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Unread 18-03-2013, 19:47
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thefro526 thefro526 is offline
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AKA: Dustin Benedict
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Re: Climbing and dumping not winning?

Going back a few weeks to the end of build, I was one of those people that believed climbing and dumping was a viable and advantageous strategy. I still do. Machines that climb and dump for 50pts may not be winning events, but they still have their place in this game and can still be highly competitive.

If one were to take a look at the match scores from the last three weeks, they would see that the Average Qualification Match Score is ~50pts and the Average Elimination Match Score is ~80pts. This would imply that 3 robots, on average should be capable of scoring 50pts or so in a match and not necessarily be of Eliminations Caliber...

So, if a team were to field a 50pt climb and dump robot, that team would - in theory - out score the average qualification match with a disc or two scored in autonomous, or a partner that puts up a point or three, and that same climb and dump robot, if paired with another reasonably capable machine, should be able to out score the Elimination Match Average without too much Hassle.

I think the reason that we're not seeing a lot of climb and dump robots winning events is more complicated than it seems, but the primary reason is that there just aren't that many robots that went for the climb and dump strategy, and many of those that did, aren't climbing and scoring reliably enough to really make a dent.

All of that being said, I think that data shows that building a climb and dump machine wasn't a bad decision, especially if it's effective. Regardless of the time the machine takes to do it's climb and dump, 50pts are 50pts and there are a heck of a lot of machines that couldn't touch that number on an open field.