Has anyone out there done any work on optimal spoiler placement? It seems like the perfect place for some sort of web aplet.
I’ve crunched some quick numbers and the results are pleasantly surprising. Because of the exponential nature of the scoring, it’s incredibly easy to crunch down a monster score to nothing with a well placed spoiler: i.e., if you place a spoiler in the middle of a row of 7, it turns into two rows of 3… 128 down to 16.
The nice thing about completing a row (besides the 256 points) is that you still end up with a long chain of 7 when your opponents break it. However, if you opponent thinks ahead and places two spoilers 180 degrees apart, your 256 drops down to 16.
The max score from all 18 ringers + 3 keepers from one team is (as far as I can tell) 596 points. 4 well placed spoilers drops this to 91, a loss of 504 points! (or 85%)… it’s left as an exercise to the reader to think about which 4 I’m talking about
With all 4 spoilers in play and even a small number of enemy ringers it seems like it would be hard to break 100 points… which makes that 60 point bonus mighty tasty.
Haven’t bothered to search it, but has anyone noticed that spoilers can be used as keepers? If I remember correctly, if you put a spoiler down first and then a ringer, the ringer’s color determines possession. On top of that (no pun intended), the ringer can’t be removed, so it’s effectively a keeper.
So, with 4 spoilers, you could very well have 4 keepers for use during Teleoperated mode. This comes at the cost however, of a spoiler, which might be needed to stop that row of 8 that just formed…
your team only gets 2 spoilers. Dont count on an alliance to put into play there spoilers. IF there scoring that much they probally do not have the time.
I think in some cases it will be advantageous for an alliance to keep their spoilers out of play. The can be removed and “used against you.” Especially for teams that are good at placing ringers, a “turncoat” spoiler may be very damaging.
With the ringer and spoiler method you could possibly make a row of 7 (4 spoiler, 4 ringers, and 3 keepers). This method would require a lost of help, luck, and teamwork. Also remember that if the opponents beat you to the single spoiler, they might have a keeper in your potential row.
Our Team (1189) has set up a “rack expert” (i know that sounds so bad) part in strategy and we have them working on those kind of things. You’d be surprised with all the ideas they came up with, I seriously segest you have someone sit down and work on it.
If you are super fast at placing tubes and your opponents all break down… a perfect score is 256 x 3 + 8 x 8 + 60 = 892. but I didnt’ check if you have access to 24 tubes.
A few people mentioned that your team only has 2 spoilers. Yes, I agree with this. The point of this number crunching was to simply look at what was possible. If one alliance had free reign and put ALL of their ringers and keepers out there, with well placed spoilers the score can drop very fast.
With two teams competing, it would only seem likely for a team to get half the rack, or maybe 2/3 or 3/4. You can think of an opponents ringer as a “blocker”, it spoil your point, but it prevents you from getting any points at all.
Given a mix of red and blue ringers/keepers, I would expect only a few “good rows” of more than 3. These become HUGE targets for a spoiler.
