2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Billfred

The referee angle is one I might indulge. Mostly-clear Sallyport, OEM Drawbridge? (If you pick the latter even now, you are very clearly making a statement.)

We have a camera pole - visibility for the drive team isn't a concern. Visibility for referees is. Sally port has precedence over drawbridge.

We're already used to doing 3 crossings for full damage credit , so increasing to 3 crossings per damage wouldn't be a big deal. I could get behind that change as well.

[IndySam]

Addition of a crossing guard, a scorer who's job is just to count crossings to relive the refs for more important things. I'll be the first to volunteer.

[Hitchhiker 42]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

We have a camera pole - visibility for the drive team isn't a concern. Visibility for referees is. Sally port has precedence over drawbridge.

We're already used to doing 3 crossings for full damage credit , so increasing to 3 crossings per damage wouldn't be a big deal. I could get behind that change as well.

Be careful... you might have to do 4 now!

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Hitchhiker 42

Be careful... you might have to do 4 now!

I know it's said in jest, but I would not expect that at this event. The official eyeballs should be plentiful. Especially if Scott is a crossing guard - does he get to wear the vest and carry a stop sign?

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Addition of a crossing guard, a scorer who's job is just to count crossings to relive the refs for more important things. I'll be the first to volunteer.

Provided they can get the extra volunteers, I vote for this too.

[carpedav000]

-Allow teams to shoot from the neutral zone during teleop
-Eliminate the drawbridge
-3 crosses to damage a defense (If not, only make breaching worth bonus points, not a ranking point.)
-Autonomuos low goals worth 10 points
-Accidental tipping no longer a red card (damage inside the frame perimiter still a red card)

[Captain_Kirch]

These may have been said before, but I'll toss em out there anyway. I'm not saying put them all in, they're just possible changes.

Auto
Remove the up to 1 scored crossing in Auto. Or count up to one crossing for each defense during auto( this makes autonomous far more interesting and emphasizes coordination)
Make auto shots worth more damage on the tower
Robots can start anywhere on their opponents half of the field. (No spy bot rule)

Defenses/breaching
3 crossings to damage a defense
All defenses must be damaged for a breach
Eliminate defense classes, any combination of the 8 can be present.
Remove drawbridge or make the drawbridge transparent(no amount of driver skill can make up for being too short too see over the drawbridge.)
Low bar crossings don't count towards score in any regard, it would then just be an easy route into the courtyard.

Tower/shooting
Change base tower health
Make high goals worth more points
Make high goals worth more damage
(Low goal robots are a bit op in low to mid level play, probably not a concern at High levels though, right?)
Make scales worth more points
Make challenges worth less (or no) points
(Challenges are basically free and Scales are wayyyy too undervalued)

Allow alliances to pick their position on the alliance wall, at least in elims.

[Kevin Leonard]

I like some of these changes quite a bit.

Transparent drawbridge is a good idea. The idea of static defense arrangements is interesting. Perhaps just for quals? Make the blue defenses one set for all of quals, and the red defenses the other set.

Eliminations defense selections proceed as normal.

I'll likely comment later with other ideas, but these seem pretty solid.

[Koko Ed]

10 points for hitting a shot in the top goal from the neutral zone in the last 20 seconds (so teams don't get cute and keep "missing" to move all the balls from the neutral zone to the courtyard all game long to make it easy for robots to light up the towers).

[rich2202]

Originally Posted by IndySam

Addition of a crossing guard, a scorer who's job is just to count crossings to relive the refs for more important things. I'll be the first to volunteer.

Right now, they have 5 refs + head ref working in a zone formation.

IMHO, they should have 6 refs + head ref working in a man-to-robot formation.

It is much easier to see/call crossings and fouls if you are watching one robot continuously. Also, when a robot-robot foul happens, there are 2 ref's that will see it.

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.

Sally port crossing for a Ref on the wrong side (blocked by the open door) is also an issue. But, that is also a current problem.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by rich2202

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.

I'd make bulldozing boulders while possessing another permissible... nothing worse than getting a boulder caught in your drive train slowing you down, and getting penalized on top of it. Insult to injury.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by rich2202

Right now, they have 5 refs + head ref working in a zone formation.

IMHO, they should have 6 refs + head ref working in a man-to-robot formation.

It is much easier to see/call crossings and fouls if you are watching one robot continuously. Also, when a robot-robot foul happens, there are 2 ref's that will see it.

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.

Sally port crossing for a Ref on the wrong side (blocked by the open door) is also an issue. But, that is also a current problem.

I like this. It also allows referees to better judge intent, because they've been watching the same robot the whole match.

I'd add a clause that if a robot is trying to pick up a ball, and two end up touching the collector, that's not a foul.
I can recall multiple times this season where teams are going to pick up balls and get penalized for touching two of them. Also a particularly memorable one was where 2791 was lining up to shoot their batter shot, and two balls happened to be sitting in front of their robot when they did so. 2791 wasn't trying to pick those up, but they got fouled for it anyway.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard

I like this. It also allows referees to better judge intent, because they've been watching the same robot the whole match.

I'd add a clause that if a robot is trying to pick up a ball, and two end up touching the collector, that's not a foul.
I can recall multiple times this season where teams are going to pick up balls and get penalized for touching two of them. Also a particularly memorable one was where 2791 was lining up to shoot their batter shot, and two balls happened to be sitting in front of their robot when they did so. 2791 wasn't trying to pick those up, but they got fouled for it anyway.

This is one of those rules that was called differently per region. Some regions were much stricter about how "possession" was interpreted than others - in NE this kind of thing was basically never called unless a robot was clearly controlling two balls at once. I hope this is how IRI calls it as well. No need to bog the game down with these kind of penalties.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by rich2202

Right now, they have 5 refs + head ref working in a zone formation.

IMHO, they should have 6 refs + head ref working in a man-to-robot formation.

It is much easier to see/call crossings and fouls if you are watching one robot continuously. Also, when a robot-robot foul happens, there are 2 ref's that will see it.

What you miss (and what is missing now) is all the loose boulder fouls. If a boulder is in the Outerworks, who knows where it originally came from.

Sally port crossing for a Ref on the wrong side (blocked by the open door) is also an issue. But, that is also a current problem.

I'd be interested to see this implemented. As a non-ref, I think it makes a lot of sense, but it wasn't viewed positively by refs in this thread.

[Captain_Kirch]

After seeing the playoffs in our division(Carson), we need the high speed impact rule from 2014 back. It was carnage.