How would you design "Not Recycle Rush"?

[JDGallagher]

Originally Posted by EricH

But the OTHER platform, the one farther away, is NOT protected. It is, however, worth double the points!

Maybe make it protected in the last ~3 seconds of the match?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by JDGallagher

Maybe make it protected in the last ~3 seconds of the match?

I was thinking some medium-weight bonus for having all alliance robots in the auto or staging zones myself. Maybe about a 3-stack with noodled can. Let the protection take care of itself...

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by EricH

I was thinking some medium-weight bonus for having all alliance robots in the auto or staging zones myself.

Everyone in the staging zones is a cool idea...

[Qbot2640]

Allow for individual points in autonomous, but build for more than one:
2pts - 4pts - 8pts for 1, 2, 3 robots
4pts - 8pts - 16pts - 32pts for 1,2,3,3 stack totes
6pts - 12pts - 24pts for 1,2,3 containers.

Eliminate litter throwing and allow multiple litter scores per container - but only one per container put in by human player.

Robots have to "clear a path" to containers on the step before grabbing them (can not "reach" over a tote).

[Scott Kozutsky]

Because of the design of robots this year it would be unreasonable to introduce defence. Even then drastic changes would change the game too much. Peoples designed their robots around recycle rush, not the other way around. That said...

Yellow totes act like 4pt grey totes after auto.

Flip the grey totes near the step.

Remove chute door.

Litter not in an RC is meaningless. Throwing is a foul.

A grey tote scored in auto is worth 2pts plus it's level. (autonomous landfill stacking)

Both alliances start with an extra green bin they can place anywhere on their side of the field.

[GeeTwo]

In keeping with the "recycle" theme, made it more valuable to process litter than to cast it. This would also have encouraged some noodle manipulators. How about another "white" can in the middle of the field, and each noodle delivered there is also six points?

Downplayed or eliminated the canburglar arms race. The IRI rule that each side may not contact the RCs on their left side during auto is certainly one good way to do it.

Make the inverted totes and totes on the step valuable enough to provide a good race during teleop.

• I know this won't be popular with a lot of teams, but the easiest way to do this would be to reduce the number of totes available via HP stations, and possibly to reduce to one or zero HP stations. That is, starve top teams for totes just as much as for RCs.
• Another possibility along these lines would be to eliminate the step, and provide a "white zone" in the middle where robots of either alliance may enter during teleop, and where most of the RCs and totes start. Of course, you'd need bumpers and would eliminate tetherbots, which was a neat departure for the year. Maybe this would lead to separate "extractor" and "stacker" designs.

[Paul Richardson]

Originally Posted by JDGallagher

Maybe make it protected in the last ~3 seconds of the match?

Maybe leave it unprotected, but have stacks there score over time (some amount of points every 5 seconds). This makes them immediately a focal point of the match as soon as they're placed, provides no benefit for last minute stack toppling (super unsatisfying to watch), and provides a benefit for holding a stack for a long time.

However, this could easily get boring before long, so it should probably have a maximum point value reached after ~20 seconds. This value would need to be high enough to make it beneficial to go for this instead of just building another stack. In the end I'd see mid-range teams going for this more, while the top-tier teams would be able to build non-bonus stacks fast enough to outweigh the bonus. I'd like a bit of strategic diversity in the game, rather than everybody doing exactly the same thing every match.

Also, if you open up the game to defense, we'll need to have a penalty for parking on the opponents' scoring platforms to block scoring. Something in line with the pinning rules would work, so you could still drive on them and block for a short time.