I think not having automated penalties but instead having a light or something show up on the field to notify the referees of a potential issue would work.
We played early, and there were two very different games–we didn’t shoot a single ball at Palmetto or Orlando because everyone was hellbent on breaching.
As such: No extra ranking points for breach or capture, just score the 20/25. That may not be the vibe I’d have if we played later in the season, but that’s what I’m going with. 
I think this years game was pretty good. At the very least it had a narrative and a flow to it that many games have lacked, and that made it easier to explain to spectators. I only have a few quibbles, and they really are quibbles with the benefit of hindsight. All the same;
Visibility. The drawbridge, portcullis and sally port were simply too hard to see around, over or through. The drawbridge didn’t need to be that tall or opaque and the sallyport didn’t need to be opaque at all. The portcullis is alright, but it’s still huge.
Other things that were transparent would have benefited from some tinting or other way to help make them visible; the dividers on the batter are nigh on impossible to see from across the field. I know that the GDC said that visibility was part of the challenge, but that strikes me as retconning. There’s no way they set out to make a game that obstructed driver visibility so much on purpose. They wanted a draw bridge that looked like a draw bridge and only after they got it did notice what it did to visibility.
The secret passage was probably not a great idea. I get what they were trying to do, but what it turned into was just a way for more fouls to get incurred. It seems like the GDC frequently creates these sorts of ‘protected’ alleys that require piles of rules to make work. I’m not sure what the better solution would have been.
Those are really the only issues that stood out in my mind. Other things, like refs unevenly calling penalties for flipping or whatever, apply to all games in FIRST.
One thing I am really curious about is whether the GDC intended the boulders to be able to get stuck in so many ways. Obviously they get stuck on/under/in robots, but they can interfere with crosses in so many ways that the game would be different if they were bigger to avoid just that.
Low Bar: Even before the change, boulders still could have gotten stuck here, but with the new fabric you almost always risk a G38 if you are carrying another ball.
Cheval De Frise: The balls seem to be the perfect diameter and compress-ability for getting stuck under this
Rock Wall: Woe to those who try to cross the rock wall if a sneaky boulder is hiding on the flat of the defense, but behind the wall. Only a little bit will peek over, but the colors are so similar that a driver in a high intensity situation will probably not notice. A robot not trying to Dukes-of-Stronghold the defense will inevitably get stuck.
Moat: The moat is a little bit better then the rock wall, because you can see the boulder, but that doesn’t mean the defense isn’t much harder then it was without the boulder. (Making the boulder bigger wouldn’t help here, but it is just another instance of the boulders interfering)
Drawbridge / Sally Port: Not seeing the boulder, not seeing your robot, getting stuck, and not knowing anything is wrong while you continue to try to open these defenses (from behind, of course, the most popular way) takes a lot of time. Especially when you already think it is going to take a lot of time and don’t question whether you are stuck until you fail to open the door multiple times. The hard part is the boulders don’t make much of a difference in your robots tippyness, they just keep the wheels off the ground.
It seems like if the boulders were bigger, or the rules were changed so you could “hold” one ball and “herd” another, a lot of these issues would have been avoided.
Also, I would have removed the brattice. I don’t know about anyone elses experience, but I haven’t seen it used once.
Eh. Build a robot that doesn’t tip. There are bumpers, contact between robots was intended as part of the game. Building a robot that’s a bowling ball on top of a stick isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a good design.
There is a difference between building a robot that is difficult to tip over and removing tipping violations that allow robots to actively attempt to tip other robots (ex. a ramp specifically for tipping).
Even building a short robot does not mean that you won’t get tipped, look at 836.
I think a unique challenge to the design phase early in the season would have been to allow robots to manipulate and hold up to three boulders. Then, you would have had a lot less low bars capable robots and a lot more variation in design and height. Of course, you would have to add more boulders to the game in order to counteract the choke hold strategy that would exist. Number of boulders to take down the tower would need to go up as well.
I feel like there was not enough of an incentive to be a tall bot or to do all 5 defenses. Not exactly sure how to fix that.
General suggestion for most games: Change how elims work compared with quals. Make the match 30-60 seconds longer and up the difficulty of the game (i.e. up starting tower strength to 12, but give 45 more seconds). Maybe it inches up as you go into semis and then into finals. The alliances in elims are a different than quals since they were chosen to be cohesive teams. Throw them a little more of a curve ball.
Specific to Stronghold
I would add a 10 point bonus for damaging all 5 defenses in quals and up it to 20 in elims (keep the 1 RP and 20 point bonuses as is). This gives an incentive to do the Category C defenses in elims while you are scrambling to get around the defender to get balls in to weaken the tower. It also may make you choose between getting all 5 defenses and playing active defense in your courtyard. Being a taller bot helps with the Category C defenses so maybe this helps that angle.
I would also allow two balls to be carried instead of one with the starting tower strength doubled to 16. Robots could start with 2 balls. This would allow for some correction if you shoot one ball and miss. It seemed like a lot of robots spent a lot of time lining up only to miss then go chase the ball. This might require changing point values a little so that breaching points and shooting points are more in line (I liked seeing these two activities worth similar points). I think there should also be a way for defenders to “clear” balls from their court yard. Perhaps allow a defender to control as many balls as they want (i.e. push all missed shots into their own secret passage or carry 4 balls or something)
Color the dividers on the batter so they are easier to see. Maybe tape on the outer edges or something. Lots of unnecessary collisions with those clear shields.
Make the tall defenses clear wherever possible (especially the drawbridge)
No more camera poles
Allow driver station to be clamped down (C clamp should be built into driver station IMO).
Overall a very good game.
Big tangent (maybe should be separate thread): If FIRST worked out a Stronghold like game with a set of obstacles and a game piece shot into a goal and changed the details of the defenses and the game pieces and goals every year, could FIRST become more of a traditional spectator sport?
-matto-
Building a tall robot doesn’t mean you’ll be tipped either. There are plenty of examples where it seems the intent was to jostle a robot to mess with its aim, but the robot tipped.
195 at the Hartford District event used it. I’m not sure why, but it was really interesting seeing them pick up from something not many have done. Maybe for proof of concept?
Not specific to Stronghold but I’d allow playoff alliances to have the option of choosing which team they would like in each driver’s station for sight-line reasons.
This should a be relatively trivial addition since championship alliances can already choose which teams they use on a match by match basis.
I think it was called DAWGMA.
They used it because their intake mechanism was damaged.
This was the only way that they could still load boulders into their Robot.
They said that they had used this workaround before.
As I noted in my GA commentary, I had never seen it used before. I referred to the Brattice as the Litter (noodle) Chute of 2016. Rarely used, but in a pinch…
It’s Playoffs, not Elims, or Eliminations.
Also, it’s Worlds or the CMP, not Nationals.
(Sorry, just something that my OCD has issues with)
I would create the game so that one of the field volunteers must don a dragon costume and run around on the field during the match. In order to slay the dragon, alliances must hit the dragon with a boulder eight times. They can cooperate to do so. After the eighth boulder, the dragon must fall down on the field and the alliances must race to drive to the fallen dragon and play defense to prevent the other alliance from taking the dragon. At the end of the match, whichever alliance is closer to the dragon will receive either 4 RPs in qualifications or 50 points in eliminations.
Since bumpers are 5" ± 1/2", two bots with 4.5" bumpers placed high/low respectively could have 0" of overlap.
Animatronic dragon with pyrotechnics.
Sorry, confused by Lil Lavery.
What would your opinion be on the flip in this video then?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cReB8jw-ccI
We were defending them too hard, and as a result as soon as one robot drove underneath our bumpers and got us up, they both kept hitting us until 3536 made a concerted effort, and we fell over. This was not a result of us being too top heavy, or accidental hits from opponents, but a clear, sustained effort to flip and incapacitate our robot, which irreparably bent our arm, requiring us to punch a new one out before worlds.
I say that it was intentional not only because of what the video shows, but also one of the FTA's claims to have heard their drive coach yelling "Flip them".
We are lucky enough to have great sponsors, one of those being Russels Technical Products, who allows us to get custom-made aluminum and steel parts for reduced prices, but imagine if this had been a new team. Our traveling costs for St Louis are nuts, as are many other team's, and new teams or teams with less sponsors could very well have been permanently crippled because of lack of funds to both make it to competition and make new parts. And you want to make it legal to flip.
This was not an accident, not a misunderstanding, and not in the spirit of FIRST, and it should not be permitted.