A Great Defense

[TheSousaLife]

Some of the best offense is a great defense. This proved true today at Peachtree District's Dalton Competition. #7 seed alliance (consisting of Capt. 5842, 832, and 1311) defeated #2 seed (Capt. 4516, 1771, and 1414) for one reason - defense.
832 played some mean defense against 1771 to assist in shutting down all high goal capabilities. This means of play was so effective 1771 removed all offensive capabilities from its robot and attempted to defend against 1311 and 832.

1771 did try something unexpected - blocking end game. 1771 successfully blocked 832 from getting to the batter to challenge, and nearly made it back to their own batter.

CD's thoughts on this style of play? Also any thing you planned especially for defense.

Edit: Thank you to nighterfighter for correcting my mistake in assuming 1771's main reason for taking off their arm was defensive capability. From a spectator's POV it seemed as though that was your thought process.

In addition, my apologies for stating their robot had no offensive capabilities, what I meant was they had no abilities to process boulders to score goals. (Or at least that is what it looked like from the stands).

Also to add to my above commentary Dalton's event had a lot of communications issues, which affected both alliances in these matches.

The matches put on by both alliances were exciting and fantastic to watch. Thanks once again to nighterfighter for correcting the information i had posted above.

[mrgoldtech]

Agreed! What's even more interesting is that the seventh seed alliance actually used their second robot to play defense instead of their third robot. It just goes to show that investing in a strong defense can give alliances a massive advantage.

[wilsonmw04]

Defense is part of the game this year and rightfully so. We wouldn't have won without some great defense at Blacksburg.

[sdcantrell56]

What did the defense on 1771 consist of?

[JohnFogarty]

The 3rd seed alliance captain 5632 played defense themselves when needed once a breach was completed.

I was very surprised that the number 2 seed alliance was defeated in the quarter-finals.

[cmwilson13]

Originally Posted by sdcantrell56

What did the defense on 1771 consist of?

there wasn't any of consequence that i can remember. our pg71s turned to goo inside due to a failure of or arm support, 1 crossing of a defense where they took the shock load and they were destroyed.

[waialua359]

I must be getting it wrong. We have suggested no defense in all of the 33 matches we played in 2 events, both quals and elims.
Capture is our focus, achieving it 18 times.

[nighterfighter]

Originally Posted by TheSousaLife

This means of play was so effective 1771 removed all offensive capabilities from its robot and attempted to defend against 1311 and 832.

Can I get a source on that?

That was NOT what happened, and that is the danger when you state things as a fact, that you know nothing of.

One of the PG71 gearboxes that controls our arm literally shattered. The gears inside were broken into 5 different pieces. The arm was physically stuck in an upright position, and could not move at all.

The decision to take the arm off was not because of the defense being played on us. It was because our robot could not enter the starting configuration without further damage, and if locked in place, our robot would topple over when crossing a defense.


Also, removing the ability to score balls does NOT make a non-offensive bot. You do know that crossing and breaching gives you points, which 1771 was able to do without the arm, except the portcullis, which adds to your score, and is therefore an offensive capability.

Originally Posted by TheSousaLife

#7 seed alliance (consisting of Capt. 5842, 832, and 1311) defeated #2 seed (Capt. 4516, 1771, and 1414) for one reason - defense.

First, 5842, 832, and 1311 played some great matches, no doubt about that. I was really glad to see 1311 again, and working so well after having trouble throughout the day. And big thanks to 4516 and 1414, both were great alliance partners.

However, if you actually watched the matches that were played, you will have noticed that the #2 seed only had 2 working robots each match, compared to the 3 working robots the #7 seed had. Unfortunately, this game is very brutal. 1414's drivetrain died both matches after crossing a defense. With 2 working robots, the #2 seed still managed to score 98pts in the first match, and 94pts in the second match (losing by 1 point).

So I don't mean to sound rude, but the "one reason" the #2 seed lost was not because of defense.


Again, congrats to 5842, 832, and 1311 for making some really high scores and progressing in the elimination matches. And thanks to 4516 for picking us, and 1414 for an amazing run in the quarterfinals. Unfortunately, the nature of this game (the defenses, not defense from other robots) severely crippled two of us.

Good luck to all teams competing at future events; I know 1771 will be seeing lots of the same teams at Kennesaw that we played with at Dalton, it will be fun!

[TheSousaLife]

nighterfighter, thank you for correcting my errors in my previous report, will be editing that soon. With that said 1771 had a great event at Dalton and you guys showed how impressive you were time after time.

My apologies for misrepresenting what actually happened.

[Vupa]

Originally Posted by waialua359

I must be getting it wrong. We have suggested no defense in all of the 33 matches we played in 2 events, both quals and elims.
Capture is our focus, achieving it 18 times.

That may be a special case for power house teams. In many low to mid level regionals the number of competent high goal shooters are concentrated within the higher place alliances. This means that 7th or 8th place alliances may not even have a high goal shooter that's worth mentioning. This means that if alliance 7 goes up against alliance 2 and alliance 7 goes purely for capture they will be outscored every time by alliance 2 due to the extra points gained by high goals in auto and teleoperated. This is true regardless of whether or not alliance 7 captures.

With this reasoning, the only way for alliance 7 to beat alliance 2 is to prevent the capture of alliance 2 through defense. Alliance 7 will still be able to capture because low goal cycles are much faster than high goal ones and much less susceptible to defense. I'm unsure if this is what was seen at the Dalton Event, but it was most certainly the case in Utah this past weekend. 6th place alliance (1477, 5933, 3374) was able to beat out second place alliance (3021, 329, 4944) in semi-finals with some absolutely amazing defense by 3374. Although the evidence is anecdotal and subject to spectator bias, I believe defense is the best offense when lower alliances with poor high goal potential are up against higher alliances with strong high goal potential.

Please keep in mind that I argue this theory in reference to mid-low level competitions because defense matters much less to the high level robots, especially since their cycle time become insanely fast and may even rival low goal cycles in speed.

[IronicDeadBird]

#hex bumpers
#slick bumpers
Don't just design for a game design for how you think its going to be played.

[hutchMN]

Originally Posted by waialua359

I must be getting it wrong. We have suggested no defense in all of the 33 matches we played in 2 events, both quals and elims.
Capture is our focus, achieving it 18 times.

What is your reasoning behind that?
The only thing I can think of is that by doing this you're also splitting the defense three ways instead of allowing them to focus on just two robots. This could help free up the best two robots on an alliance.
BTW it was great playing against 359 in the double DECCER. You have an amazing robot this year.