LogoMotion Game Play Strategy Siri Maley, 19 Feb 11

What Most Alliances Will Do… (Tubes should be yellow)

Home-Bound Jams

Blocking is a hard urge to overcome… but tubes are too valuable this year

Don’t chase – get in front, call someone who can, or move on

Things get disorganized quick – leave someone in the crease

Don’t throw tubes your robots can’t handle & figure out the poor throwers timing>aim>>quantity

Watch where your team is going… Timing is everything

Lessons from Standard Strategy Tube Distribution  HPs: Don’t throw tubes your robots can’t handle  Coaches: Find the poor throwers  Coaches: track the free tubes Standard Urges  Chasing – don’t. Get in front, call someone who can  Illegal herding – don’t.  Maneuvering close to teammates – Watch paths & zones, Talk!  Running to Midfield – 6 robots is too many. So is 5. 4 is close.  Pushing matches – rarely worth the time.  Trading offense for defense – tubes are too valuable Note: these actions are equivalent to ~2.5 matches at Week 1 (at least 5 minutes)

Streamlined Method 1. Decide if how many Feeders, Placers, Scorers & Defenders  Usually only Scorer if non-floor loader (See Waiting Game)  Otherwise the loop is probably faster as Feeder + Placer  Defense only against Powerhouse or with non-scorers (see Powerhouse for where to defend) 2. Switching between Feeding and Placing  Switch to Placer if backlog is high & you have scoring room  Switch to Lane Defense if briefly empty & defense will help  Switch to Feeder if empty & no need for Lane defense OR Feeder is down

Strategy Chart – Against a Powerhouse *You’re only “fast” if your full loop is faster than the 1 Feeder + scorer would be

Against a Powerhouse  1 st Defender:  If they’re lane-loaders: lanes  If they’re bad throwers: Human Player throw zones (where tubes tend to land)  If they’re good throwers: their outgoing feeders  2 nd Defender takes opposite (lanes/zones or feeders)  Bottleneck Them  At Lanes/around Towers  Home Zone: outgoing feeders  Work together!  Concentrate on the Minibots (interfering & scoring)  See The Minibot Tradeoff

The Waiting Game If you’re playing with multiple scorers  Wait your turn – talk to allies  Don’t herd!  Get out of active allies way (including paths to tubes)  Avoid crossing paths, & sharing zones  Block opposing alliance (go backwards – protect claw)

1 2 3 The Waiting Game – Example Smart move by Red Blue1 scores, backs to block Red for Blue2. Blue3 blocks Red’s close Lane (from far side to leave room to score later). Red bolts to far Lane. Blue1 backs up to pickup & interfere. Blue3 backs up to block close Lane. Blue2 scores Red picks up & goes home. Blue1 picks up & goes home. Blue3 score. Blue2 backs up & picks up

The Minibot Tradeoff Need more than 25? Need great D (stop both) or great bots (win both, stop 1) Winning Both – within 25pt Margin AllianceNormalPowerhouse Teleop Scorexy ≥ x Minibot Scores Totalx + 50y + 25 Lose 1, Stop 1 – if you think you can’t win both AllianceNormalPowerhouse Teleop Scorexy ≥ x Minibot Scores Totalx + 45y + 20 Stop1 to Stop 1 – not worth it, need to stop both AllianceNormalPowerhouse Teleop Scorexy ≥ x Minibot Scores3020 Totalx + 30y + 20

Example – Blue: 2 Feeders & Placer Red: 2 Scorers & Defender Gets crowded fast Good news on the Feeder + Placer: it’s 2 on 1 Good news on opposing D: no lane defense necessary Less crowded when you take turns