We know that it is legal to hang in autonomous and that your partner can hang in autonomous if you hang at the end, or vice versa. We also know that autonomous hang points don’t count towards the final score. What does this mean to you? Does it mean that it’s not worth doing? Why?
I am of the belief that nearer to the end of the season, teams will begin to think of the ultimate endgame strategy in which the start of the match is given to bring all the stars to your own side. One of the issues with this is that teams who want to hoard all the stars until the end of the game are most likely to lose the autonomous, though willingly for the potential of a greater gain. That said, if a team were to move the stars on the field from the far to near zone in autonomous and to hang, there could still be potential to win autonomous whilst maintaining procession of the scoring objects. That’s just my opinion for later in the season though. For now, I think it would be easier just to throw a cube and star over making the same swing of points.
In a perfect world:
The robot would hang in autonomous if selected (by a jumper or LCD button or something) based on the caliber of the opponents. In other words, hang if concerned about losing autonomous.
In a more perfect world:
The robot could recover from the hang to score game elements.
Very interesting, I never thought of trying to lose autonomous on purpose. I agree, if the idea was to get the most stars and cubes as possible then hanging could be key because you could get “ammo” and still win autonomous.
Yeah I forgot to mention that we would assume you can get back down off the pipe, unless your bot can score from on the pipe, which would be freakin awesome!
What kind of things would you consider when deciding to hang or not?
I believe hanging in autonomous would be a good strategy if your bot can get back down. Those points will really help as getting AP really helps your ranking.
Though, I do not agree with the hoarding strategy brought up throughout this thread for a potential end-year game winning strategy. This thought is because if you hoard a majority of the stars and cubes, the other alliance will go ahead and score what they have left which would leave your alliance with basically all of the scoring objects. This gives the other alliance the opportunity to easily just play defense and keep your alliance from scoring their hoarded scoring objects.
So, while feasible, I believe hanging in autonomous overall is a bit of a waste of time, would only start you off in a worst position than the other teams, and would only benefit the AP points for your ranking. Stick with an advanced autonomous routine that can get you ahead in the game so you can simply play defense and then come back at the end to hang. With enough hours put in you could easily write a routine that is far superior than low or high hanging.
Overall, your personal strategy and how well your design is would actually decide which would be better for you. If you believe you can hang in autonomous and come back from what the other team scores, then go ahead and do it. If not, I would encourage you work on something more complex even if it takes more time.
In my opinion hanging in autonomous near the end of the year will not be good enough to win auton 100%.
You should think of it like this.
Hanging in autonomous will only add 12 points to your team’s score at the end of autonomous.
However, there is no net point swing since you are not descoring stars and cubes that are on your side.
Think about a real match example.
Both sides start off with 18 points including the preloads (7 stars far zone, 1 cube far zone).
Let’s say red team’s robot has a hang. This will add 12 points to the blue team at the end of autonomous.
So now, there is:
Red: 18 Points
Blue: 30 Points
And now for the blue side.
Let’s say that blue team’s robot simply scores the cube and the preload into the red team’s far zone.
Red: 18+6 (1 Cube and 1 star in far zone)
Blue: 30-6 (1 Cube and 1 star descored from the far zone)
This not only adds points to the red side, but it also descores the same amount of points as well, for a net gain of 12 points.
Now this ends up in both sides having an end result of 24 points.
However, by scoring a cube and a preload, the blue team is very likely to score one or more of the stars that are on the fence.
This results in the blue team winning auton, therefore beating a high hang on the red side.
But that assumes that the other robot on both sides does nothing. Let’s say that the other red robot does the same cube+star (which seems pretty standard), but due to blue getting to the fence first, they win ties (or something like that so I can ignore fence stars). The other blue robot can’t throw the cube, so they are limited to stars. The 3 stars in between the starting squares, far zone to far zone, is another 12 point swing, but that assumes that all stars end up in the far zone, and it seems likely that at least some of the time, not all of the stars will end up in the far zone, if for no other reason than the red robot getting in the way, resulting in a red victory some of the time, and a blue win by tiebreaker the rest of the time.
In addition, this is assuming that the hanging red robot does nothing but hang. They need to move the star out of the corner to hang, so that star could easily end up in the near zone, with some tuning, providing that tiebreaker point. If they have a passive, 1 shot “star flinger” for the preload, that’s another 4 points, assuming none fall off the fence, destroying the opposition. And failing that, they could easily push the into the near zone, again providing that tiebreaker point.
And this is still assuming blue wins ties, but there’s no reason to assume that the red robot isn’t just as fast or faster. If your partner can do the standard cube+star auto (which, again, seems like a pretty safe assumption), hanging is one of the best autonomi there is, very likely guaranteeing the auton bonus.
@puzzler7 Yes this is true, but the point of my post was that hanging in autonomous will not 100% win autonomous for the alliance.
This mainly applies for the qualification matches, where the AP points are necessary to rank higher. During these matches, your alliances are chosen randomly, so you cannot rely on your partners.
However during elimination matches, hanging in autonomous will be highly beneficial especially if you have a partner that can also do the cube.
I would say hanging in autonomous would not be worth it. Sure, in a qualification match you are almost sure you will win, it may be worth it to use a high hanging autonomous to secure the bonus, and therefore AP for rankings. However, for elimination matches and qualifications matches where you know it will be close, a scoring autonomous will be the way to go. The strategical advantage you get by scoring field objects is much more important than that high hang.
Let’s say that you and your alliance are equally matched with your opponents. Say that you and your alliance can score both objects with inefficiencies equivalent to your opponents in driver control. Well, then driver control no team gains any points (in theory). If you are able to gain an advantage during autonomous by putting more objects on their side than they do to you, then you should (once again, in theory) hold that advantage for all the match, therefore winning the match.
If you have a partner who can do the standard cube+star autonomous, then you win auto (4 points = 3 stars, assuming evenly near and far) at the expense a few more stars on your side of the field. If you’re a pushbot, @Cameron Schiller demonstrated that stars on your side mean little with enough driver practice (incidentally, also true if you’re not a pushbot). If you or your partner is a clawbot, then the scattered stars should easily be gathered by the large sweeping range of the claw.
But let’s go with your example, and say that you have no distinct advantages over your opponent. If you start 3 stars down or less (assuming you can keep them near zone), you win, If you start 4 stars down, you tie, and 5 stars or more, you lose. But this again assumes that the only thing you do in autonomous is hang, and it’s certainly possible (and fairly easy) to do more.
There’s also the “overcrowded field” factor to consider. If auton hanging is stopping you from scoring the same points in stars and cubes, it is less valuable because you have to spend the extra time (however little) to get off the pole instead of you opponent spending time (however little) to return them.
After extensive testing with my autonomous hang, it doesn’t actually take very long to dismount the pole. Maybe 4 seconds if it gets caught on something. The biggest problem would be if whatever mechanism you have allows the robot to swing around the pole a little bit over the field perimeter, blocking a straight descent. Though it’s not optimal for every match, a hanging autonomous would also heavily complement a good fielding autonomous without conflicting with it.
Well… If you have a lift that can hang itself in less than a couple of seconds where the robot does the auton then does a reliable high hang without any effort, then I think it’s worth it. Plus a high hang at a competition is a ton of points, and it can cause a major advantage if you’re at the peak of winning in auton if you are near losing the auton for the last 5 seconds.
What would be the best way to assure your lined up to the pole? Ultrasonic sensor? Some physical holder against the corners of the feild?
You could put your lift in the corner of the bot such that it was aligned merely by fact of being in the corner of the field.
@puzzler7 yes, or you could use the motors already on your lift, idk. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
More precisely, I meant you could put whatever passive hook attached to your lift on the corner of the bot.
Ahhh, i hadnt thought of that, but then again youd be super unstable, because all of your weights on one side of the robot, making it so youd hang straight down, instead of at an angle
I think @puzzler7 is hinting, not so subtly, at this design.
https://vexforum.com/t/8452b-autonomous-lift-reveal/37704/1
It’s not the most stable design, but isn’t terrible and regardless, it’s functional.