So, last year, we all remember how crucial autonomous was to winning a match. The 10 pt bonus, but more importantly the chance to go on defense first, allowing you to gather more balls and have one big uninterrupted offensive period consisting of your offensive period and the free-for-all period.
So I was wondering, while at first glance, this year doesn’t really give substantial reward to a succesful autonomous other than a guaranteed spider for the rest of the match, how do you think this will affect gameplay?
Will autonomous be as crucial as last year? Or not?
Oh you can make Auto mode very important. Remember keepers are permenant rings, therefore your opponent can’t negate them. You own that 2 points and possible place to combo off of.
Therefore the ability to score keepers in plain view of the other alliance will not only give you points, but will be one less place for your opponents to score easily from.
Auto-mode will make or break some matches, and might not matter to some matches.
I think auto mode will be important for setting the tone for the match but after that the telecontrolled period is what the game is. The most you can score is eight points in auto mode and guarantee starting places. Teams must perfect their teleoperated section of the game much more than their autonomous mode.
Based on my reading of the rules, I don’t see where the autonomous mode is that critical. With only six weeks to build and perfect an operating 'bot based on the rules and KOP, I think that more time should be spent on the operator-controlled and Home Section portion of the game.
I may be wrong, but the maximum an alliance can score during autonomous is 8pts, and no other advantage (ie, go on defense first, or score additional pts).
With that in mind, why should a team spend a lot of time on that aspect of the game?
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Okay, so 8 pts is the maximum score you would have after auto mode. BUT you now have 3 rings in a row that can’t be spoiled. You are only 2 ringers away from 5 in a row, and the center isn’t spoilable, so the other team needs to quickly block you from taking the two edges, otherwise you will quickly accumulate points and will take an irreversible lead.
Autonomous is close to usless this year, IMO. It’s only an automatic row of three if you are teamed with two bots that can set up rings right next to each other w/o conflicting with you or themselves, then it won’t do much good.
I wish they would have at least made keepers worth something like 10 points when you placed it on the rack. Outside of having a permanent space this isn’t the apparent deathblow to your chances autonomous was last year where you could put a team down 40-0 and drain away their will to live.
One other thing that comes into play with auto mode is that there are only 4 lights and 6 robots, so if one alinace decides to go for the lights that leaves one open and what if all 3 of the opposing robots are doing the same thing? there will be 6 robots going for 4 lights. There is going to be all types of contact but that is assuming that everyone uses the camera.
It does give a neat opportunity to program the robot to find the spider leg between two lights…which is probably why the camera software can recognize two targets…
I’m very disappointed by autonomous mode this year. It seems almost like an afterthought to the game and not really thought out or effective. I also think the lights are going to be exceptionally unhelpful given how unstable the scoring structure can be, but I expect some team will pull a miracle of programming wonder and prove me wrong, I look forward to that.
I agree with others in saying that i am disappointed in the autonomous mode this year, while it does present an interesting challenge no doubt, it seems like it is of secondary importance and is not being looking upon like it has in the past. I was kind of hoping that this years game would have presented a more interesting challenge…
The advantage is essentially, you get an additional “spoiler”. Because the tube cannot be nor spoiled, if each team on one alliance puts one on each level, the max points for the opposing alliance is greatly decreased ( as the max for each level drops to 128 from 256)
This year’s autonomous will not be AS important as Aim High’s (where the winners of autonomous won a vast majority of matches), but it will be far more important than in Triple Play or FIRST Frenzy. Depending on how the game plays it could be minimally the value of Stack Attack, but it could range to have great importance.
Keep in mind, it is possible to negate your opponent any chance to a 8-row in autonomous. Additionally, you have either 2, 4, 6, or 8 points that cannot be negated. Other placements can also allow for rapid growth and creation of further rows, or the ability to eliminate your opponents from doing so.
I agree. I think this year it will not be as important because you do not get any major advantages like a little break to get balls. I think that this year it is however crucial nonetheless because you automatically have three rings in a row that can not be moved. This means that it is easier to make four, five, etc., in a row.
Autonomous can mean that the opposing team has no chance at all at having a row of 8, (which will be very hard to accomplish anyways), and if you can get a keeper on, it can’t be negated. I think it’s very important.
I see what some of you all are saying about this not being as challenging, but here is an idea for you.
Let’s just say that you have a very fast drivetrain that is capable of beating the other alliance’s robots to THEIR side of the rack at the beginning of autonomous. If you do, you now have the opportunity to allow your program to do the aligning and scoring on your blind side. This not only could give your alliance a definite defensive foothold on the other side, this could give your alliance the opportunity to build even further around (6, 7, maybe even8), and as you came further around to your side of the rack, the harder it would be for the opposing alliance to get a spoiler in the most desired place on your row (middle, I would think, would be where you’d want to break it up). Now, just think how dangerous 3 bots with this ‘blind-side auton scoring’ capability would be. it would make it wery feasible to get an 8-ringer row.
<I know this is a stretch, and I don’t know if i can talk my team into trying it, but I think it would sure be cool if someone could pull it off.> JH
This is an important perspective that I hadn’t considered. In 2005, fifteen points was a good score for autonomous. Two was most common. In most matches, it wasn’t a dealbreaker either way, but it gave you a head start by possibly holding a whole row, or at least a pair of goals. In 2004, unless you were team 190, autonomous wasn’t a huge deal (much as I loved it) because it just meant that you had to either go to the other side of the field to herd, or you could spend the extra 30 seconds pushing goals around. From a scoring perspective, the difference in points was negligable. I love autonomous, but I think it’s key to make it so that those fifteen seconds don’t absolutely break the back of your opponent. Hanging three keepers is an achievable goal, and gives a definite advantage by starting with eight points and a chance at bigger rows. Last year’s autonomous is exciting, but it’s no fun to have your average alliance come up against one crazy robot, and start out down 40.
I think this year’s auto mode will still have great value. Maybe not as high as last year’s, however.
The Keepers scored in auto mode can be very important in the formation of chains of 6/7/8. I think it’s not very feasible to make a chain of 8 without 2 or 3 of them being keepers.
Also, “winning” auto mode can set your alliance up with a slight, yet possibly useful, lead.
