Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I think our team has the same idea as yours or at least a variation.:D

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

A "lucky feature" to help prevent defense when trying to score.... That sounds familiar :D

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

One thing that is important every year but much more so this year is a great drive team. With only one ball in play efficiency is key and to be efficient and good drive team Is needed at points you will have an alliance in qualification that is of equal strength so everyone is getting the same amount of cycles and points.therfore the one that is going to win the round is the team that gets in the way of the other team without losing efficiency of your own cycle Therfore at the end of the game ou may sneak out another cycle while they can't

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

The Perfect Alliance.
Robot 1: Variable shot capable of accurately scoring 10, truss and a full court truss pass.
Robot 2: can expand to the full volume and catch shots off of the alliance wall.
Robot 3: Defense / Protect Robot 1 and 2/ trap the ball as Robot 1 acquires it to maximize assist points.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I could see some variation of this setup winning Einstein. My only question is how common will full court Assisting robots be?

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Almost any robot with a long range high goal shooter, which I've been seeing a lot of on CD, could perform a full court pass.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I'd say a slight change to this will win Einstein:

Robots 1 and 2: They will be your robot 1
Robot 3: A combination of your robots 2 and 3.

The 1st touch robot and the 2nd/3rd touch robot will be the same style robot.(Would be 2nd touch if only 2 bots touch ball before shooting)

The 3rd alliance robot will be a defense/2nd assist bot.(Primarily defense unless otherwise needed)

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

You might count inbounding from the human player as a loose ball...But, if one can catch, it won't be....That completely depends on individual robot designs, as does passing, catching, shooting, etc.. Those designed to catch, pass, pickup in emergencies, & shoot without the ball ever touching the floor could easily gang up and be a killer alliance team this year. I predict truss tossing/catching will get very interesting.

And before the season is out I'd bet a 3 ball feed to a single white zone hotshot robot in Auto will be completed and all 3 are scored High & Hot. Then to add insult to injury (or ease to perfection),...all three bots in the BORG Cooperative will take a spinning dance into the scoring zone to add another 15points to the mix.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

"Loose", by which I meant, not firmly in the possession of any robot, or transitioning between robots, or transitioning from a robot's possession into a scoring target. These transitions could go smoothly... Or, they could not. I think many teams will take for granted that the techniques they attempted for pickup and delivery while prototyping or testing in an ideal environment won't work nearly so well when done while being defended against.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Full court shots...If only 2 bots play on an alliance, while the 3rd only plays a defensive role in the game and never is involved in an assist at all, 33% more cycles and completed scores, need to be acheived to tie the 3 bot team working fully together on complete scoring cycles.

2=40 Points Max and includes Truss 10, Catch 10, High Goal 10 + 2 Assists 10 X 6 Cycles=240 plus Auto / X3 Cycles=120 plus auto points.

3=60 Points Max / Truss 10, Catch 10, high Goal 10 + 3 Assists 30. X 4 Cycles=240 plus Auto / X 2 Cycles=180 plus auto points. (I'll take this 1 please!)

Penalty possibilities can be huge too though.

I'd personally go w/: Zone offense and zone defense while actually doing your specific job without fail will be key as agreed to ahead of time. Full court assisting (not full court shooting ala multi-game pcs points like frisbees), though will be rewarded big. And a reasoned rotation of zones, if all alliance members are capable in each zone, will help big keeping the alliance ready to receive the inbound immediately for the next cycle ASAP. I think there will be a lot of Patriotic Alliances....We are RED or BLUE...You play Red, I play White, You play Blue and we all work together in connected zones, nobody hogs the ball. And every cycle we complete all possible points per cycle. We play 1/3 less hard and a lot smarter....And Win Big -Together!

2:20 can seem like forever on the cycle end, though a short time in Auto.

My 2 cents is all. It will not be as boring a game as many seem to think. The wide open field helps.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I expect at least one regional winning alliance to feature just one scorer. One robot that just runs 20 point cycles quickly and repeatedly while the other two play defense. This will only happen at "weak" regionals.

This is the game for the 8th seed. An incredible advantage to form your alliance all at once. Lots of 8th seed alliances will feature three simple machines doing triple assist cycles with good teamwork. I'd say as many as a half dozen #8 seed winners.

Full court shots are going to be tried by many but result in more than a few early exits as miscues result in precious lost seconds. These aren't frisbees - 40 foot shots over the truss repeatably and quickly aren't happening.

Catching isn't quite suspension, but lots of teams will waste their time catching when it's faster to just truss, pickup, score.

Low goal will be seen a lot more than you think, particularly in low seeds going for fast triples.

Because of all of the team dynamics, I don't think the "best teams" at a regional will have consistent features. Good pickup, good drivers, good strategy is pretty much all they will have in common.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

There will be NO full court scoring. Game section 3.1.4B says that to score:

"the ALLIANCE ROBOT last in contact with the BALL was entirely between the TRUSS and their ALLIANCE’S HIGH GOALS, and"

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

We don't mean full court scoring in a sense that you put the ball in the goal from full court. We are saying full court assisting meaning that a robot launches the ball full court and another robot picks it up and scores.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I'm pretty sure he was referring to full-court assisting, which is legal.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I said full court shooting, not full court scoring. I meant a shot from the inbounder, over the truss, into a catcher that is in it's own scoring range. I think this shot is a lot less likely to happen than some expect.