[Travis Hoffman]

Hey, Joe!

The Game is called "Stack Attack", not "Lift Attack" - that's all I have to say. That, and this rule really hurts this game's spectator friendliness.

This type of negative QP strategy seems more suited to the spiteful and the desperate (sounds like a winning name for a new soap opera) as, in Joe's example, the Lift Bot's "winning" Red alliance would get 16 - 120 = -104 QP while the "losing" Blue Alliance on the ramp would get -60 QP.

If this scoring strategy of generating negative QP's is, in fact, legal, then I think it should be EXPLICITLY made known to everyone in a future team update, so everyone is fully aware of this possibility and can plan accordingly. Teams have enough difficulties to deal with on a daily basis - they shouldn't have to hire a lawyer in order to plow through the murky quagmire of the Game Manual.

My advice to teams on the ramp who are about to be affected by this so-called "strategy" - if time permits and the risk of losing 25 points is an acceptable one, consider doing exactly what the name of the game says - ATTACK THE STACK.... More than likely, the Lift Bot is going to be taller and more unstable than you. Don't let the fact that there's an opposing robot between you and the stack get in your way. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, they've just made the decision to become a PART of your stack, and therefore, you should be able to manipulate THEM as you would a stack that was comprised solely of bins. If your objective is to topple your OWN "stack" to eliminate the negative QP threat, full use of acceptable ramming/pushing/lifting/wedging force to achieve this objective should be perfectly legal. As soon as the opposing robot interacts with your stack, it has just made itself a potential target and should expect to be treated as such. If teams are bold (or foolish) enough to try such a lifting strategy, they should be prepared to deal with the consequences of such actions.

If your alliance is on the ramp and does indeed attempt to attack the stack, don't forget about the 16 Human Player points in the opposing scoring zone the antagonizing alliance hopes you forgot about. Let's say the antagonizers bait both of you into coming off the ramp and chasing the Lift Bot and your "stack" around, and you eventually manage to evade the protective defense of Tank Bot and get Lift Bot to drop the lifted bin (or get him to run away with his tail between his legs, or better yet - simply tip him and the "stack" over :-P ). If you can't get back to the ramp by the end of the match, you'd lose the match 16-1 (or worse). Keep one of your alliance bots on the ramp, or have him go topple THEIR stack, push their bins out of their scoring zone, and rush back to the ramp.

I would think more teams might prefer to not create negative QP or EP scores but instead use their lift mechanism to reduce or completely CANCEL OUT all Base scoring for their opposition. This might come in handy in the eliminations when you're stuck in the opponent's zone during a match and you want to create some havoc to keep the scores as low as possible to prevent a large EP disparity.

Total Bins in Scoring Zone = X
1 of those bins is lifted to X SHU => Stack Height = X.

Bin Score = Base * Stack Height = (Total Bins - Stack Height) * Stack Height

Bin Score =[ X - X ] * X = 0

10 bins total in scoring zone.
1 of those bins is lifted to 10 SHU height.

Score = (10 - 10) * 10 = 0

Regardless of the opponent's intent, I think the best counterstrategy for this play remains the same - tell them that they're in Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood, and show them that Mr. Robinson doesn't take too kindly to that sort of thing going on in his backyard.