I had a couple questions and scenarios over rule G 14, wallbots, and possession. Here is the following rule:
You can’t force an opponent into a penalty. Intentional strategies that cause an opponent
to violate a rule are not permitted, and will not result in an infraction on the opposing Alliance. Minor
violations of this rule that do not affect the Match will result in a warning. Match Affecting offenses will
result in a Disqualification. Teams that receive multiple warnings may also receive a Disqualification at
the Head Referee’s discretion.
In both scenarios, a red wallbot has deployed over larger portion of the field. No blue robots have been trapped, and the wallbot is only blocking access to 3 blue balls.
Scenario 1: A blue robot throws a blue ball over the wall. The wallbot now has 4 blue balls on the other side, but they were forced into the penalty. Does the wallbot have to try and allow the blue team access to their balls? I personally don’t think so, but I am biased.
Nothing happens
The red robot must move
0voters
Senario 2: The other red robot is on the opposite side of the wall as the blue robots. It descores a blue ball from a tower. They have now forced their alliance partner into a penalty. Do they need to try and move the balls over to the other side of the wall? I personally think they would not have too, but I think this is more open to debate.
Nothing happens
The red robot must move the blue balls across the wall
0voters
I would appreciate any feedback you have (especially refs) . Thanks in advance.
the rules here are somewhat ambiguous, if you want a definitive answer you should ask an official q&a, but I think scenario 1 is fine because like you said, the blue robots would be forcing the red robots into a penalty.
scenario 2 is a lot more complex, however I think nothing would happen because of this portion of the possession definition:
Robots on the same Alliance working in tandem to block access to Balls would share the Possession of the Balls
I interpret this to mean that if both robots are working together to posses balls, which would be the case in this scenario. The wallbot is possessing the three balls on the field on their side, and their alliance partner would be in possession of the one ball they just descored. But, if the wallbots alliance partner spits out the blue ball on the other side of the wallbot as the blue robots, then it could be argued that the possession of that ball transfers to the wallbot, thus putting it over the 3 ball limit.
the possession rules around wallbots can get really fuzzy, so If I were a wallbot, I would just try to keep all but 3 of my opponents balls on the other side of the wall so as not to risk penalties, since interpretations of fuzzy scenarios like this can vary from ref to ref.
well destuction of field elements is probably going to result in a dq.
as for descoring of an additional 4 balls, that would definitely result in a violation of the possession limit. which robot on the red team would receive the violation is a little more fuzzy, if the other red robot held all 4 balls inside their bot then they would probably receive the penalty, but if they spat out all 4 onto the red side of the wall, then the wallbot could receive the penalty, because g14 states that you can’t force an opponent into a penalty, not your alliance partner. So the other red robot would be forcing their partner into a violation of the possession limit, and the wallbot would receive the penalty because they are not the other red robot’s opponent.
In scenario 1, yes your opponent can not force you into a violation. This would be a great question to ask on the official Q&A. As for scenario 2, I believe that @Xenon27 has it absolutely correct, as an alliance you would be hoarding an excess of you opponents balls and would be in violation. One could argue that both members of the offending alliance be DQed in that case.
It says the ball has to be in an unscored position to count.
This is how the game manual defines possession:
Possession – A Robot is considered to be Possessing a Ball if a Ball is in an unscored position and any
one of the following criteria are met:
• The Robot is carrying, holding or controlling the movement of a Ball such that if the Robot changes
direction, the Ball will move with the Robot. Pushing/plowing Balls is not considered Possession,
however using concave portions of your Robot to control the movement of Balls is considered
Possession.
• The Robot is blocking opposing Robots’ access to Balls, such as by expanding horizontally and
restricting access to a portion of the field (e.g. a “wallbot”).
• Robots on the same Alliance working in tandem to block access to Balls would share the Possession
of the Balls.
The red robot may not have moved the 4th ball behind it, but by not moving it is choosing to actively deny that ball from the blue alliance. <SG8> specifically prohibits ‘greater-than-momentary’ possession of more than 3 balls of the opposing color. Remember, <SG8> also states:
Robots that violate this rule must stop all Robot actions except for those actions that are attempting to remove the excess Ball.
While you may argue that the blue robot forced the offense, the red robot is still bound to follow the rest of the rule (stop everything except removing the ball until the ball is removed).
If the wall-bot has no way to move the balls once it is deployed, you may have found a very clever way to force the wall-bot to allow the opposing alliance to pass it. I think this is a risk inherent with building and playing to the limits of the rules.
That’s great you like robots, most of the people on this forum do as well (myself included)!
It’s considered good etiquette to not post things that are “off-topic” in threads. This specific thread is about a question on the rules, so your love of robots isn’t really on topic.
We’d appreciate it if you stuck to posting things that are “on-topic” with each thread, helps with organization and a lot of other things.