I redesigned Recycle Rush. Introducing Speed Stackk

[AlexanderTheOK]

Its unfortunate. I really like this design. Most teams. however, designed around not having defense, and thus strategies that become very fragile with defense.

if you make the human feeder zones protected, I imagine it would be very difficult to play defense on a robot that stacks from there, as such a robot could spend the entire game in the protected zone.

I also feel however, that this game could be interesting for a non serious offseason where the teams can simply agree to not play defense. After all, you could still play the game by averages. Theres no point in sabotaging your opponent and having them sabotage you. Theres some coopertition for you!

Originally Posted by cbale2000

From a gameplay standpoint, I really like the concept, from a practicality standpoint though, there are two main problems that others have already pointed out:

1. Tall stacks blocking spectator and refs visibility
2. Stacks falling out of the field

The second problem could be solved in a few different ways; cables or nets running the length of the field (think 2013) could be used to alleviate the problem; backing refs away from the field would help a bit too.
The first problem is the biggest one though. I don't see a practical way to prevent view obstruction with this arrangement.

The other thought I would pose is that with this arrangement, you have robots from one alliance focusing on one side of the field, but its on one long side instead of a short side as is normal. Imo, it would be ideal if there was a way to split the scoring platforms so all the red zones are on one end of the field and blue on the other. Potentially you could divide these areas using single step segments but I'm not sure how feasible this would be.

Ideally a kind of polycarb backboard or 2013 style netting would be there. This was an issue that was considered in the formation of the current design style, but since it was made to be adaptable to how others wanted it I figured a solution was easy enough to be added that it didn't require being designed into the field. As for view obstruction, an alliance would need 17 stacks to take up all the space on the platform (and that's with totes in the long configuration). It should be no more of an obstruction than it was in the in-season game. I purposefully put the scoring zones on the sides and not the ends because end scoring zones kill the view from the alliance stations and it doesn't solve any of the problems from the in-season design.

Originally Posted by asid61

Even pushing a robot would cause a stack to fall from a sufficiently adapted robot with blue nitrile tread wheels, 6 cim drivetrain geared for 6-10fps. A ramming action would topple anything, particularly near the platforms.
Look at 2002, for example. Not that many teams wouls stack; they just rammed the step in auton and played defense on their side of the field.

Most robots this year don't have a drivetrain designed around pushing, and even if teams changed their drivetrains for this sort of offseason event it would be difficult to knock over stacks inside robots who have designed proper stack holding devices (and that was indeed a part of this year's game, so it's not something new that would need to be added). Combine that with how close the protected zones are to all the totes and how little travel distance is required between tote collecting and scoring and defense knocking over stacks in robots isn't enough of a concern to change anything.

Originally Posted by AlexanderTheOK

Its unfortunate. I really like this design. Most teams. however, designed around not having defense, and thus strategies that become very fragile with defense.

if you make the human feeder zones protected, I imagine it would be very difficult to play defense on a robot that stacks from there, as such a robot could spend the entire game in the protected zone.

I also feel however, that this game could be interesting for a non serious offseason where the teams can simply agree to not play defense. After all, you could still play the game by averages. Theres no point in sabotaging your opponent and having them sabotage you. Theres some coopertition for you!

I agree that most teams didn't design around defense, but I think a lot of people are comparing these robots to how well they'd hold up in the defense of Aerial Assault, not the more reasonable games such as Ultimate Ascent and Rebound Rumble (both of which have similar field setups). Even disregarding the nature of the field making it tough for high speed ramming, it's extremely easy to just have rules against it. I've seen a decent amount of robots this year, and none of them are weak enough to fail under normal defensive match conditions (and if some people are worried, optional bumpers are always easy to implement). I also considered protecting the human loading stations, but I'm not sure if that would make things too easy or not. Maybe the feeding station furthest from each alliance's scoring platform could be protected, but like I said earlier this redesign of Recycle Rush was meant to be adaptable by anyone who wanted to play it in their own way.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

/snip
Most robots this year don't have a drivetrain designed around pushing, and even if teams changed their drivetrains for this sort of offseason event it would be difficult to knock over stacks inside robots who have designed proper stack holding devices (and that was indeed a part of this year's game, so it's not something new that would need to be added). Combine that with how close the protected zones are to all the totes and how little travel distance is required between tote collecting and scoring and defense knocking over stacks in robots isn't enough of a concern to change anything.

That would be true, but from what I've seen of 2002 it is extremely hard to protect a stack. Any robot that's not U-shaped would be killed really fast, and most U-shaped bots would probably fall over due to the higher center of gravity. Most robots are far less maneuverable with totes than without, so playing defense would be pitifuly easy; just whack them as they try to get totes and watch the totes not settle properly, then block them as they try to place (this would literally be the role of the third robot on each playoff alliance, and because of the way scoring zones are set up they could block multiple at once). You would have to redesign the rules to protect any bots with totes, and then it's just Recycle Rush Mark II.
We designed to protect totes from themselves, not from others.

All that being said, watching top-tier teams like 254, 118, 1114, etc. all stack up on this field would be amazing, because they all have the necessary stack-inside-frame-perimete design and are all really good.

Originally Posted by asid61

That would be true, but from what I've seen of 2002 it is extremely hard to protect a stack. Any robot that's not U-shaped would be killed really fast, and most U-shaped bots would probably fall over due to the higher center of gravity. Most robots are far less maneuverable with totes than without, so playing defense would be pitifuly easy; just whack them as they try to get totes and watch the totes not settle properly, then block them as they try to place (this would literally be the role of the third robot on each playoff alliance, and because of the way scoring zones are set up they could block multiple at once). You would have to redesign the rules to protect any bots with totes, and then it's just Recycle Rush Mark II.
We designed to protect totes from themselves, not from others.

All that being said, watching top-tier teams like 254, 118, 1114, etc. all stack up on this field would be amazing, because they all have the necessary stack-inside-frame-perimeter design and are all really good.

I understand your point, but I still think that you're trying to apply 2014 defense to a game that would play out more like 2012 defense. I agree that most teams did not design around having a robot knock into them, but teams are more than welcome to make upgrades, and those who did not design around keeping stacks sturdy while being possessed by their robot fell short in Recycle Rush in the same way that they likely would in this game. Aside from minor defense, it's the same requirements to hold a stack together. If teams could do it in recycle rush effectively (and I don't mean barely holding on to a single lip, that failed a lot in-season), then they should have no trouble with this.


Side note - for those saying tote stacks on the sides would block the view, I made this handy dandy model to show how many stacks could fit (most alliances would get a third of this).

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

I purposefully put the scoring zones on the sides and not the ends because end scoring zones kill the view from the alliance stations and it doesn't solve any of the problems from the in-season design.

I think you might have misunderstood what I meant, hopefully this should help explain it better (pardon the MS paint, I can't open the CAD format you posted)...

Originally Posted by cbale2000

I think you might have misunderstood what I meant, hopefully this should help explain it better (pardon the MS paint, I can't open the CAD format you posted)...

That makes a lot more sense. Yeah, that's totally a viable option. There are a ton of ways this can be played out that would make it better than how it is right now. The field is so adaptable that there are multiple ways to play.

[M3rcuriel]

It's a good game layout - almost the game that Recycle Rush could have been. At the same time, however, because these robots were built for defenseless Recycle Rush, it's impractical to allow that level of defense. For instance, in autonomous, it is suddenly viable to ram teams to prevent can grabbing. Additionally, most robotics this year will just drop stacks if hit, even with significant redesign.

[PayneTrain]

Hey Andrew this looks cool but it's pretty obvious you didn't make any considerations for defensive play.

/s

I think there are some good ideas in the works here and I'm looking forward to see how it develops.