Flood strategy

Would be nice if they just said 15+ PCs is a foul regardless of the effort to put them back into play (maybe start 10s after tele starts)

Why do judges have to make a guess at how hard you’re trying to put pieces into play?
Why do we have to take a guess at what reasonable effort is?

  • The players can count.
  • The players can watch if someones about to take a shot with 5 PCs. (seriously, there are up to 12 sets of eyes behind the alliance wall)
  • Someone should be able to add 11 + 5 and say we better cycle one before that last shot earns them foul points
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I kind of disagree with this though. That would incur a lot of fouls as robots got better, as they would be able to out cycle the human player. If youre already full with 14 balls, and 2 robots score a full cycle at the same time, that’s already 10 balls too many. Are you going to penalize someone for the other team scoring? (Correct me if I misinterpreted you)

I think it should be pretty obvious what a “reasonable effort” would be. Granted, some player’s reasonable efforts may look different to others, but the rules do specify that you should try to make it obvious to refs that you are doing your best. If you are being over loaded, but are constantly moving back and forth to move the balls, even if it was only two at a time, im sure that would be enough. If you are taking two at a time, but taking your sweet time at releasing them, that is an issue. And let’s not even discuss if youre taking one at a time (unless you had some sort of physical disability, of course). IMO, it shouldn’t be hard to make obvious your “reasonable effort”.

That’s kinda what I’m saying. If you have 14 PC on the rack and you see the opponent coming to score, it’s your responsibility to unload before they get 10 PC to many.

I do really doubt that the bot will outdo the human players unless you have a 3 on 1 situation with steller scorers.

One thing that is not clear to me is the actually mechanics of assessing a H9 or H10 call.

Let’s say an alliance has 15 power cells in their alliance station and stored correctly.
Their opponents score 5 power cells to put them at 20.
The human players stand around leaving the power cells in the corral.

So would that be an H10 violation for 3 and an H9 for 15? (18 points)
Or is it 5 H10 violations for 15 points, an H9 violation for 3 points for having 16, an H9 violation for 6 points for 17, an H9 violation for 9 points for 18, an H9 violation for 12 points for 19, and an H9 violation for 15 points for 20? (60 points)

H9 and H10 don’t have any definition as to when a subsequent call can be made.

H9. POWER CELLS, recycle. During TELEOP, an ALLIANCE may not have more than fifteen (15)
POWER CELLS in their ALLIANCE STATION.
Violation: FOUL per POWER CELL

H10. POWER CELLS go on the rack. POWER CELLS must be stored on the LOADING BAY racks.
VIOLATION: FOUL.

So the the extremes are:
minimum: H9 is only on maximum number of power cells held during the match and H10 is once per match
maximum: every time the power cell count changes in an alliance station H9 and H10 penalties can be assessed.

I think H10 refers to more of if human players tried storing them on the floor or the adjacent driver station. Keeping them in the corral would be an H9, as you have more than 15 and aren’t working to put more out.

It’s more like three to three, since there will be three human players on each alliance. That, I think, is one reason why this rule isn’t unreasonable and that they won’t give a lot of leeway unless the human players are actively moving PCs and putting them back on the field. With two able to unload and move PCs behind the drivers’ stations and one at the loading station to put them back into play, it actually shouldn’t be that hard even with three really good shooters on the field. Look to see a fairly tight time requirement for moving PCs from corral to rack to field, subject only to time spent not being moved. If they’re in motion pretty much the whole time, it will likely be fine regardless of how many get shot and drop into the corral. If they’re not in motion, that’s when we’ll see fouls get called.

I’m thinking that the human players are going to get a real workout this season. :grin:

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Even if the Ref mistakes this as a “concerted good will effort” per h9 and h10, it would still violate the “it is the HUMAN PLAYERS’ responsibility to be aware if their surroundings” portion of h9.

Trying to circumvent h9 and h10 is disingenuous and against the spirit of the game, the rules, and FIRST as a whole.

Not required to have 3 human players per alliance.

H9’s “It is the HUMAN PLAYERS’ responsibility to be aware of their surroundings.” intent is for safety.
The purpose of the rack is for HP AND Refs. Without the rack how would Refs ever be expected to call H9 violations?
Think of the evolution of this game design.
Score PC. - “But alliances will just horde PC in their station until their robots come and get them.”

OK, make it a max of 15 PC in an alliance station - REFS: “But how in the heck can we enforce a count will everything going on in the field?”

OK, we’ll implement a way that makes it easy for you, the refs, to see if a team is in violation - The racks

REFS: “But that will make for a lot of violations since if an alliance has 15 and a robot dumps 5 then we have to immediately assess a 25 point foul”, “OK, we’ll put in a blue box that gives you some discretion”.

Again, if an alliance has their rack full that’s still only 14 PC and for the ref to assess a H9 they have to determine that the alliance has one in hand, or 2+ were dumped into a goal, and they have to be aware of the count of PC in the corral, from their position on the sideline how do they do that? The refs are not going to be counting how many PC a robot dumps into a goal.

H9 violations will be few and far between.

BUT, human players will have to be hyper aware of the corral. At the beginning of the season HP seem to be mesmerized by the competition and stare at robots. I envision at the beginning of the season HP are just sitting that the loading bay waiting on their alliance robot to come to the bay blissfully unaware that PC are in the corral and getting an H10 because they are just sitting and staring.

What happens if your defensive robot dies in front of your loading station in such a manner that all 5 return slots are blocked and power cells cannot exit onto the field?

edit: I call it the ‘fingers in the leaky dam anti-flooding strategy’.

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What happened if your robot dies while jammed on the opponent’s switch during Power Up?
What happened when your bot dies on the opponent’s HAB last year?
What happened is your robot died in front of the loading station during steamworks?

You lost

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Nice easy tech fouls. Run up the score with perfectly legal fouls by touching the opponent robot over and over again, giving a 15 point foul each time that happens regardless of who initiates the contact.

C8 bro

Was C8 around during Power Up? Honestly don’t remember, but I do know the strategy was employed

Pretty sure @ngreen meant blue defender dies in blue loading station.

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not sure if C8 was there during Power Up but during 2018NYUT, 2791’s alliance racked up fouls because the blue alliance got stuck under the red alliance’s scale. I do remember the rule of not messing around with the game elements (keeping the height at a certain level)

The current interpretation of C8 in combination with G10 and G11 is that the foul is not forced. The opponent robot accepted the risk of a foul by coming within fouling distance of that zone. This was the same with the protected zone next to the scale in powerup like @Fields said, and C8 (or that year’s equivalent number) applied then too.

Pushing up the scale is a different ballgame and unrelated to contact penalties.

Wouldn’t C8 also apply if the defensive bot dies and blocks your loading station, but you are clearly hitting them for the points?
This might be worth the official QA and personal Ref interpretation

Yeah, I remember seeing teams get stuck. But there was one match that I’ll try and find where two bots boxed in someone from the other alliance in their safe zone and just took turns bumping them.

Your not just running into them, your attempting move them out of the way to get balls be repeatedly backing up and hitting them :slight_smile:

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