As you all may have known, in a Tournament of 24 teams, each Alliance of are to have three teams, right? Being in a Tournament, would you have one or two of your best drivers go up first, or have them up last?
That is a difficult question to answer. It really depends on the robots in your alliance and which two compliment each other best. It also depends on what seed you are in the elimination rounds as the higher seed gets to place last. So as the higher seed, you can wait to see what robots your opponents place before deciding which two robots of yours to use.
For us we typically keep the best bot up and competing every time, we’ll send out both of our best bots so that the rotation favor is on our side if we win in case we lose the next round.
If you are blue alliance, you do not recieve the advantage of placing last. In this case, your best move is to play your two best robots together, then your two medium, then your two best. (Similarly, you can play your medium robots, then your best, then your best again.)
However, if you are the red alliance, you have the privilege of placing last. If the blue alliance places its two best robots, you will want to place your two best robots. If blue alliance places its medium robots, you will want to play yours. Check out this video to see what I’m talking about.
In a tournament where I was 1st seed alliance captain, we were good enough to win almost every elimination round. However, I was a mogo bot, the 2nd guy was a cone bot, and the third guy was a cone bot. If the third guy and I played together, we would lose as we couldn’t touch cones. So our solution was to play our first and second, then second and third, then first and second.
Really just do what works for you.
Why make this hard? You want to crush your opponents, and crush them fast. You never know what will happen in a third match – lots of “better” alliances have lost that match through a DQ. I always recommend to my teams that they play their best two teams first (which may or may not include the alliance captain), their best and third best in the second, and the best two teams again in the third. What makes you think other arrangements generate more success?
@Rick TYler is officially a Sith Lord.
okay for this example lets say that the 1st and 2nd pick of the alliances are equal and the red alliance has a lot worse 3rd bot then the blue alliance.
If red and blue play their best bots the match is 50-50 for both alliances.
but whenever red plays their 3rd bot then they will lost because that bot cannot keep up.
so if red plays their 1st and 3rd pick in the first match they accept the guarenteed loss because blue is probably going to play their 2 best bots.
Then in the second match then Red can play their 2 best bots and blue had to put in their 3rd pick and loses the match because the 2 best bots beat the third pick.
Then in the third match both alliances put in their best bots and were back to the same 50-50 scenario.
Then only advantage in this case is that you have a guaranteed lose the first match and a guaranteed win the second match and only one match is a 50-50.
If you put in the best bots first then the first match is a 50-50 then you have a guaranteed lose the second match and then another 50-50 in the match after that.
You can message me if you want me to explain what i just said again i know that i probably didn’t explain it the best.
Agreed
I think we can all agree that by playing your first and third robots in the first match, it is relatively easy to force it to 3 matches. It just means playing your tough match later rather than sooner. I can think of 2 reasons why this might be effective.
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You notice that your opponent worms their drive motors really hard (ie weak drive and heavy robot or a drive geared for speed). You then decide to throw gracious professionalism out the window and attempt to work their drive harder than normal so that it will stall in match 3.
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The psychological aspect. For either alliance if they think that they are weaker than their opponent, it might be a worthy gamble to put more pressure on both alliances, and hope the opponent folds under it and tips their stack or something.
And only playing and having to win it once, rather than twice.
We have done this before, the only problem i have had with it is that playing the Captain and the 1st pick 2 times in a row puts a lot of stress on both of those robot in a short period of time.
Since I like to practice driving at least 10-15 minutes before changing batteries, I usually have robots that are sturdy and also don’t tend to burn out under normal circumstances. For me, it’s better to go a couple of times in a row, because I stay warm as a driver.
Yes i agree and your robot shouldent be stalling when you play 2 matches in a row, In heavy defense situations, which are happening to us and many other teams this year, it does put pressure on the chassis which may cause problems with teams running faster ratios. Thats the point i was getting at. You could also always use your timeout if the motors need a break.
Upside down compressed air, too.