Quote:
Originally Posted by davidthefat
I believe a good defense is as good as, if not better than, a good offensive bot. Now imagine this: what good is a high scoring bot if it is:
1.) Capsized
2.) Demobilized
3.) Blocked
4.) Broken in general
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That's an easy one, David.
<G48>: Yellow Card, intentional damaging strategy, first offense. Second offense is a second YC, which is an automatic Red Card.
After the first Red Card, if the team doesn't shape up, the refs can pull a second one. Especially if they've got a yellow card already (<T08>).
Now, up to this point, I've been assuming one thing: The refs haven't called
egregious behavior. Under <T09>, the refs can pull a red card out for that without bothering to pull a Yellow Card (though they could also pull a Yellow under <T06>). Plus you get a yellow card going into any subsequent matches.
So, if those robots are damaged like that intentionally, the
best you could expect would be one match that counted. So those high-scoring robots are good for getting you lots and lots of red cards, and any scout worth their salt will tell you that any team with lots and lots of red cards will get your entire alliance DQ'd out of eliminations.
Have you knocked them out? Sure. But you won't be picked for eliminations, except by a team that really wants a pile of cards. Worse still, you'll get a
reputation. You'll be known as the team that got red cards all event long.
The only thing in that list that you wouldn't get a red card or a yellow card for is a block. And I'm telling you right now, there are teams out there that don't care for blocking robots and will proceed to go around or through you... or worse still, block the blocker.
There was a team that did quite well (pre-required-bumpers) as a defensive robot. Team 4 won two straight Los Angeles Regionals as a defender... but they started both as offense, and changed later to defense when the offense just wasn't there. In both cases, however, they did not play break-em defense. They played smart defense--block, keep someone else from blocking, get in the way, spin the opponent at just the right time to keep them from scoring, all that sort of thing that doesn't damage opponents, but stops them from being very effective at offense.