[EricH]

If I needed omni-directional motion, and I did not have a swerve drive prototyped already, I would probably turn to mecanum--and adopt a strategy that used lots of offense with some "trick" defense. I bet that some of those FCS blockers could have been pretty effective on a mecanum base, for example--but so could have been the FCS, for the same reasons.

However, if I had a swerve drive prototyped that I was "happy" with--that is, that I figured was pretty close to where I'd want it for competition--I would take that over the mecanum.

Of course, I'm assuming here that I actually need omni-directional motion, but that's a discussion for another day, say a couple of days after Kickoff.

Here's what I see as the advantages for each side, just mecanum vs swerve:
Mecanum:
-Potentially lighter
-Easy to turn into 4WD should I decide at the event that I don't need omni motion
-Fewer moving parts, so less likely to break
-Somewhat less control complexity than swerve, on the feedback side mainly

Swerve:
-100% of power goes in the direction I want, no vectoring.
-several ways to set up, each with its own pros/cons (somewhat easy "tuning")
-more possible variants--witness 1625's 6-wheel, the 16/148 3-wheel, and 3928's CIM-in-wheel in addition to more "traditional designs"
-looks cooler