As the kickoff for the FRC 2020 season approaches I thought I would like to post a complete summary of the theory I have come up with after analyzing the teaser and others theories several times. I would also like to hear others theories about this topic as well. So my general theory centers around the idea of a “power outage” in the last 15-20 seconds of the match. This could be described as almost like a reverse sandstorm. I will start from the beginning of the match and take you to the end. At the beginning of the match (very unlike previous seasons) there is no autonomous or vision period, the match will basically just begin. The basic premise of the game will be to fill generators full of power (based off of the battery and power cell like thing in the teaser) and light up the field for the end game. The game piece in my theory is a battery like object ( and shape and size can be disputed) that can be either shot or placed inside generators. The generators come in two sizes. One of which will stand up taller while the other lays a bit lower. The taller one can be used for placing the batteries inside with some sort of elevator or possibly can also have them shot into like in steamworks. The smaller one can also be shot into or have the batteries placed in. It will take a lot of batteries to power/fill these power cells/towers so cycle times within this game will need to be quick especially with the power outage theory I’ll explain in a second. As you do this it comes to the last 15-20 seconds of the game and here comes the “power outage”. In this period the lights on the field will go out except for lights on the robot and other lights needed around the general area. This does not include arena lights. The only way for light to be directly shined on the field would be if one of the teams had filled a power tower then the whole time period would be made a lot easier for said team. If not the team would need to climb using autonomous or cameras to see there way around the field and climb onto somethings. There are a lot of loopholes in this theory but this is my basic outline. I have not come up with a theory for what the climbing element would be but I would love to hear your thoughts on it. I also realize that this year is sponsored by Star Wars and I don’t know how they plan on integrating it. I don’t know if they will try to slap something together like for FTC’s Sky stone challenge where they just have some characters on it or they wont integrate it at all into the game despite there being star wars ships in the teaser. Again, this is all speculation and there are probably a lot of loopholes but I hope this sparks discussion about possible theories and hope some of you guys can fill in the loopholes. Thank you for reading!
Throwing something else out there:
There is probably 2 of something per half field (either two individual things or 2 halfs of one thing). The half field vs the minimal field pre-buy list are almost exactly half the materials of each other.
I could definitely see that for sure kinda of like with deep space.
I really like this, and came up with my own version along the same lines…
Game pieces: Battery Cells (Cylinders around a football in size)
Main game: Cycling Cells into (to recharge) power banks which will be utilized later
Goals: 1 High Goal 1 Low Goal
High Goal is worth 2 points per cell, Low goal is 1 point per cell.
Each Cell Generates 1/2 of a second for end game.
During a 30 second end game your robots are only enabled for the duration of time you built up during the main game period
And during end game there is some element (lets say its like Deep Space’s end game) where you get 10 points for lvl 1 climb, 20 pts for lvl 2, and 30 points for lvl 3
The catch being if you only put 10 cells during teleop, you only have 5 seconds to complete the climb.
Auto period point values remain the same, but Cells are worth 1 second rather than .5
I actually really like this except they have to be a bit acommodating to rookies and/or teams who can’t score very high because if they shut off all robots some teams would just become unable to move instantly. Otherwise I like they idea about shutting robots off.
Well thats the thing.
Even if you are a rookie and can only do cycles to the low goal and no real end game, if you can at least get a good amount of cycles in you can be a really valuable partner to a top tier team since you can help extend the endgame where they can get a lot of the points
I think that based off the game name, “infinite recharge,” and previous games, there is going to be some kind of mechanic which forces you to do something low/no scoring to score points. For example this year, hatching was worth less points and was (in my observations) more time consuming then balls. However, hatches limited the amount you could do balls.
In the context of the game, you may need to have some kind of thing charging with your battery cells which either allows for or boosts some other kind of scoring. That may also fit in with the theme of multi-game object scoring from the last few years.
Hmm. Interesting. I have a similarish theory but also different. For my start to end match here’s what I’ve got.
First 15 seconds of the match are autonomous. There are two essentially different places, charging stations, and a building zone. The game pieces are cylinders which represent batteries, and any cylinders put into the charging station charge twice as fast during auto as they do during teleop. There will likely be either different levels which charge at different rates, or different sources of power, like a solar charging station, a nuclear charging station, ect. Once a battery is charged, it then needs to be cycled to the building zone where some sort of robotic arm is “building” a city. The more complete the city is by the end of the match the better. There may also be some sort of building element that teams can do by themselves without powering the arm to maybe contrast the time based scoring relating to how long the robot is building/how complete the building is. Endgame will likely be similar to 2016/2018 pull up bar.
If not cylinders I could also see it being a shooting game, but at the end of the day who the heck know’s what the GDC has in store for us this year lol.
Laughs in San Diego Regional. We have a huge sky light right over our open air venue 
Hmm I could see that as an issue LMAO.
Footballs with 2013 esque goals and a 2010 center climbing/movement platform. Calling it now.
I think lights going out would make it very hard to spectate and for refs to see any fouls/violations. And yes, at San Diego/Del Mar we’d be set.
I like the idea of the reverse-sandstorm, but think it would be bad for FRC if there is a robot exclusion period (you didn’t score enough so you get less time to play). Also, getting the robot prepped for auto after driving around for 2:15 would be a nightmare.
Reading your post made me think up other ideas (for the theme more than actual gameplay). In Star Wars there are always shield generators, and power stations, etcs. But there are also moons. What if in this theme there is a problem with the solar power stations (renewable resource… infinite dare I say?) storing power for the imminent solar eclipse… that happens regularly enough to occur each match… and teams must bring the power grid back online (R2D2/human player) and connect back up power units before the eclipse plunges them all into darkness again.
Yeah, it seems like it’d be more balanced to just have the power level determine when the blackout curtain lowers/raises in front of the alliance station. Even without the venue hurdles, actual lights and actual robot disablement feels like a nightmare for the field crews. Twitches in referee.
A couple additional thoughts while reading the above:
Black out could be a “Co-op” mission, where both teams have a generator to keep everyone playing with curtains up.
Where the heck does the black iron pipe come into play?
Presume we blackout the lights on the field when the generator goes down, and turn them on when the generator comes back on. Does this mean at Houston teams have to pause their match every time the generator shifts and we have to wait for sunrise or sunset to start the match again?
I guess they did warn us it’d be an infinite game…
FIRST, where instead of fixing bugs in championship spectacles, we just make them into BIGGER bugs features.
One theory I was thinking about is that the game pieces are going to be bucket-like just like the orange buckets from home depot. We believe climbing is going to be a switch-like mechanism (think seesaw) and you have to climb up further if the other alliance has already climbed. One more theory is that you will have to lift and rotate an object at a 90-degree angle.
Bring back the super cells!
Maybe the game pieces will be solar cells that we need to place. Large flat pieces, as an extension of the hatch panels from 2019.
We need to get the cells placed fast so they have time to charge before the solar blackout comes at the end of the game. We’ll find out in 14 days!
This is very close to an idea I had. Imagine three scoring towers which are power plants that indicate their charge much like in the video. You can score in your own tower to charge it up for points for your alliance, or you can score in the middle one. The middle one doesn’t give points for either alliance but “keeps the lights on” instead. It slowly discharges over time if not recharged by either alliance. When it empties of charge completely, sandstorm-like blinds descend, obscuring the view of both alliances until it is “recharged” and the “lights come on again” and the sandstorm blinds are raised once more.
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.