Helping the opposing alliance...
 

So I've been watching some of the regional feeds, and I've been seeing some absolute shutouts, or large leads.

Because your RS is determined by your opposing alliance's (if you win) unpenalized score, it is a benefit to have a very close final score.

But what if your opposing alliance consists of robots who are not able to score very efficiently, or breaks downs, your ranking score will be very low. And because of the fact that you can't directly score for your opponents, is there a way to help your opponents, to boost both your RS AND their RS?

Re: Helping the opposing alliance...
 

Your "bracket" is determined by WLT, so it is never to your advantage to help the other team. However, it is to your advantage to make sure the game is as close as possible: Don't play defense.

Re: Helping the opposing alliance...
 

While your bracket IS determined by your QS, (2 for win, 1 for tie, 0 for loss), if there is a tie in the QS, the top team is determined by the RS. Which would happen if 2 teams went undefeated, and the top alliances were determined by their RS.

Even if you aren't playing defense, are there any other ways to help opposing alliances?

Re: Helping the opposing alliance...
 

If you realize that you are ahead by a hefty sum, you can get one robot on your team to push tubes towards the opposing alliance, you could have your human players toss tubes right in front of their rack, or if you are up by a really nice amount and you have good timing, you could intentionally let the opposing alliance get first place in the minibot race and you could take second place.

Re: Helping the opposing alliance...
 

Hmm, letting the opponents get the minibot score...sounds risky!

Only thing you would have to watch out for are penalties.

Re: Helping the opposing alliance...
 

The minibots do make it interesting because you can't tell if their minibot will make it up, so you have to be at least 30 points ahead for in they win, but if they lose you get way less points.

Re: Helping the opposing alliance...
 

as risky as it seems, usually only 1 opposing alliance member had a minibot, and we had one that we deployed every match so we really only needed to be 10 points ahead. We used this strategy multiple times throughout our tournament and only lost one match because our deployment system misfired.

Re: Helping the opposing alliance...
 

Co-opertition isn't about helping other teams by making yourself worse, it's about helping other teams be better. Deliberately helping the other team mid-game isn't really gracious professionalism in my view.

Plus, you run the risk of making yourself look worse to other teams and possibly even losing if you miscalculate.

However, if you are winning by 50 plus points and you have no need to deploy the mini-bot, then you don't have to. Practice driving or playing defence or something.

I'm not saying be ruthless every game, but sometimes being pitied is a worse than being destroyed.