We’ve already seen some of the first Starstruck competitions, and there weren’t a whole lot of teams able to hang. In NbN, elevation had a 50 point bonus, but lots of teams opted to forgo a lift and instead focus on speed on the field. I was wondering if you all think that the same might happen this year, or if the hanging mechanism will become a staple for every robot.
One of the things that needs to be considered while designing a mechanism is whether it needs to be one-time-use or repeatedly usable. If you decide to make the mechanism usable only once per match, you can potentially avoid using any motors to activate the hang. However, given that you may need to hang twice in a match (once during auton, once during driver), this may not be effective.
My goal in asking this question was to determine if it would be a safe bet to design a mechanism meant to hang and dehang only once, relying on the partner’s robot to hang the second time. Do you think this will be a viable strategy?
Hanging is equal to 3 stars in the far zone, so hanging might not be worth it.
Is it worth 4 extra points to hang in auton? If you have a good auton, you don’t need to hang during it. Saving the hang till the end would be the best option; adding 12 points VS 4.
Wait, you realize that you can hang twice in a match, right?
When it comes to late in the season, hanging will be very important, especially if your opponent has the same capabilities. Hanging can be a risky move depending on your opponent’s team’s combined rate of getting stars across and your partner’s rate. If your partner can at least somewhat keep up with your opponents without falling too far behind in the race, than hanging will definitely be worth it. However, if not, it becomes a risky choice on whether or not to risk your opponent overwhelming you with stars past the benefit that you gain from hanging. And remember, if your opponent is also hanging, it makes hanging a better option for you to hang, as now your partner is taking on a 1v1 situation instead of a 1v2.
Of course, the best hanging mechanism will be the one that can do it the fastest (and obviously most reliably). A difference of ±1 or 2 seconds probably won’t matter, but if your opponent can hang over 5 seconds faster than you, than that’s, for most good teams by the end of the season, >3 stars that can be put over the fence that you lose. My opinion on hang time (pun very much intended) is that it should be done in less than 7 or 8 seconds in a highly competitive match.
Very true; later in the season it will be extremely important. But right now, I’m not so sure. Seems like it’d be better to get the intake/launcher working before hanging.
I think we can win most early matches just by hanging in auto (winning auto, of course) then staying there. Not that I plan to do that, but I think hanging will be very important and very powerful both early and late season.
A high hang in Starstruck is 12 points. That’s 15% of a perfect score, meaning that a high hang will be worth at least 15% of your match score. To me, that is a huge swing. At entry-level competitions, I do believe that a High Hang will turn the tide in your favor. It’s worth it, imo. Early on in the season, it’ll be a luxury. Later, it becomes more of a must-have. I’d get a high hang working early on and get qualified for state or whatnot before the stakes raise.
I suppose it’s viable that you can have your partner do one hang and you do the other, but if you can high hang in autonomous, that gives you 12 points towards the bonus. You can hang that over your opposing alliance’s heads (no pun intended) since to me, pulling off an auto high hang would give a pretty insurmountable lead. I would rather be prepared to hang twice every match to give yourself the best chance of success.
Everything you say is true, but there is no real “perfect score” this game. You get no benefit by tacking on an extra 12 points if it causes you to lose twelve or more points as a result. Lifting was only good last year because it increased the points available to you, above and beyond what was then set in stone (the high goal). Its like your opponent could go and empty your net while you lifted…doesn’t sound so nice now, does it? You are better off shooting, unless you plan on being so good that you have no stars on your side at the end , or you cannot intake and shoot three stars in the time that it takes to lift.
I think a lot of people have forgot about this, but this year we’re using AP instead of SP (yes i know SP only got moved down blah blah blah). Thus, a lift in auton would be extremely valuable if you could pull it off, since it’ll be a huge boost over some teams that can’t lift during auton.
It really does depend on your strategy AND how the game goes. It might not be worth it, but it might be worth it. In the long run it will most likely be worth hanging, but when it comes to using it, it most likely wont be used every match.
You get 12 points for the High Hang (if you’re investing in hang, why would you go low?), which is worth 3 CUBES, not 3 stars. A high hang is worth 6 stars in the Far Zone. Just wanted to clear up some confusion
Jeez, I’ve been brain dead today as @lpieroni knows. Thanks for clearing that up…
Just want to say: my teams are all planning on hanging. Just the idea of if it is worth it or not is interesting to me. Sometimes it may not be worth it, but it might be worth it sometimes.
Thinking about it now, because when you score stars/cubes you are taking points away from the other team, hanging would be a good way to secure points, where the other team can’t take that away.
Because of APs, winning autonomous every time is almost as important as winning, so what I would do is have the ability to hang in autonomous, and hang unless you know that you are going to lose/tie auton, in which case you have another route which will just score the cube and as many stars as possible.
The awesome thing about having a driver control period is that a human can make that decision. If your team has time to develop a hanging mechanism without sacrificing performance elsewhere, having the capability to hang is definitely worth it. However, hanging may not be worth the amount of time you leave your alliance partner alone on the field.
If those 3 stars were originally in your far zone (scored for you), and your opponents threw them into their far zone, that would be a 12 point swing, same as a lift.
I deleted the other post because for some reason i posted the previous one twice. Now it won’t let me edit it…
Edit: And now it seems like i deleted the only version of my post after i refreshed… Awesome. Here’s what i basically said.
We don’t know how fast some robots will hang though
, or you cannot intake and shoot three stars in the time that it takes to lift.