Calling All Drivers

[jamie_1930]

You know you have the match in the bag if your alliance partners are counting money before hand, in place of strategizing.

[Chris is me]

Don't get hit.

Have a plan. Take your three robots, take the other three, sit down before queueing and go "which one can score the best? Which one is most mobile? which one is likely to not do anything?" Take your mobile members and make them pin people, take your high scorers and have them handle balls, and keep the powerhouses in check as you try and juggle this game.

[gorrilla]

dont give up if the odd's are'nt good


3 moderately good robots can easily defeat a superior alliance with the right strategy......

[cziggy343]

speaking to your alliance beforehand is of the utmost importance. without any team chemistry whatsoever, your chances of succeeding are slim to none.

stay in your alliance's "safe zones." this refers to the areas where your alliance's payload specialists are located. this is especially important if you are facing an alliance with robots that are not large scorers b/c the PS is the only way that they will be able to score in bunches.

this is more to the programmers... but please PLEASE move your robot in autonomous... it is very difficult to get up a strategy knowing that as soon as you gain control of your robot, you may already be down by 20+ points.

super cells are important! if you can pick up off of the floor, but you are not a very reliable scorer, you may want to seriously consider becoming an empty cell runner. a robot that specializes in running empty cells is a very hot commodity to a winning alliance... b/c i know that scoring teams like ours do not want to have to mess with the empty cells b/c it slows us down and messes up our groove.

the obvious: keep moving. the longer you sit, the more you are a sitting duck for good robots and for good PS.

[Matt382]

Deliver empty cells when its convenient. Usually, the outpost is open to go pick one up right after autonomous ends, but if it isn't, don't go for it. Go play defense or score moonrocks and come back later.

Don't pin a robot in front of the opposing team's human player. I've seen plenty of robots do this and a human player will just load up your trailer and it usually isn't worth having their robot pinned.

Keep moving, but remember that turning all the way around is hard and it takes longer than you would think to stop.

Stay smart. This is probably the most important thing. You need a smart drive team, one that can strategize well before hand and handle strategy changes based on field conditions.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by gorrilla

dont give up if the odd's are'nt good

This is one of the best pieces of advice posted in this thread.

Never, Ever say a match is won or lost until the final score is posted. I've seen too many teams say we're going up against (XXX) and they're awesome and we're going to get owned. If you take that mentality then of course you're going to lose. Go out to every match and do your best, a wise man once told me "A Robot can Always be fixed but a Match can never be Replayed."

Also, Keep a level head. (I suffer from this) Don't ever get too big of an Ego. No matter how awesome you were in the last match, your last regional, last year, last decade you could still lose. A battery could come unplugged, your robot could reset, the field could drop you, your robot could throw a chain, you could get triple teamed by the opposing alliance, you could get pinned in a corner for 2 minutes anything can happen. Always be ready to work your butt off and play each match as if it were your last.

And something I've found out in the last few weeks, Stay away from drama at a competition. If you know there's someone on your team who stresses you out then try to stay away from them. I've seen first hand what team Drama can do to a Drive Team's performance and it's not pretty.

[its da PAT!!!]

before the match the coach, button monkey and me look at the field and look where we wanna go and where not to. We call it the "triangle" stay in your triangle drive towards your human players. Also if a dumper has to dump all there balls at once, play possum once they start to dump get out of there and snap, they lose all the balls and have to go pick up.

[bigbeezy]

im not a driver this year, but from experience of driving for the past 4 years I would say one of the most important things is to keep your cool. Getting frustrated when things arn't going your way only causes you to make mistakes, thus making you more frustrated.

from watching teams you could tell some drivers have bad tunnel vision. they get so locked onto one robot they miss the robot stopped in the corner a little ways away. This is solved mostly with practice.

when your alliance has a supercell you should "go fishing." you need to get your opponent to your corner so if u act as "bait" you may be able to "reel in" another team then when they get close you strike back pinning them into the corner making a easy shot for your HP.

[Greg Peshek]

Originally Posted by bigbeezy

from watching teams you could tell some drivers have bad tunnel vision. they get so locked onto one robot they miss the robot stopped in the corner a little ways away. This is solved mostly with practice.

when your alliance has a supercell you should "go fishing." you need to get your opponent to your corner so if u act as "bait" you may be able to "reel in" another team then when they get close you strike back pinning them into the corner making a easy shot for your HP.

A good coach generally solves the first problem, you want your base driver to be able to lock onto a target and go after it and look for other options, but you also want a driver that will listen to a coach that lets them know if there is a much more open robot. A good coach is a nice redundancy system for a good driver.

I don't like playing the bait game.. because it can end up very badly. I have planned with my alliances in the past to corrall the opponnent into the corner. You just get two or three robots to drive them over there and then you have a wall setup so they can't get out and your HP can get a nice shot.

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but something we found useful was coming up with hand signals between the coach and HP if you're on different sides of the field. We had signals for "get me the empty cell", "partner is tied up, we need to get the empty cell", "start throwing balls onto the field for our robot", among more. They are really handy for communication.

-Greg

[rockbga]

Learn to drive backwards with the trailer attached.
This helps with pins and helps you be more agile.

[roboraven15]

definatly consider baiting dumpers if you cant normally outrun them or such. like one team with traction control twice only scored a few balls on us when we obviously couldn't run away faster than them, so we'd slow down, wait for the moment they should dump, and drive off. and get far enough away before they could react and follow. they wasted atleast 3/4 of there balls easy.