Possible game flaw?

FIRST General Forum
1

I was discussing different strategies for this years game, and something came up that caught my attention because there seems to be no answer that immediately comes to mind as to how this strategy could be stopped. I would hate for this strategy to become some “game ruining method” that makes things less fun for everyone involved. Here it is:

An alliance has three members: A, B and C. A is the only one who knows this strategy beforehand. Before their match together, A tells B and C what they have to do to win the game. A tells them that after autonomous mode, they need to go to both sides of their coloured pyramid. Once they are there, their ONLY job until the endgame is to prevent the opposing team from getting to their feeding stations. For better driving teams, this could mean actively preventing them by getting in the way of the team trying to get through. For teams that aren’t as good at driving, this could mean that they just go back and forth between the pyramid and the wall, making themselves an obstacle to get past that could be very effective if they were a longer robot. For the entire game, opponents would have extreme difficulty getting new discs, especially considering the feeding system cannot feed balls accross the field. This would effectively starve the opposing team, while allowing team A to go back and forth scoring.

The two possible ways to combat this strategy are to either have a small robot to go under the pyramid (which is not a short-term solution), or to do the exact same thing back to the team, putting both alliances into a stalemate.

Is this legal, practical and something that could happen? I sincerely hope that this is not something teams do, considering it would make matches boring, long and extremely low scoring.

I attached a visual demonstration just in case my explanation doesn’t make sense.

http://i.imgur.com/M7UX5.png

I want to make sure I am clear in saying I do not want this strategy to be effective. It would be unfair to all teams.

2

G25…

G25 ROBOTS on the same ALLIANCE may not blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. This rule has no effect on individual ROBOT-ROBOT interaction. Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL

Not sure if they still consider two alliance robots to be a blockade, but I am sure that if the refs see that and they notice that it’s creating a significant delay in the game that they will call a warning before issuing the appropriate penalty.

3

No need to worry.

G25

ROBOTS on the same ALLIANCE may not blockade the FIELD in an attempt to stop the flow of the MATCH. This rule has no effect on individual ROBOT-ROBOT interaction.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL

4

Also, the space between the field wall and the pyramid is bigger than you seem to think. It would be extremely difficult to prevent a robot from going through that zone for the duration of the match.

5

I noticed that rule while I was looking in the manual, but it seems very obscure as to what “stopping the flow of the match” means. Hopefully it is open enough to stop this kind of behaviour.

6

And besides…I doubt that any alliance would see this strategy as a good one anyways. 1) They would have to give up scoring points for themselves as well seeing as they wouldn’t be able to reach their own feeding stations. 2) If they were to employ this strategy then they would need to make sure that they scored a lot of points in autonomous and then either get perfect climbs or really hustle their discs in within the last 30 seconds.

Either way, I see your point, and I agree with you that I would hope no one would pick this strategy, but I think and hope that G25 takes care of that happening. If it doesn’t in Week 1 I am sure it will by the end. Heck you can always ask this question in the Q&A as well. :smiley:

7

I would hope that GP in general would stop this. Thanks for the clarification, I think I can now sleep without worry. (Apart from the next 6 weeks :yikes:)

8

I would never expect GP to stop legal game play… but I do expect the rules to make some things illegal, as it is in this case.

Another point about this strategy: you have to have a better drive train than your opponent, to keep them from just plowing through you.

9

There’s 115" on each side of the field between the feet of the pyramid and field rails. Robots are constricted to 54" cylinders.

So no, it’s not possible to physically blockade those paths.

10

But you could move from side to side. The problem is that when moving from side to side, you don’t have much power going to that side. I think that robots would just plow through. Last year our robot was a 4 CIM 6 wheel plaction wheel drivetrain, and I don’t remember any team being able to out muscle us one on one. However, the moment somebody rammed us from the side, we got moved significantly. And this is a 120.0 lb robot that had to drill speed holes just to be legal. And in offseason events, I’m fairly sure we were a little heavier than that (shhhhhhhh). And it still happened. I don’t see this being a problem

11

Well, in basketball I’d call it “setting a pick”. In football I’d call it “blocking”. In hockey, I’d just call it “normal game play”.

Oh, wait… no… they’d have to smash the other robot into the boards to make it “normal game play”. :wink:

But if B is blocking one side of the field, the opposing alliance sends three robots down… one ties up B, the other two go fill up with discs.

B might slow them down, but certainly won’t stop them.

Jason

12

Please, dedicate two robots to this strategy while we outscore you.

This “strategy” has been possible in many years, and has never been truly effective.

13

I’m pretty sure you’ll outscore most people even if they don’t do this Adam :slight_smile: