Fuel Capacities

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Billfred

This screw-the-fuel strategy is bold, and may not reap full dividends in quals, but I could see it being a very high draft pick assuming the alliance captains are paying any kind of attention.

Here's the nuance for 'high draft picks' which makes specializing in GEARs so risky, IMO

Being mediocre at GEARS from either alliance station spot next to the BOILER puts any other-wise great GEAR alliance captain at risk of being declined in elims at the higher levels of play.

If there is a superb FUEL robot at an event, that team is likely best in the first draft pick spot or as captain.

Any GEAR bot that is superb under defense is a lock for getting picked by the 7th or 8th seed, as a 2nd pick, regardless of whether it's a Regional or IFI. The 1st seeded alliance is almost assuredly getting knocked off in QF if the best GEAR bot is the 2nd pick for the 8th seed. Yet for SF's and beyond, they may be likely to fall to a more well-rounded alliance that is better at FUEL.

Yet a great FUEL bot that struggles from the alliance station furthest from the boiler as a 2nd pick is likely to be passed over for a good defense robot.

Decision, decisions...

[billybarule]

All, I appreciate the responses thus far. I hope we can keep this thread on topic though, and continue to discuss Fuel Capacities of hoppers, logic/rationale behind those choices, etc.
Particularly interesting to me thus far has been the choices between HG and LG; you know there are teams out there that will focus on one or the other, but as a HG-focused team, we haven't given much thought to the LG mindset, so it's helpful and insightful.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by billybarule

All, I appreciate the responses thus far. I hope we can keep this thread on topic though, and continue to discuss Fuel Capacities of hoppers, logic/rationale behind those choices, etc.
Particularly interesting to me thus far has been the choices between HG and LG; you know there are teams out there that will focus on one or the other, but as a HG-focused team, we haven't given much thought to the LG mindset, so it's helpful and insightful.

(Sorry for the derail)

One of the concepts I've read about elsewhere is the mindset that throughput rewards more than accuracy.

An insight from my team's analysis that I haven't seen discussed much on the forums is that to decrease cycle times, in the early-mid game a team would simply re-direct missed HG shots into the LG. In late game, that same team would redirect missed shots back into the hopper to retry HG. The point is to get as many balls as possible onto the same side of the field as your BOILER as early as possible. If the opponents couldn't keep up with the sheer flow of balls, there would effectively become a cycle of balls from the overflow/feeder station to the boiler, reducing cycle times.

This would then require enough hopper capacity to get control of as many balls as possible early, while also having several ways to control entry into the hopper. It would inform nearly every design decision on the robot:
- Taller robot volume for the easy passive redirect
- Open frame or tiny frame for a floor intake
- Any intake would push balls up from the bottom into the hopper in order to make a bubble of balls on top. Maximize the hopper or bust!
- Want a bulldozer for the balls we can't fit into the hopper.
- Who needs indexing? A 15"-wide shooter would work wonders for throughput.
- The hopper needs to expand to the maximum volume - i.e. to the bumpers' edges.
- Single speed transmissions - 2-speeds take up to much volume
- The 4 available non-drivetrain 40A ports on the PDB are going to intakes and the shooter
- 4WD WCD, Chain-In-Tube becomes one of the best plausible space-saving designs
- Hope we can make a climber in a tiny space (for average teams it is unlikely to have confidence this is a definite 'yes' in the few days after kickoff).