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#1
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
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The more experience your drivers have, the better they will be at all aspects of the game, especially defense. There's something to be said for keeping your design simple and finishing early so that you're drivers (and programmers) get more time with the robot. And the thing about practicing defense is you don't even need a full robot to begin practicing; all you need is a functioning drive train. Unless you can pull off a more complex drivetrain such as swerve or octocanum, I'd stick with tank drive (as in 6 traction wheels, not treads). This is a very contentious topic, but most people, myself included, would highly advise against using a mecanum drive or an H drive, as the (slightly) increased mobility is outweighed by the fact that they will get pushed around easily by other robots. And if you have well-trained drivers, you should be totally fine with the mobility of a tank drive. As for the transmission, I like shifting gearboxes. You can have a very low speed which is great for pushing other robots, and you can have a high speed which is good for traversing the field quickly. If your talking about robot design, absolutely. All it takes to build a good defensive bot is a strong drivetrain. If you're talking about strategy, it could work. If you're confident your alliance can get 3 rotors activated but highly doubtful your alliance could get up to 4, one good use of your time instead of cycling useless gears would be to play defense. A hybrid fuel + defensive strategy for your robot might be even better though. To pickup a gear requires that you fetch it from a specific location on the field, whereas fuel can be found everywhere. This means that you can both intake fuel and play defense at the same time. |
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#2
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
I am very excited to see how D will play out this year. Can't wait.
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#3
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
After your resounding success with defense last year, will you be going all out defense this year? If so, care to share ideas about defense?
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#4
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
Remember that this field is mirrored rather than rotationally-symmetric. This means that the pinch points your defensive bot exploits also force your partners to go even further to place their gears. Sure, we could start getting into "but we'd go here, and you'd go there, but what if this and that.....". Yet there still remains a fundamental issue with playing zone defense that has no easy answer.
Just be sure your bot can deal with 120-150lbs of another robot crashing into you because you decided to get in their way while their robot was in 'ludicrous mode' . |
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#5
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
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#6
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
Our team saw the defensive strategy in this game as being similar to Aerial Assist. Both had fairly open fields, and pinning for longer than usual was allowed. What worked very well for us was going across the field at full speed on a 6-CIM drive and hitting opposing robots, then shoving them. It is unclear as to whether this is allowed this year, but a hit to a corner would definitely throw off a team's aim. A hit while placing a gear on the peg could also interfere, as could blocking chokepoints. What I'm trying to say is that we think that harassing opposing robots is better than constantly trying to defend. One idea we also had, which is of questionable legality, is to ram the opposing alliance's airship while a pilot is lifting a gear. If this is allowed, and depending on the construction of the airships, this could cause a pilot to drop a gear.
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#7
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
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I think that this really isn't the best possible defensive strategy. Your better bet would be to go after the robot while its trying to place the gear. Even if their gear just drops into a slot that the drivers pick up from, which is by far the simplest option that there is, then you can still hamper the teams ability to proper place the gear on the peg. |
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#8
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
This kind of thread is among my favorite. So much good information, point and counter-point, and I most often defer to the teams with the most experience in planning and executing this aspect of the game.
This year however has two very striking differences, and only one mentioned here so far. The fact that this years field is mirrored, meaning that instead of counter current flow, most team's modeled and practiced cycle times will likely mostly occupy the same space, leading to offense basically having a built in defense - or the stronger bully wins. This also means that defensive skirmishes have to be well designed and executed or you are interfering with the cycle time of both you and your opposing alliance. Couple that with more than one skirmish and you could shut down the whole field, especially in elims with 4 total gear runners. The second difference is the possibility for hundreds of game pieces littering the field. Not all robot-robot interaction is going to be the classical, and by now predictable, bumper-to-bumper, my drive train is better than your drive train pushing around...there's going to be balls (and maybe gears) stuck between bots in what may be a completely untested fashion. Remember the old trick, now outlawed, of putting solid noodles on bottom and hollow on top in order to jack up an opponents bot to get the upper hand. I predict many robots will be getting jacked up on fuel, and I'm not talking about Red Bull. This years game is sure to be a crowd pleaser, and I further predict as the competition weeks progress, when offensive strategies progress so too will defensive strategies and we may not see the steep curve in high scores that we did last, especially considering the diminishing returns of gear running. |
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#9
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
What about a team who builds a very small drivetrain then just defends shots.
Ex. A team chooses the 36x40x24 volume and builds a 29x18x24 chassis. They can now extend approx 15 inch from their frame. They could extend a 15 inch shield or sorts to hover over top the opponent shooter. Like team 1405's robot in stronghold. |
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#10
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
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#11
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
One thing that might happen is robots is fuel getting stuck in gear mechanisms, specifically passive ones, incapacitating them for that match. In theory, intentionally doing so is almost definitely illegal via G08.
"Don’t tear others down to lift yourself up. Strategies aimed at the destruction or inhibition of ROBOTS via attachment, damage, tipping, entanglements, or deliberately putting a GEAR on an opponent’s ROBOT are not allowed." Violation: FOUL and YELLOW CARD. If harm or incapacitation occurs as a result of the strategy, RED CARD. There are some hypothetical scenarios where this could be a problem however. If robot A pushes robot B into a hopper, causing one of the 50 balls to get stuck in, and incapacitate one of the mechanisms on robot B, what happens? How do you judge intent of an otherwise acceptable defensive action? The strategies "aimed at" wording makes it seem like intent would need to be present to draw a foul, but wouldn't it therefore be a result of strategy and always draw a red card? Obviously it is the head refs discretion, but is there any direction you think these rulings would normally go? |
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#12
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#13
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Re: Defensive Robots/Strategies?
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