2016 IRI Rule Change Suggestions

[Tom Line]

Change a challenge to only require 2 robots. Stop penalizing alliances a RP just because another of their robots doesn't show up to the field (happened to us 3 times this year). Keep a capture at 3 robots.

Please do NOT remove the safe fire zone in the defenses. Too many teams designed with this in mind (us included).

Change accidental contact when crossing defenses so it isn't a foul.

If a robot breaks down, don't allow other teams to gain points from them. A blue alliance robot broke down in our courtyard and it made me feel a little immoral when two of our robots hit him trying to get to the batter and got climb points for it. If they interfere with something fine, but being broken down in a corner.... no.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by rich2202

Tactical Flashlights must be on a switch for safety purposes. Accidental shining of flashlight near person (spectators included) is a technical foul, quickly escalating E&R with a red card foul.

These lights are not classified as lasers. They are not focused enough and your blink reflex is fast enough that they do not create a safety issue.

We are using a small cree LED flashlight. Is that tactical? We had a fun discussion with a volunteer at worlds after passing 2 district inspections, a state champ inspection, and the world champ inspection when he told us our light was too bright. We pointed out that the field lights AND the pinpoint spots being used were much brighter than our flashlight, and asked him to have those turned off as well.

[S1LK0124]

That's true. However that was just a hypothetical situation to help explain the concept.

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

One thing I would love to know before we (or the Planning Committee) goes to insane with changing tower strength, is what percentage of qualification matches at champs had a tower brought down to 0 (or atleast had 10 balls scored) and what percentage had captures, cause this would help to see if captures were not happening because of tower strength or failure to get back to the batter.

Some of that data (from TBA Insights)

Field - Avg # Goals Qual - Avg # Goals Elims
Arch - 8.4 - 8.9
Cars - 8.9 - 12.2
Carv - 9.1 - 13.4
Cur - 8.5 - 12.6
Gal - 7.9 - 11.7
Hop - 8.9 - 13.0
New - 9.3 - 12.9
Tes - 9.0 - 10.8
Ein - N/A - 16.3

[carpedav000]

Originally Posted by headlight

Perhaps, but it doesn't really seem like there is that much space on the field to gain momentum, unlike 2014.

Keep an eye on 829:

http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2016inpmh_sf1m2

[Hitchhiker 42]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Change a challenge to only require 2 robots. Stop penalizing alliances a RP just because another of their robots doesn't show up to the field (happened to us 3 times this year).

Seems like the teams at IRI are good enough and have worked on their robot enough to show up to the field anytime they have a match.

[seans341]

Ranking should go back to W-L-T. Let the breach and capture award their playoff point bonuses during qualifications. All else should remain the same.

[Richard Wallace]

• Tower strength 11.
  
• No tiebreakers: 1 pt each in quals, replay in playoffs.
  
• Not sure about changes that would require FMS modifications, such as replacing breach and/or capture RPs in quals with the bonuses they earn in playoffs; is this easy to implement? If so then IRI should use playoff scoring in qualifications (exception: yellow/red cards in quals are still for individual teams).

[pfreivald]

If I were in charge of making Stronghold a top-tier-robot-only game, I would:

Keep the tower strength at 10, as at Championship.

Keep all the defenses. (Heck, if we can design for the drawbridge, anyone can--and if they didn't, that's really their problem, isn't it?)

Get rid of crowd selection and choose the random defense with a coin flip. (I might just be grumpy that they institutionalized a built-in penalty for having a small team.)

Change it so that any boulder that has contacted the carpet of a secret passage must be carried over the outer works to be scored (as if it had come from the neutral zone--so no more scarfing up boulders from your opponent's secret passage and immediately scoring them, though loose boulders in the courtyard are still fair game).

Change a breach to all five defenses.

I would be adamantly against changing the breach/capture QPs--robots were designed with those parameters in mind, and it would be too significant of a change at this point. As others have said, it adds both tactical decision-making and end-game excitement.

[JesseK]

Tiny change:
Spray paint the batter shields to match the color of the alliance.

Removes a massive annoyance for the drivers. Lets the audience watch great driving. Also maintains the challenge of fitting onto the batter for a scale.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Tiny change:
Spray paint the batter shields to match the color of the alliance.

Removes a massive annoyance for the drivers. Lets the audience watch great driving. Also maintains the challenge of fitting onto the batter for a scale.

I like this change a lot.

[rick.oliver]

My first choice would be to change nothing.

If you want to simplify the game for volunteers, replace the defense selection with a randomized selection of the defenses which applies to both alliances for a complete "round" of matches during qualification. Then, in elimination matches, allow the alliances to select their defenses. Keep the audience selection in both qualification and elimination.

To increase the game difficulty:

- Require that all five defenses are defeated to earn the breach points.
- Increase the defense strengths to 3 or 4.
- Increase the Tower strength to 12.
- During elimination matches, require one (or two) scale(s) plus challenge(s) to earn the capture.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by rick.oliver

- During elimination matches, require one (or two) scale(s) plus challenge(s) to earn the capture.

I imagine a lot more teams would have designed in a scaling mechanism if they knew at the beginning of season that it would strictly be a must for an Elims alliance. While I like the spirit of the change, this one puts a heck of a lot more stock into scaling robots than a normal change would.

[CalTran]

Also, somewhat related to a rules change, and may be a nonissue:
Will IRI be using the vinyl flaps that FIRST adopted ~Week 2 or will the low bar fabric made out of bumper material be reinstated?

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by Collin Fultz

Some of that data (from TBA Insights)

Field - Avg # Goals Qual - Avg # Goals Elims
Arch - 8.4 - 8.9
Cars - 8.9 - 12.2
Carv - 9.1 - 13.4
Cur - 8.5 - 12.6
Gal - 7.9 - 11.7
Hop - 8.9 - 13.0
New - 9.3 - 12.9
Tes - 9.0 - 10.8
Ein - N/A - 16.3

To me this says that an increase to maybe 11 or 12 may be necessary but not much higher