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Unread 19-03-2006, 10:07
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Re: Starve Them!

Quote:
Originally Posted by dlavery
That is not a "flaw" in the game design. It is exactly what was intended. Play out the inverse in your head - really think it through. You will see that having the team that wins autonomous immediately go on offense would be the wrong thing to do.

-dave
OK, good. That's what I thought.

I mean, if you win autonomous and go directly into offense, why bother shooting in auto mode?

It would be a bigger bang for the buck if you DIDN'T shoot in auto mode. Why let the tiny computer aim and possibly miss a bunch when you could wait and let the human (with a superior organic computer) aim and hit with higher accuracy later on. And it's not so much the aiming, but the decision to fire. In auto mode, the robot doesn't know it's about to get pushed... but the human can see that and hold off on firing.

Also, if you unload "Rambo style" into the goal and win... you are empty and just made your life harder.

In other words, had it been the other way, people would be "penalized" for having a shooting auto mode.

And I'm sure the GDC likes the increase in Auto modes. (Which, by the way, is really cool this year - best auto modes EVER.)
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Unread 19-03-2006, 10:33
meaubry meaubry is offline
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Re: Starve Them!

[quote=Not2B]OK, good. That's what I thought.

I mean, if you win autonomous and go directly into offense, why bother shooting in auto mode?

To get the bonus points silly!

Don,
I agree strategy would be impacted and that was my point in the first place. Teams developing their strategy would have to decide not only how many shooters will attempt to win auton, but also if they need one of their partners to hold onto the balls in case they lose auton.
It just a different angle - and something to think about "what if". I doubt that it would cause the best auton teams any harm, other than reduce the initial auton score. Teams that can score in auton can obviously also score in Offense periods - so it really only is a matter of time and it also slightly reduces the # of blowouts.
The concept is dependent on seeding vs, elimination matches. I was thinking only about seeding matches and NOT about elimination matches.

Last edited by meaubry : 19-03-2006 at 10:41.
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Unread 19-03-2006, 11:04
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Re: Starve Them!

[quote=meaubry]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Not2B
OK, good. That's what I thought.

I mean, if you win autonomous and go directly into offense, why bother shooting in auto mode?

To get the bonus points silly!
Of course the bonus points are good. But there is more to it than that. It comes down the the hidden value of going on defense first.

If you unload in auto mode and get 10 extra points, you spend the next 40 seconds wondering around. You are almost out of ammo. The op-force has no reason to feed you balls. They are reloading. When it switches, they are now fully loaded. Do you spend the time loading AFTER they score (slow loading) or do you prevent them from scoring? To recover 10 pts, you only need to shoot 3.33 balls - something easier to do if you are flush with ammo.

It's a wonderful problem to think about. So complex, and so many variable. Time to reload, time to pick balls off the floor, time for human player to toss the ball, heck - even time for the balls to run down the ramp and tube. If you are starving at the beginning, you don't practically feed again until 60 seconds into the game.

For my own curiousity, I checked the GLR scores. 18 out of 83 matches were decided on 10pts or less. (Which was more than I thought it would be.) 10 pts are important, but are they important to stop playing for almost half the game?

I like it today. It favours a strong auto mode. Grant it - not something 862 has, but I still like it.

Of course, I could have this totally wrong. I mean, I'm not Bill Beatty!!
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Unread 19-03-2006, 12:01
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Re: Starve Them!

Mike A,

I agree with you on most things, but not this one. I have to take Lavery's side on this one. Having the auton winner go on defense is an incentive to win auton. If it were the other way around, we probably would not have focused on auton as much.

If you do not think you can win auton, then don't shoot. Get in position and rapid fire as soon as your offensive round starts. You will overcome much of the auton deficit. I agree that winning auton is a big advantage, but not just because of the 10 points. The bigger advantage is the 80 seconds of continuous offense and the transition game that has to happen in the last 40 seconds for the team that loses auton.

I like all the different strategies that are involved in this game, but my head hurts after every match due to the incredibly fast pace. This is the hardest game I have ever had to coach. Thankfully, my student drivers are a lot smarter than me and covered for me on several occasions.
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Unread 19-03-2006, 12:33
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Re: Starve Them!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
Mike A,
If you do not think you can win auton, then don't shoot. Get in position and rapid fire as soon as your offensive round starts. You will overcome much of the auton deficit. I agree that winning auton is a big advantage, but not just because of the 10 points. The bigger advantage is the 80 seconds of continuous offense and the transition game that has to happen in the last 40 seconds for the team that loses auton.
At Midwest, this is exactly what team 71 did in the last match of finals. They were against team 111, who has a vicious automode, which is nearly impossible to stop due to their turret, and were winning auto every time, while 71 was wasting balls, as they were less accurate in auto than in human control. Thus they tried the strategy of saving their balls to have a huge first round, but they ended up in trouble because after emptying their stores, they went back to human load, and were blocked, not pinned, into the corner, and never made it back across half court.

Its an interesting strategy, but I am of the opinion that you must win auto mode if you want to win the match.
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Unread 19-03-2006, 13:05
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Re: Starve Them!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
Mike A,
I like all the different strategies that are involved in this game, but my head hurts after every match due to the incredibly fast pace. This is the hardest game I have ever had to coach. Thankfully, my student drivers are a lot smarter than me and covered for me on several occasions.
Paul, I strongly agree with you on this point. I was mentally exhausted after the finals yesterday.
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Unread 19-03-2006, 13:09
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Re: Starve Them!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

I like all the different strategies that are involved in this game, but my head hurts after every match due to the incredibly fast pace. This is the hardest game I have ever had to coach. Thankfully, my student drivers are a lot smarter than me and covered for me on several occasions.
I also agree. It's very hard to tell exactly where and when the opposing alliance is going to hit you. This gave our team an incredibly hard time trying to find the right point in time during the match to stop accumulating balls and start scoring. Too early, and we wouldnt score as many as we'd like. Too late, and we would have about 30-40 balls in our robot and get pulverized with defense.
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Unread 19-03-2006, 16:51
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Re: Starve Them!

I don't mean to call anyone out, but the triplets, 25 and 469 all seem to rely on that human loader a lot. I feel that if you can keep their robot at least 7 feet from the loader station, the HP wont be able to make enough shots. Granted, 469 can pick them off the ground. The triplets have accumulators, but they didnt seem to work amazingly to me (but at waterloo an upgrade maybe ) I know i've talked about this with my team, but keep those shooters at least 7 feet away is going to do wonders for your D
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Unread 19-03-2006, 18:17
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Re: Starve Them!

Here's my take on autonomous first.
I LOVE IT! The high reward for winning autonomous, combined with the new closer positioning of robots (no longer all the way across the long dimension of the field) has led to some of the most exciting autonomous gameplay I have seen. In 2003, you would see some interaction between the two alliances in autonomous, but primarily that was just two robots running into eachother on top of the ramp. In 2004, some interaction would occur when teams would go for the yellow balls to release the ball dumps early, but for the most part this was rare and wouldn't impact the entire match very much. In 2005 interaction in autonomous was zilch, none, nada. But in 2006, with such a large emphasis on autonomous, it has become an exciting and highly strategic part of the match.
Many examples could be found during the peachtree elimination rounds. At the start of our QF matches, both alliances autonomous strategies essentially mirrored eachother. 116/1533 would run to the corner goals and dump 10 balls. 1139/34 would dead reckon the center goal and shoot. 1369/1242 would try and hit the shooters to keep them from making shots. Here's where it got interesting. 1369 expierienced some errors with their autonomous, so they just spun in a circle. Both 34 and 1139 were never 100% accurate (they would either hit almost all their shots, or none at all, depending on their dead reckoning positioning). The first match, both 116 and 1533 sucessfully dumped all 10 balls. 34 hit 3 shots into the center, giving the red alliance the win in autonomous. Red alliance would advance to win the match. Match #2, 34 would miss all of its shots. 116 dumped all 10 balls, but 1533 only made 9 out of 10, giving blue the win in auto, and the match. Fearing the same result, the red alliance switched 1242's and 34's role in the next match. BOTH robots went directly for their own corner goal to prevent 116 from sucessfully unloading (Unfortunately, 116's autonomous failed anyway because it's stupid coach forgot to plug the drive motors back in after using their timeout to make repairs to the drivetrain ). Red alliance won the match.
During the Peachtree finals another outstanding example appeared. The #1 Red alliance consisted of 1261, 1414, and 1057. During most of the eliminations 1414 had run to the corner goal, dumped 10, and 1261 had sat in position 2 and fired balls into the center goal. But, because they didnt move, 1261 was an especially vulnerable target to opposing defenses. In the finals 1057 began "intercepting" opposing robots who were trying to slam into 1261, giving the #1 alliance an even more impressive advantage during autonomous (and allowing them to win the Peachtree regional).

Now onto the "starving" topic:
Starving may well be become a very effective strategy at the Championship event, due to some of the potential devestating shooter combos that may arise. But at the regional level, it has not been necessary thusfar. A vast majority of shooters need to be reletively close to the front of the ramp to shoot accurately. Because of this a "zone" defensive scheme has allowed for singular robots to block multiple shooters (even all 3 if the shooters can't fire fast enough). Running interferance has helped this some, but often it has only contributed to further traffic and less ability to get positioned correctly in front of the ramp. The most effective counter-measure so far has seemed to be having a robot than can score lots of points quickly in the corner goal to force the defense away from the front of the ramp.
By making the shooters miss shots you not only prevent them from scoring points, you allow any herders on your alliance (and their's) to grab the balls. Most highly effective shooters has been primarily human loaded (the exceptions being bots like 1731 and 435), thus when trying to stop an alliance full of good shooters, it is often to your advantage when balls are "loose".
Additionally, because of the human loading shooters, their reloading time is often the best time to play defense on them. Because of the field set up, with the ramp and the edge of the field, teams can be blocked into the area immediately in front of the human player. Many shooters prefer this area to load up, and even if they don't they are often near it when they are loading so they can be pushed into it. You can then seal them into this are (not even needing to pin them).
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Unread 19-03-2006, 19:49
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Re: Starve Them!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
In the finals 1057 began "intercepting" opposing robots who were trying to slam into 1261, giving the #1 alliance an even more impressive advantage during autonomous (and allowing them to win the Peachtree regional).
This is the "pick" strategy that 293 tried with one other team (we were the shooter) in a qualification match in Annapolis. It was not necessary, however, as our opponent did not try to defend us in autonomous as expected. A tip of the cap to the alliance that pulled it off successfully; I wish I was there to see it.

In elimination rounds, we made at least two shots every time in autonomous (except when we forgot to change the battery before SF2-01) even though we got rammed every time, and on two occasions we made every ball we shot except the first. One of those was the 42-point autonomous period (before bonus) where 293 and 103 combined to make 14 balls in the center goal. Unfortunately, that match was restarted because the light didn't come on after autonomous.
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Unread 19-03-2006, 20:35
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Re: Starve Them!

I love that FIRST has made a game where winning autonomous matters. What I do think is a problem, however, is that the computer does not always assess correctly which alliance won automode. That the decision is incorrect is often obvious to the teams, the refs and even the spectators.

The effect of an incorrect determination as to which alliance won automode is far greater than the 10 points. It's about the strategy the team plays for the duration of the round. This is true if you think you are ahead by the 10 points, or if you are forced to play offense first because it determined incorrectly that you lost. The 10 point swing at the end when they finally get it right cannot begin to compensate the teams for this.

I am hoping from now, through the end of the FIRST season, the refs will stop the play for however long it takes to manually figure out who won autonomous mode, and even reset the scoreboards, if necessary. Getting it right is far more important than the minute or two we may have to wait.
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Unread 20-03-2006, 13:19
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Re: Starve Them!

I am looking forward to seeing team 469 in Georgia, since their design is so similar to ours. It took us a while to get the camera and turret in sync, but when it came together at the Boilermaker, it changed everything. I just want to thank team 1272 for looking past our poor ranking to pick us. Additionally, I would like to thank team 1319 for their great defense. I am thrilled with the way that the autonomous period dictated the strategy of the entire game. It was the primary reason for our accomplishments during the finals at Boilermaker. Looking to forward to West Michigan in a couple of weeks............
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Unread 19-03-2006, 13:34
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Re: Starve Them!

The 'ramming' method is a good strategy in working against robots who sit and shoot into the center goal. It cost our alliance, numerous times, the autonomous period. While my teammates and i dislike it, i dont necessarily see it as a bad thing. sometimes, theres no robot for them to ram into, instead they hit the sides at full speed and cause damage to themselves. its a gamble that teams have to be willing to take, these robots were supposed to be built with 'ramming' in mind. thus the opportunity to add bumpers. Also, one team at Annapolis that caused damage, went and worked with that team to fix it in time for their next qualifying. teams should just slow it down so they do minimal damage to themselves and other robots.
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Unread 19-03-2006, 19:32
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Re: Starve Them!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Not2B
It would be a bigger bang for the buck if you DIDN'T shoot in auto mode. Why let the tiny computer aim and possibly miss a bunch when you could wait and let the human (with a superior organic computer) aim and hit with higher accuracy later on. And it's not so much the aiming, but the decision to fire. In auto mode, the robot doesn't know it's about to get pushed... but the human can see that and hold off on firing.
There's a couple solutions to this. One is to mount the gyro somewhere on your robot.. if you get pushed, it's angle will be off so you can stop shooting. (This is the easiest to do now, as the gyro+wiring weighs very, very little. It also doesn't require any hardware modifications)
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