No-show teams and trailers

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

I asked this on Q&A the day it opened. Still no response.

I still haven't seen a response. I would think this would be an easy answer. Why no response? I don't think anyone would plan a strategy based on this, but I would like to know the answer...

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by martin417

Why no response?

Since the GDC hasn't responded I'll take a guess...

The answer to the question, "what to do if a robot doesn't show up," is much more complex that previous years. It's also a question that doesn't need answering until 27 February.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

The answer to the question, "what to do if a robot doesn't show up," is much more complex that previous years. It's also a question that doesn't need answering until 27 February.

I was thinking the same thing. You have to do something without giving an advantage to one alliance (other than the 3v2).

Leaving the trailer on the field: point-blank for the payload specialists, the 2-team alliance is going to be at a huge disadvantage.

Taking the trailer off the field: 3 targets as compared to two, the 2-team alliance will be at an advantage. To further confound matters, it now becomes valid strategy to not show up for matches.

You could leave the trailer on the field and supply a house robot, but that's more transportation issues. You could leave the trailer on the field, but disable one of the 3 robots (randomly), but then somebody will complain that they were messed up because they were with 1114 vs. a 2-team alliance and 1114 got shut down.

You could remove one trailer from each side and disable the unconnected robot (see above for the objection, though this is more fair--you choose who gets the trailers). You could leave the trailer on, but put it at the outpost--there's a limited supply there. You could leave it on and not allow it to be scored on for x time.

In short, there's many ways to do this, it isn't critical to do it now, and somebody's going to be unhappy any way you do it. I think the GDC is thinking this one over carefully and throwing around ideas, but not exactly in a hurried manner.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by martin417

I still haven't seen a response. I would think this would be an easy answer. Why no response? I don't think anyone would plan a strategy based on this, but I would like to know the answer...

This post from another thread probably answers this question:

Originally Posted by ebarker

To put Eric's comments into a nutshell -

a) a trailer is field equipment

b) thou shalt not damage field equipment

c) it has been so since the beginning of time.

I can confidently say the GDC is aware of the issue - at the least, Dave wouldn't have missed these threads, and people have posted to Q&A. Likely they are working on a solution that will allow the non-roboted trailer to be on the field but not present a danger to itself or to the other robots.

[JesseK]

Here's an off-the-wall solution....

How about making a queue such as what was seen for practice matches in 2008. If a robot doesn't show up, then the first team in the queue is put in their place. If that team is busy, on the field already, or doesn't want to come for whatever reason, simply put them at the back of the queue. The match couldn't count for the bot that subs in, win or lose The match would count against the team (and only that team) that didn't show up -- i.e. a loss, regardless of whether the alliance won or not. This would keep the alliance from being hurt while also penalizing the team that didn't show up.

The only way to abuse this is to sacrifice your team for the good of another team if the sub is a dominant bot or a friend of your opponents. There are some sketchy scenarios that could be derived from doing this on purpose, so we'd have to rely on good faith (or disallow the top N-ranked robots from sub'ing in) for it to work.

To pull this off, the GDC would have to re-write some code for the scoring/ranking system -- so maybe it's feasible, maybe not.

[Justin Montois]

It's an interesting thing to think about. This is the biggest risk to designing a game that is so dependent on robots in terms of actual match play.

It's for this reason that I never thought that we would see a game like this. What puzzles me is that I'm sure it had to come up during the design of the game, but they went on with the game anyway, which tells me that when this subject did come up, they had a solution or otherwise maybe they would have made a different game.

I wouldn't think it would be that hard to answer, seems there are only three options(2 of them being somewhat unfair an the last would being ?randomly unfair?)

Option 1- The Goal is place on the field with some sort of rolling support device. (Advantage the alliance with three robots.)

Option 2- The Goal is taken off the field. (Advantage Alliance with 2 Robots)

Option 3- A surrogate list is available for teams to sign up to be called in if a Robot is a no-show.(Advantage Alliance with 2 robots if say your surrogate partner is an elite team)

The only reason why they might go with Option 2 is that while the team with the no-show robot only has two goals, it also only has 2 robots to score with.

I remain interested in the ruling......

[Rick Wagner]

Originally Posted by EricH

Leaving the trailer on the field: point-blank for the payload specialists, the 2-team alliance is going to be at a huge disadvantage.

The 2-robot alliance is always at a disadvantage in any year. It might be a little more apparent this year, but it gives a nice challenge for autonomous mode for a robot to "rescue" an unattended trailer. I see no need for special action but to remove the tongue from the lonely trailer. The message from the GDC will likely be "show up for your matches!"

[ScottOliveira]

Originally Posted by Rick Wagner

The 2-robot alliance is always at a disadvantage in any year.

Agreed. Removing a trailer would minimize the disadvantage, but 3 robots would still have the upper hand.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Rick Wagner

The 2-robot alliance is always at a disadvantage in any year. It might be a little more apparent this year, but it gives a nice challenge for autonomous mode for a robot to "rescue" an unattended trailer. I see no need for special action but to remove the tongue from the lonely trailer. The message from the GDC will likely be "show up for your matches!"

I said huge disadvantage. Any 2-team alliance is always at a disadvantage, yes, but this year it will probably be more like showing up with 2 robots to a match against the Triplets in 2006 instead of your more typical 3v2 disadvantage.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by Rick Wagner

I see no need for special action but to remove the tongue from the lonely trailer.

The trailer only has 2 wheels. Sitting on the field without the tounge could & probably will pose a safety hazard if a robot hits the trailer & it tips (since it will be more subject to tip at that instance than when attached to a robot) - Although, they could just have a dummy wheel attached to the trailer without a robot in that case to give it more leverage & stability, or they could go a bit further than that (See my suggestion below)

Originally Posted by Rick Wagner

The message from the GDC will likely be "show up for your matches!"

I have to say in my strong opinion that the GDC can not be that brash about this subject.
In the past robots have been denied to show up for matches (especially on Thursday) by inspectors or other officials at the events because they are a safety hazard. I don't want a blanket "You better show up on the field!" if a team is in their pits fixing a robot so it's safe for operation.


My suggestion, & I'm not sure if this was mentioned before, is to have 2 simple kit-bot chassis, with bumpers of course (without electronics, or with the basic electronics included on them to have it register for the field software if necessary) in place (re: packed with the field) for every regional just to act as a placebo to hold the trailer for a team that doesn't show up. The other 2 teams on the alliance will decide which of the 3 spots it will be placed in.

2 kit-bots per regional (one for red & one for blue) shouldn't be that hard to come by or include with the field.

If MORE than 1 team doesn't show up for any particular alliance, I'm not sure of a recourse for that. I wanted to originally offer that one trailer would be removed if 2 teams on one alliance did not show up, but that just gives the opposing alliance an unfair advantage with trailers to score in.
But maybe that evens things out a bit though???

[Rick Wagner]

No argument there. The two-robot alliance is likely to lose if the trailer is left in the crater. Show up for your matches with a working robot!

[artdutra04]

I still don't know why everyone is coming up with weird and complicated "solutions" to the no-show-robot issue.

The issue should be simple: a regardless of whether a team's robot is there or not, the trailer should still be there. Whether you think this is fair or not with the whole 3v2 alliance issue, this is the only solution that does not yield to strategies like purposely not putting your robot on the field to limit your opponent's scoring potential.

As for "possible damage" to the robotless trailer, I think most reports on the death of the trailers are greatly exaggerated. These things have [hopefully] been designed to withstand rigorous game play attached to robots. How would removing them from a robot magically eliminate their durability?

Might they tip over easier sans robot? Potentially. Might the ends of trailer hitch scrap the floor? Potentially. Is this solvable with a Delrin (or similar engineering plastic) plug stuck on the end? Yes.

If you really don't like the whole 3v2 issue, why not do something proactive about it? Before the matches start at every regional, all teams get a match list. And any team on top of their game will always go check out those teams well before their match to talk about strategy, make sure the other team's robots are operational, and help in any way.

At the very least, make sure all teams you play with have a drivable robot base with a trailer hitch. That may mean sending some students or mentors over to help them [re]build a drivetrain or fix their teleoperation/autonomous code. Whatever it takes. At least a drivable robot can move their trailer away from the human player at the start of the match.

[Bob Steele]

Art makes some interesting points.

I think the simplest thing to do is take any empty trailers off.
Sure you only have two targets for scoring but the other team has only two robots to do scoring. I would have to say though that this would PRECLUDE the other team from using their human player.. So if you don't show up with a robot you don't get to score from your position with a payload specialist. That double hit evens the scoring in my opinion...

the team that is short a trailer is also short a payload specialist and a robot.

I also think the "placebo" robot (unpowered weighted chassis) connected to the robot is worth a look as a solution.

It would only be used in situations where there was an uneven number of robots. In all other times you would just take off the 2 or 4 robotless trailers and proceed with the game. In this way you just have to have one of these at each event.

Example 3 robots don't show up... 2 from blue 1 from red.
To even the field you take off a single blue and a single red trailer.
Hitch up the 3rd empty spot (blue) to the PLACEBO Bot... and let everyone play The single blue robot would have a tough time but it would be aided by three human players but it would still have to deal with only one PLACEBO scoring trailer.

I still think the first option is the best one...
No robot... no human player... no trailer...

You lose the human player but also lose the extra scoring opportunity for the other team...I do believe that allowing a no robot team to play as payload specialists would unbalance the game.

I think many of the teams would consider this an equitable solution.
Of course... many will probably disagree...

Good luck and see you on the field...
We plan on being there every time...and we WILL be checking with our alliance partners AND our Alliance opponents well before each match to see if there is anything we can do to help them get on the field

(This year the Seattle Regional has 25 Rookie teams.... our team AND the rest of the veteran teams there will have to work especially hard to help them all get on the field and stay there....)

oh and pardon me in advance for referring to the Payload Specialist as the human player...old school you know..
All these new terms/names confuse many of us that have been around awhile... you know that we are all really weak and feeble minded...so treat us with kindness...an occasional pat on the head would be nice...

[The Lucas]

Here is a fun twist to the placebo idea: Autonomous Placebo Bot . Its simple just:

1. Just make a kit bot
2. Give it a crazy dead reckoning auto routine that runs for the whole 2:15 match.
3. Hook the no show trailer up to it and GO!

It is not a huge disadvantage because at least the bot moves.
It is not an advantage (incentive to no-show) because they don't get to drive it.
It could be pretty fun. The auto code could be written by someone interesting (Imagine what crazy things Dave might program it to do). Or maybe the other members of the alliance could program it.

[Rick Wagner]

With all these options, it will be interesting to see what the GDC finally decides on this issue. In the meantime, my team is assuming the nominal case of the trailer being left on the field and programming autonomous alliance partner trailer rescue.