Breakaway Discussion

[dtengineering]

What? Where are all the posts saying "this game isn't as good as 200x!"? (which, of course, always disappear as the season goes on)

It looks like the GDC has outdone themselves, again... and soccer in a world cup year, no less.

(Yes, it's also a winter olympics year, but that shouldn't influence our build period too much, except maybe for a few hockey games and inconviently closed streets...)

My only concern is that some of those zones are going to get pretty crowded.

<broken record> Oh, how I long for a larger playing field! </broken record>

Jason

[Creator Mat]

after some thinking more points
5. going through the tunnel
I think this is the best choice for changing positions on the game field (which i don't think is something you should do often btw). It is safer because you don't run the risk of tipping over or losing the ball going through. Also the risk of being blocked is not a big problem. If someone blocks you from changing sections become a hindrance bot (not defense) because the more your opponent scores the better it is for you as long as your alliance can score more. I would say if you where to make a "runner" bot who depends on getting back and forth often by the tunnel, getting blocked could be detrimental. So i think all bots should have a way to move a ball over the bump be it by "kicking" or pushing

6. going over the bump
This method of travel is the best for those "frequent fliers" because no one can stop you which would be detrimental to your strategy (see the above point). However for those who want a bot who might want to switch sections once or twice a match, it would be a bad way to go. The risk of tipping would be too great for such a minor part of you game strategy. the cost your team would pay would be a lot of time and effort designing a drive train that can go over the bump and a self-righting system for when you do tip, when might not even use them in a match. Also when you go over the bump with a ball you are guaranteed to lose it because when you push it over the ball will roll away before you robot is over the bump.

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Creator Mat

1. the 0 point losing team loophole of rules 9.3.4 & 9.3.5
I think this is a easily a fixable situation by teams trying to play the game the right way. For example say you got the allstars vs. the brokebots and the allstars have scored 20 points with 30 secs left with and the brokebots have scored 0 points. For the allstars to boost their seeding they need to score for the brokebots. All points scored this way are worth 2 points (basicly an endgame). However some are saying like in these posts http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=79736 http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=79708 that if you don't score and prevent your opponents from scoring for you this could be a favorable exploitation. But beyond just being against the spirit of gracious professionalism and the spirit of the game, it will hurt you more because if you follow this train of thought you give up on the chance to win which can net you more points (don't go to the all stars team scored 12 with 5 penalties and broke bots team scored 2 argument they can be nullified with what i said before or later in this post). Also when it comes time to choose alliances no one will want choose you if you went this route and if you did get in the top eight you will be considered the "carried" team and no one will like you. Plus if to many teams to this in the early regionals, continuity of the game be d****d, i will guarantee you FIRST will change the the rules to stop this type of action. So save the excitement of the game, the spirit of the game, and the spirit of gracious professionalism.

I see qualification matches not just as competition but I think of them more as a job interview. You are trying to present your case why the other teams at the competition not only want you but NEED you like they need air. Doing nothing is not going to impress anyone and if you end up seeding by using shady tactics you are going to get turned down left and right come selection time so you probably won't be very long for the eliminations anyways. I suspect not too many teams to participate in these tactics because they won't get very far using them.

[engunneer]

One of my college professors had an interesting rule - all grades are scaled so the highest scoring test gets 100%.

The side effect that he specifically pointed out was that if absolutely everyone skipped the test, everyone gets 100%. He never had that occur. Someone (usually everyone) always shows up.

The same will be true here. Can you trust everyone else to put their shiny cool robot on the field and not use it?

Last year, they used G14 to get more even matches, and people did score on themselves to prevent it (sometimes). The same must happen here. A good driver/coach team will know when to score on themselves without risking a loss. The new seeding rules are certainly controversial, but they will also certainly make for an interesting game.

[V_Chip]

Originally Posted by Creator Mat

after some thinking more points
5. going through the tunnel
I think this is the best choice for changing positions on the game field (which i don't think is something you should do often btw). It is safer because you don't run the risk of tipping over or losing the ball going through. Also the risk of being blocked is not a big problem. If someone blocks you from changing sections become a hindrance bot (not defense) because the more your opponent scores the better it is for you as long as your alliance can score more. I would say if you where to make a "runner" bot who depends on getting back and forth often by the tunnel, getting blocked could be detrimental. So i think all bots should have a way to move a ball over the bump be it by "kicking" or pushing

6. going over the bump
This method of travel is the best for those "frequent fliers" because no one can stop you which would be detrimental to your strategy (see the above point). However for those who want a bot who might want to switch sections once or twice a match, it would be a bad way to go. The risk of tipping would be too great for such a minor part of you game strategy. the cost your team would pay would be a lot of time and effort designing a drive train that can go over the bump and a self-righting system for when you do tip, when might not even use them in a match. Also when you go over the bump with a ball you are guaranteed to lose it because when you push it over the ball will roll away before you robot is over the bump.

The introduction of a field where one may only access the other sections either by climbing the "bump" or traveling through the tunnel definitely poses some problems. (The "bump" is a foot high with a one foot plateau at the top. Also, its trapezoidal shape forms an incline at 45 degrees for each side. On the otherhand, the tunnel is only 20 inches in height, with the opening width of 36 inches and extends 18 inches deep.)

These problems definitely pose a challenge in design: on whether a team would like to climb the bump, sacrifice height to go through the tunnel, or simply be a defensive or long range robot.

Other than these obvious qualms, the game is . . . "interesting". I will not take a side yet on whether or not it will be as quick-paced as last year's.

_I am also glad that FRC added rules G36 and G39!_
(Read the manual!)

[chabotics]

I think it's going to put much greater emphasis on teamwork than any game before it because of the necessity of passing balls downfield over the bumps.

[Pausert]

Out of curiosity, who's thinking that swerve drive is the way to go? I think being able to move in both axis will be useful this year because it'll allow you to keep your kicking device aligned. I am afraid of it's durability though...

[Jane n Mike]

I find myself disturbed by the suggestion by some in this thread that legal game strategies aimed at optimizing an alliance's score are somehow incompatible with the ideal of GP. Consider the strategy of a strong team scoring in the opposing alliance's goal to maximize their seeding points, or a weak team refusing to defend in order to maximize their share of the winning alliance's seeding points. Or to take a rather more extreme case, would there be any problem with two strong opposing alliances agreeing to engineer a high-scoring tie, under which each alliance would earn triple seeding points? This is clearly the strategy under which the two "opposing" alliances could jointly maximize their seeding points.

Fundamental to the entire purpose of incorporating a reward/penalty structure into the design of a game is the notion that such a structure should encourage behavior consistent with the goals of the game and deter behavior contrary to those goals. Why should we assume that strategies like those above are somehow inconsistent with the goals of the GDC, if in fact they are tactically sound?

I like this game very much, over all, and think the GDC has done a spectacular job at posing a range of interesting problems to solve. But if the rules have the effect of encouraging strategies that are incompatible with the objectives of FIRST, that is a deep failure of the design of the rules, not of the character of the teams that aspire to play as successfully as those rules allow.

Mike Dennis
Team 1719

[goodsky]

I'll start out by saying this game looks like it has great potential! I (along with the rest of team 1902) give it a resounding Oink Oink BOOM of approval!

As a programmer, one of the things that has been on my mind the most is the target. It has not been easy in the past, locking the camera on glowing green targets or the fluorescent pink/green fabrics.

The plus side I see this year compared to last year specifically is that the target will not be moving. I am also glad to see the gyro integrated camera library this time.

I personally am still working on setting up my test platform for the targets. Does anyone else have any other thoughts / test data for how well we should expect to lock on to the goals this year?

[hg273]

PLEASE REMEMBER TO READ THE RULES!

It should be noted that there is a major difference between the SEEDING POINTS and the COOPERTITION POINTS.

The seeding points are simply your robots penalized scores. The coopertition points are your penalized scores plus 2x the opponents score. You gain no SEEDING benefit from it having be a close match, you do, however gain a significant Coopertition bonus.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by hg273

PLEASE REMEMBER TO READ THE RULES!

It should be noted that there is a major difference between the SEEDING POINTS and the COOPERTITION POINTS.

The seeding points are simply your robots penalized scores. The coopertition points are your penalized scores plus 2x the opponents score. You gain no SEEDING benefit from it having be a close match, you do, however gain a significant Coopertition bonus.

The Coopertition bonus adds to your seeding score. This does not seem like a major difference.

[Abrakadabra]

Originally Posted by goodsky

... I am also glad to see the gyro integrated camera library this time. ...

I'm curious what you mean by this? I haven't been able to find any reference to such a thing in the currently-released docs, but it sounds interesting!

Thanks!

[Dillon Compton]

Originally Posted by Jane n Mike

Or to take a rather more extreme case, would there be any problem with two strong opposing alliances agreeing to engineer a high-scoring tie, under which each alliance would earn triple seeding points? This is clearly the strategy under which the two "opposing" alliances could jointly maximize their seeding points.

This will never happen. Let us suppose we have two dream teams on the field, they maximize scoring during autonomous and teleoperated modes, and both enter the last 20 or 30 seconds of game time with 30 points on the board and no penalties to confuse the matter.

Sure, both teams could be content with 30 points and be happy that this match was very beneficial for their rankings, but it is now incredibly advantageous for both teams to try to score at least one point more than their opponents. Let me present two scenarios:

1.) both alliances stick to the agreed upon terms. Each alliance ends the match with 30 points and each team receives 30 seeding points. Everybody is happy, right... wrong! because one of their team members points out later that if they had done....

2.) Red alliance trusts the blue alliance and didn't crunch the numbers, so they stop scoring at 30 points and wait for the match to end. One of the blue alliance coaches crunched some numbers during the match, and, at the last second has his driver score one last ball, resulting in a match score of Red 30, Blue 31. The Red alliance did well for themselves and they receive 31 seeding points- the match score of the Blue alliance. The Blue alliance, however, receives a whopping 91 seeding points - their match score, plus a coopertition bonus equal to twice the match score of the loosing alliance.



See? I think we all know how that would go - and it's a good thing! It will encourage fierce competition, especially between top-tier teams. Interestingly, I think this new ranking structure will result in a general surpression (but not elimination) of defensive activity during the qualifying matches (you want to make sure you win, but only just barely), and then a massive upwelling of defensive games during the elimination matches.

[Jane n Mike]

"Let us suppose we have two dream teams on the field, they maximize scoring during autonomous and teleoperated modes, and both enter the last 20 or 30 seconds of game time with 30 points on the board and no penalties to confuse the matter.

Sure, both teams could be content with 30 points and be happy that this match was very beneficial for their rankings, but it is now incredibly advantageous for both teams to try to score at least one point more than their opponents. Let me present two scenarios:

1.) both alliances stick to the agreed upon terms. Each alliance ends the match with 30 points and each team receives 30 seeding points. Everybody is happy, right... wrong! because one of their team members points out later that if they had done....

2.) Red alliance trusts the blue alliance and didn't crunch the numbers, so they stop scoring at 30 points and wait for the match to end. One of the blue alliance coaches crunched some numbers during the match, and, at the last second has his driver score one last ball, resulting in a match score of Red 30, Blue 31. The Red alliance did well for themselves and they receive 31 seeding points- the match score of the Blue alliance. The Blue alliance, however, receives a whopping 91 seeding points - their match score, plus a coopertition bonus equal to twice the match score of the loosing alliance."[

I think you have misunderstood the scoring. Per rule 9.3.5: "In the case of a tie, all participating teams will receive a coopertition bonus of a number of seeding points equal to twice their ALLIANCE score (with any assessed penalties)." So the teams that have engineered a tied score at 30 stand to earn a total of 90 seeding points apiece from that tie. The only incentive for one team to cheat on their agreement, aside from a single extra point, is to deprive the opponents of their 60-pt bonus. That could be a ridiculously expensive decision, as their demonstrated untrustworthiness would make it very hard for them to participate in future lucrative collusions.

Mike Dennis
Team 1719

[dodar]

Does anyone see any struggle this year for teams to be able to drive onto the platform at the finale time?