Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

It may be a little early to accurately be able to predict this with any accuracy, but I was wondering what the general consensus of the top robots at a regional will be. What will the alliance captains look like/be capable of. What will 1st and 2nd round picks be capable of (obviously dependent upon what the alliance captain can do)? What will the robots be able to do? Will they specialize in assisting, shooting, catching etc.?

In my opinion the top 8 robots will mostly be composed of the robots that are the most proficient at putting the ball in the 10pt goal. However, I think a few of the top assisters will sneak in if they are able to overcome weaker alliance members in quals (assist points are the top tiebreaker after all) .

The top picks will most likely be a robots that are the fastest at transitioning the ball to the next robot. The top pick for an alliance captain that isn't a great shooter will likely be the best shooter available. Depending on what strategy the top teams want to go with the second pick will be the best remaining assister or best defensive robot that can still pass.

Just my ideas but I want to hear everybody else's opinion:D

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Applies for every year but I definitely think it will be more prevalent this year:

Teams will have to make up for their own weaknesses through their picks to create the best alliance, which is not necessarily the best 3 offensive bots at the regional.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I think this game more than any other can play out very differently than a lot of teams seem to be expecting.

There have been numerous shooters shown over the past three weeks. We all know it's possible to be accurate into the high goal and a lot of teams will build robots to do this. What we haven't seen is a robot to robot pass and catch over the truss. That extra 10 points could easily be what separates great alliances.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I think the 10 point goal may become an orphan this year.

The completion of a cycle with three assists, and the potential time cost of a missed 10 point goal with "Doggie Go Fetch", will make the 1 point goals very popular this year.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

That is, if you are actually concerned about missing your 10 point shot. From what I've seen, a confident 10 point shot is not something only the elites will be doing. If its just as quick to shoot it into the 10 points as it is to... push it into the 1, why not?

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Top seeded teams will likely have three major qualities: an awesome intake, the ability to decently shoot for 10 and the truss, and luck with alliance pairings.

The teams that will be picked very early in alliance selection will have the ability to catch or pass over the truss.

All successful teams need to have a high level of strategic, alliance orientated play.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Because, if you miss, you have to waste time retrieving the bouncing ball.

A goalie bot can create all sorts of trouble for the 10 point goal.
Most balls will be launched from a low height, so any robot in front of your shooter becomes a time vampire. No assist points until a goal is scored. No new cycle until that goal is scored.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Well that's the point, don't shoot if you're know you'll miss. Same goes for the low goal. Defense can be played for any goal, so you better get around it if you'd like those assist points. I might even argue that the low goal may be easier to defend to since they are a very specific spot where the ball must enter as opposed to a whole wall of goal area that a defender would have to stop you from alining with, possibly within a quite large range of distances from the goal too.

Shooting from a large distance into the low goal seems more difficult than shooting large distance to the high goal, so you would probably be driving up to it. The defender knows where you're going (one you choose a goal), so they just have to plain get in your way.

Bottom line, defense will be there for any goal. Get around it if you want to score.


On another note, I think the coach will be much more critical this year too. This year as apposed to last year, just an OK match would be hard without good communication throughout the alliances (pre-match too).

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I think the best teams are the ones who not only can assist well during a match, but has a coach that communicates with the other coaches and drivers on their alliance so assists are done efficiently, so there is no time wasted chasing the ball on the field. The best teams will pre-plan their strategies clearly, either verbally or by drawings, and will stick to that strategy the entire match.

A team that can consistently rack up points by accurately scoring in the top goal and can do assists will do very well in the competition. A team that regularly scores in the bottom goal can do just as well, but they should make sure that as many assists possible were made before scoring, in order to compete with a team that does lots of assists AND high goal scoring.

Unless an alliance works really well together, I can't see catching being done too often, just like scoring the pyramid goal in 2013. It's a difficult bonus that isn't really worth the difficulty, especially when there are other things to do in a match that yield more points reliably and in less time.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

I disagree, you already have to truss, how does catching waste time. The best alliances will without a doubt be catching the ball this year and it will be much less rare then the pyramid goal. It's too big of advantage to both save time and get points.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

You have to retrieve the ball in some way after a truss shot anyways, so catching doesn't really add time if your partner and you are in sync. What have you discovered in the game that gives you more than 10 points in 0 seconds?

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

0 seconds? I don't quite follow. Maybe 1 second, and again, a missed catch could cost time, though the ball should bounce toward your goal.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

Uhhh, who would?

Agree on this, but until a pecking order is established through the rankings, I don't think you will find this working well. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

The top teams will be the ones who accurately know their strengths and weaknesses. If you think that you're great at picking up, then you waste an alliances time because your pickup doesn't work very well, then you won't be successful. If you do everything that you do very well, (maybe just catching from human player, herding into one point goal) you'll be picked, because your alliance partners know that they won't have to wait for you during an assist cycle.

Re: Abilities of the top teams at a regional?
 

If you truss the ball and don't catch it, you have to spend time chasing it down. The alternative is to catch the ball, as a result, you save time. Basically he means 0 seconds relative to the time you spend chasing down the ball (i.e if you spend 5 seconds trying to regather the ball when you could've just plucked it out of he air, effectively in net "0" seconds).