In starstruck, I think defenses if a very valuable but underrated thing. Does anyone have an idea on how to design a defensive robot? I’m thinking one that has a giant paddle that it holds up and moves side to side along the fence. Would that work?
If the offense is fast enough… a paddle would not matter. Or even a launcher like 8059… a paddle would not matter. I think this is a truly offensive game. Now if there is a giant wall that spans the field side to side… it goes both ways… neither side would be able to score and only hangs would be able to win.
I have one team that is going defensive and I cannot really support it, but it is their robot and plan… so have fun. The other 3 are offensive and varying styles based on personal preferences. One problem I see is that with all the dumpers and other designs, a defense robot runs a large risk of being tipped over.
But I just don’t see defensive robots making it far.
Defense is certainly going to be very important this year. In one of the Asia matches we see some pretty intense defense being played (blocking 4 stars being scored at once or a cube) that makes quite a difference. However building a robot just to play defense isn’t a very good idea because you are left with no way to score. An offensively focused robot can still play defense, but a defensively focused robot can’t score.
Wow, it’s been a long time since my last post. The 3946 banner makes a return!
a defensive robot would be useful but only as a complement to a very high scoring robot. we have to remember that if you are a solely a defensive robot, you have to advance in the tournaments because a defense only robot is basically useless in both auton and robot skills besides the stars on the fence. we have another robot in our school who is thinking of doing a defensive robot, but like i said, it would basically be a late third round pick in tournaments for high scoring alliances.
I mis-spoke. I meant a totally defensive robot was not going to get very far. Oh yeah for sure… Offensive robots will play defense. The taller dumpers especially. But a simple wall… nah…
I am not for a defensive robot with this game, but one idea that might work is some sort of fold out wall bot that would allow parts of the wall to push forward but not backward. This would allow your alliance partner to score through the wall but the opponent would have to go over, under, or possibly around the wall.
I do not think it is possible to break the game with defense this year.
This game goes back to the commonly used mentality that the best defense is a good offense. We can be honest and say that this is a re-vamped Toss-Up with slight differences created for the new surge of people joining Vex (and because it is probably the GDC’s favorite game). As such, you can look back to Toss-Up to see if a defensive bot is the most efficient bot. Most teams, if not all, were offensive with common defensive elements, like a pneumatic brake or a high speed to high torque transmission. This was Toss-Up.
Outside of Toss-Up, a defensive robot is going on the assumption that you’re partner can carry you through the game. That strategy will work about 95% of the time. You would probably interfere with your offensive teammate and lose, or you have 2 defensive robots and lose. I would believe that a regular dumper plus a pneumatic break mixed with flip-out mini walls would be the best mix between offense and defense.
I guess you are right, an all defensive robot wouldn’t be very effective, but I feel like my paddle design would work. If you can get the paddle to wind back and spring forward you can hit back shots. That can be used both defensively and offensively. Are there any errors being made? Am I forgetting something?
Your design seems to only work on catapults. In any case, that would require crazy timing. Plus the wind-back time could easily be countered by strategy. One person could shoot at the paddle, get blocked, and while you’re paddle is winding up, the teammate could shoot and score. Just my 2 cents. If I misinterpreted something about your design, please inform me so I can fix my analysis.
a push bot would be great for defense and would still be able to score by shoving stars back under the fence
I just want to start out by saying that I don’t think that defense is a good strategy. However, if you could build a defensive robot that blocks only your opponents stars/cubes (probably similar to @blatwell 's idea of little plates that could flip only one way and not the other, you would probably still do pretty badly in qualifying due to malfunctioning team mates, lifting opponents, etc. However, what people are not considering is that you don’t have to be ranked very high to get picked by a good team and if you think about a robot that undoes 90% + of your proponent’s work and none of your teammate’s, you could be talking about a really good strategy. Just my two cents.