenue of strategy: determining the price a team is willing to pay to hold on to the can. Is it worth 5-15 seconds of tele-op for something you may not win? Is it worth a broken arm?

It becomes a physical auction of sorts that drive teams will have to manage very carefully.

But based on the canburglars I've seen, I'm not sure how often such a scenario will occur.

Adding a can triples the stack value, more if you add a noodle. The moment you let go of a can, you assume that the other robot can stack less than 2x as fast as you can- at least in finals. Before then it makes sense to gamble.
Can grabbers at champs will probably be "cheesecaked" to other teams. The speed makes the tug of war very possible.

[artK]

Originally Posted by Siri

That's not to say that pick can't happen: I still remember 1114 somehow managing to pick the fastest minibot in their division on the back of the draft. But minibots aren't canburglars (strategically I mean; otherwise they basically are). And even if they were, you can bet neither 1114 nor 294 went into Worlds counting on everyone missing them. It's a heck of a gamble, but you know what they say about big risks and their rewards. I struggle with the characterization of "fully reasonable" though, if that's the alliance number a team is gunning for second/third pick of.

Galileo 2011 was also the division where 973 (who also had a really fast minibot) fell to the pick right before 294.

This reminds me, that based on how champs has ended in the past, I think this year, a #1 or #2 alliance will pick a robot with a really fast can grabber (w/o cheesecake) that the other alliances ignored, and said alliance will win champs because of this second round steal. It happens almost every year, with teams like 610, 16, 973, 177, 971, and 148 (the third champion robots from 2013-2008) falling to one of the last picks of the draft.

An argument can be made that the smaller divisions may reduce the depth of each division. While that may happen in some divisions, I believe that because their are twice as many chances for this to happen, it will still happen (I don't think cutting 25% of teams from a division will bring down the bar for a third robot 50% across all eight divisions).

[kaliken]

Back in 2011 973 had the fastest minibot bar none in Galileo and really all the teams should have known that if they had done some quality scouting. Combining their minibot with 254 or 111's and they had the fastest 1/2/3 combo around. Our scouts were blown away that they they fell all the way to the 2nd pick of the 2nd alliance.

We were really lucky to play with 1114 on the number 1 seed alliance that year. Our robot was decent with an above average minibot. We were a solid pick but not elite. The really amazing thing is how we teamed up with 1114 to make our minibot system way way faster! We actually swapped our entire minibot deployment system for a 1114's spare system got reinspected and went to play. It was actually documented here..

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...4+1114+minibot

This kind of harkens to the sharing of ramps/cheesecake this year...

Adding to the 2nd pick steals, we felt the same way with 177 as well in 2010. You couldn't beat picking a team that not only had a great robot but also had been to Einstein the past 3 years in a ROW! how did they get missed?!?!

I easily see this happening again this year especially with more divisions and a much higher bar of quality robots.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by artK

Galileo 2011 was also the division where 973 (who also had a really fast minibot) fell to the pick right before 294.

Yeah, sidenote, I completely told this story wrong. Point being, 973 (I think, 973 =/= 294) was really, really fast and fell really, really late. Right, apparently I don't still remember it that well at all. Ahem. EDIT: Yes, what 294 above me said. Sorry about that, folks.

Originally Posted by artK

This reminds me, that based on how champs has ended in the past, I think this year, a #1 or #2 alliance will pick a robot with a really fast can grabber (w/o cheesecake) that the other alliances ignored, and said alliance will win champs because of this second round steal. It happens almost every year, with teams like 610, 16, 973, 177, 971, and 148 (the third champion robots from 2013-2008) falling to one of the last picks of the draft.

Yes, it is quite common. In fact, our first Einstein appearance (2013) was as the second round draft pick of a full court shooting AC who'd gotten a floor pickup in the first round. We were a cycler with a 30 point climb. Weird combinations fall through the cracks somehow.

In fact, the draft might be even cooler than that this year. As Rangle asked, what does 1114 do as the second fastest can grabber? The thing is, this isn't just a subdivision question. If the point calculus works out to mean that the #nth AC can win their bracket with the mth fastest burglar there, the problem isn't whether they're the mth fastest burglar in their subdivision. The question is whether they're the pth at Worlds--or rather, qth fastest that's going to make it to Einstein. Meaning that if you're thinking about winning the whole shebang, you're not just scouting your subdivision's burgling speeds, you're scouting all of them. And making some kind of weighted judgement, consciously or otherwise, as to what the other Einstein-likely ACs are doing during selection. Hmm...I wonder what happens if alliance selection doesn't occur at the same time on each field.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by artK

This reminds me, that based on how champs has ended in the past, I think this year, a #1 or #2 alliance will pick a robot with a really fast can grabber (w/o cheesecake) that the other alliances ignored, and said alliance will win champs because of this second round steal. It happens almost every year, with teams like 610, 16, 973, 177, 971, and 148 (the third champion robots from 2013-2008) falling to one of the last picks of the draft.

I wasn't around on CD back then, so can somebody inform me of how often on CD was the overwhelming importance of minibots discussed in 2011? I tried doing some searches and couldn't find much discussion until after champs.

Similarly, how often was the importance of lap bots in 2008 or ball-stealers in 2012 talked about?

Can people point me to threads that talk about these issues before champs in each of those years?

This canburglar stuff has been beaten to death on CD, I seriously doubt that any division will leave a good canburglar to the end of the draft. And even looking at the teams that you mentioned, the more recent ones (610 and 16) were not the last picks of the draft, instead they were selected by the lower seeded alliances. I expect something similar to happen this year, with a lower seeded alliance of alright robots and great canburglars winning a few of the divisions.

[Rangel]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

I wasn't around on CD back then, so can somebody inform me of how often on CD was the overwhelming importance of minibots discussed in 2011? I tried doing some searches and couldn't find much discussion until after champs.

Similarly, how often was the importance of lap bots in 2008 or ball-stealers in 2012 talked about?

Can people point me to threads that talk about these issues before champs?

This canburglar stuff has been beaten to death on CD, I seriously doubt that any division will leave a good canburglar to the end of the draft. And even looking at the teams that you mentioned, the more recent ones (610 and 16) were not the last picks of the draft, instead they were selected by the lower seeded alliances. I expect something similar to happen this year, with a lower seeded alliance of alright robots and great canburglars winning a few divisions.

I don't know the exact threads for 2011 but if you just watch Einstein matches, you can see how tube scoring that year became exponentially ineffective after scoring the top two rows of the scoring racks. A full logo on the bottom rack was only worth 6 points and since minibot scores varied dramatically if an alliance got 1st and 2nd, it was pretty much the sole decider of games at the highest level. I also think that awesome canburglers will make it to the very late picks since alliances will be weighing in different factors and not just canburglering. I think many captains might pick slower canburglers that are also good tote stackers vs a robot that is a awesome canburgler and not much else. Especially for the lower seeded alliances where they might still need help with tote stacking.

[AGPapa]

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

I don't know the exact threads for 2011 but if you just watch Einstein matches, you can see how tube scoring that year became exponentially ineffective after scoring the top two rows of the scoring racks. A full logo on the bottom rack was only worth 6 points and since minibot scores varied dramatically if an alliance got 1st and 2nd, it was pretty much the sole decider of games at the highest level.

I know how important minibots were on Einstein, what I want to know is Did the alliance captains drafting in 2011 know how important minibots were?
This year we have very active CD threads always discussing the importance of canburglars. GameSense talks about it, Looking Forward talks about it; did people in 2011 talk about minibots like we're talking about canburglars now?

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

I also think that awesome canburglers will make it to the very late picks since alliances will be weighing in different factors and not just canburglering. I think many captains might pick slower canburglers that are also good tote stackers vs a robot that is a awesome canburgler and not much else. Especially for the lower seeded alliances where they might still need help with tote stacking.

This is an interesting point. I can understand how something like this may happen, but I wonder if there are enough canburglars in each division that it will happen.

[Sunshine]

I'm betting/counting on an over abundance of burglars. Don't let me down....lol

[Siri]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

I know how important minibots were on Einstein, what I want to know is Did the alliance captains drafting in 2011 know how important minibots were?
This year we have very active CD threads always discussing the importance of canburglars. GameSense talks about it, Looking Forward talks about it; did people in 2011 talk about minibots like we're talking about canburglars now

I don't remember specific DC threads (not to say there weren't any, just to say that that was years ago), but I do remember that we as a team discussed it, and we were idiots in 2011. In fact, it must have been on CD quite a lot, or there wouldn't have been so much cloning. We won Philly that year with a minibot whose identical twins were all over the FRC world. As I recall a lot of that cloning was related to the "seriously, this is becoming a coin flip" discussion. Loud discussion. And I remember lots of "refs as garage door openers" complaints vis-a-vis not really knowing if people were deploying exactly on time. It was at least known aggravation and a serious enough game mechanic that people were loud about objecting to it. I have trouble parsing how much of that was CD and how much was in person, though.

On the other hand, for you youngins' out there, we didn't have LF or or Ri3D or GameSense or Top25 or Top10 or... etcetera. (I wonder what Car Nack said that year.) So there's a limit to the ubiquity potential.

Originally Posted by Rangel(kf7fdb)

I also think that awesome canburglers will make it to the very late picks since alliances will be weighing in different factors and not just canburglering. I think many captains might pick slower canburglers that are also good tote stackers vs a robot that is a awesome canburgler and not much else. Especially for the lower seeded alliances where they might still need help with tote stacking.

Can an NE and/or PNWer talk about how selection played out at their District Championships? What was your depth in stacking and specialist(s), and where did which caliber of each end up in the draft?

And does a mod want to kick us all out, because I think we broke this thread topic.