Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

True, though the other half of that is where you are in the draft/what alliance you're looking to build. Someone not finding you after the match to explain is one thing (that might be alright on some pick lists); not answering if you ask appropriately is quite another. If you're a lower seeded captain, you may really need the type of team/coach that's got the former initiative. But if you're up at the top/have two of the best robots already (yourself and Pick #1), you might be able to get by with someone who you have to sort of 'babysit' in terms of communication, provided that they've got the other qualities you want ...particularly this year. That said, I fully support your allusion that communication is almost always paramount for winning banners.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

Definitely don't cuss at them. I had another mentor do that to me once during Rebound Rumble. Left a bad taste in my mouth concerning that team and mentor ever since.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

One thing our team does is scout how well other teams stick to the strategy. We just keep a side not of that on our scouting forms, and take input from the drive team on whether they did or did not like working with said team and the reasons why.

When it comes to the other alliance, we prefer to do the top 1 or 2 totes on the coop stack so that we can put up some points before doing coop. With this it allows us to make sure the other alliance follows through with their half.

On a side note, if it seems unlikely that you can make the stack, at least go for the set: https://youtu.be/qXDckIvE2YY

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

Good points. If there was a clear explanation then I wouldn't write them off either.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

That comment, Holy s**t!

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

Our robot and drive team can reliably and quickly do coop. What we do is have our scouting team record who can do coop and with what success rate. If we are confident a team can and will do it, we do coop first thing in the match and get it over with. If we're not so sure, we have them do it first, and if they succeed, we do our part.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

Our Pit Scouts, tried doing this at SBPLI and our students got accused of intimidating the other students which was not the case at all...

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

At which point, you may want to simply cross the team off of your picklist. If someone can't deal with a "hey, we were wondering what happened in that last match" in a low-pressure situation, then you have to wonder what will happen in a high-pressure situation, like, oh, I don't know, QF8 or SF5?

Actually, you can also ask if there's anything they need help with--they might have a robot problem that stopped them from doing coop. It happens.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

While it may seem funky that the #1 team doesn't want to go for the co-op, you have to understand the position they are in. Ill give you an example:

3512 was ranked #2 (@ ventura) all day long during the first day of quals, ended #3, but in any case, we were in great position. We got there by putting up 2 stacks of 5 w/ R.C. and litter every single match. One of they key things for us was to be consistent, and adding co-op to the equation was too risky. The main reason for this was that teams simply could not get it done reliably every match. Now I know this doesn't sound like your team, but from my experience your team is an exception to this.

We played 12 qualification matches at ventura, our alliances planned for co-op for every single one of those 12 matches, and I'm pretty sure we only successfully got co-op twice. After the first 3 matches in a row of co-op falling through, and because of our ranking, I made the decision that my team would not be cooperating during any match, and instead that we should focus on building our stacks.

To conclude, I made the decision for my team not to go for co-op based off my opinion that teams were not consistent enough at following through, so why should i take time, and score less points, for something with only a 16.66% (2/12 * 100) chance of succeeding?

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

I said this in another thread, but I feel it's valuable here, too. My team has no ability to score co-op. We make this clear to all our alliance partners. However, we stack the co-op totes at the beginning of the match and then pass them to an alliance partner to hopefully score them. (assist?) It's pretty fast, out of the feeder. There's no loss, even if co-op isn't completed, because we still can put up 2-3 stacks in the time remaining.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

This is the approach we take. We end up doing it ourselves about half the time and passing it to an alliance partner about half the time, depending on what our scouting data says, but we always go for coop. We went 6/12, 10/12, and 8.5/12 at our three events. (The half is for a coop set.)

We have a 2-tote auto, so we can immediately set them down on the step, or we can leave them sitting on the field and go back between stacks or after stacking and finish off the stack they started for us.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

I agree. It's a balancing act. We try to get a balance between "capable of probably getting the coop done" and "can put up more of the points for our alliance" when deciding who to have do our half. It's often quite a feat trying to get the best team we can negotiate out of the other alliance, but I understand because we are doing the same thing.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

We saw this happening. I fully understand its their strategy, but I fail to understand why #1 team:
1. is not confident of their robot/drive team?
2. embrace the coopertition part of FIRST
3. deny their alliance of getting a higher score (especially if their alliance's robot is not as high scoring as them).

Well on the other hand I was not in their position, so its hard for me to understand. I hold no grudge against them.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

They are the #1 seed, presumably if they just keep doing what they're doing they will keep #1 seed. If that means skipping co-op, then they skip it.

The rules incentivize different things, and you should never judge a team for acting within their own self interest within these rules in a competition.

Re: what to do if the other alliance reneges on coop
 

If they know that their alliance partners aren't very good and won't get them that many points anyway, they may want to suggest that they at least try since they wouldn't be making that much of a score difference anyway. They should of course, in that case warn you that the team may not be able to but they will try and there is a fairly good chance that the should be able to get one tote on the stack if you get 3. If they don't want this, then just go back to your original strategy.