Increasing tower strength for Championships.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

We were counting the number of lights on the TOWER to see what the max strength could be at IRI ...

So how many lights are there?

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

So how many lights are there?

More than 20 ...

[EricH]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

More than 20 ...

Is that per string, or between the two strings? Might need both strings individually at IRI...

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by EricH

Is that per string, or between the two strings? Might need both strings individually at IRI...

Have you considered using full vs. half strength light to double the possible strength?

[Thad House]

The rules already deal with the light strength. Its possible for it to go above 8 already, and all it does is up the counter on screen but doesn't do anything with the lights. In all honesty this would be fine, as most teams wouldn't really care about the strength until it is less then 8 anyway. Most won't care until its down to 4 or 5 anyway.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

Have you considered using full vs. half strength light to double the possible strength?

Not with that material they're shining through, or at that power. If you were using a full-on stage lighting setup, that might work. But that's a *little* bit harder.

Just not quite enough difference in brightness.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by GaryVoshol

More than 20 ...

Originally Posted by EricH

Is that per string, or between the two strings? Might need both strings individually at IRI...

Now this kinda makes me want to see an IRI "speed challenge" to see what alliance can take down a high strength (25+) tower the fastest.

[Chak]

Originally Posted by ToddF

The number of crossings required to take down a defense, and the number of goals required to capture the tower are semi-fixed by the number of lights on the ramps and the tower. Changing the requirements would either be confusing or require hardware changes to the field.

There are, however, some simple rule changes which might make breaches and captures more difficult.
breaching:
1) All five defenses required to breach.

captures:
2) Increase the number of boulders allowed in a tower from 6 to 8 or 10.
3) Reduce the number of boulders on the floor from 6 to 4 or 3.
4) Offensive robots prohibited from entering the secret passage regardless if a defender is present.

both:
5) No penalty for defenders interfering with defense crossings. (eliminates shooting from defenses as a safe zone)

I like these ideas. I think tower health increase would be the first thing to happen though, since it was mentioned specifically in the rules.

The only idea I don't like on that list is 5). We've had too many broken defenses already.

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

So how many lights are there?

I count 30 lights per string.
Tower video

It appears that the lights go out in this order:
3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4.

Increasing the tower strength to 10 would be easy, 3 LED's per boulder.
Increasing the strength to 12 (what I think may be appropriate for higher levels of play at the CMP) could be 2,2,2,2,2,2, then 3,3,3,3,3,3.
This maintains the visibility to the audience as the lower level of the tower weakening would be more obvious.

[waialua359]

I am not in favor of increasing tower strength. By doing so, match scheduling becomes way more important. The less the match schedules can dictate your success, the better.
Right now we have a healthy balance of achieving a capture, and by the time we get to champs, it should be doable for a lot of matches with decent robots.