Quote:
Originally Posted by SoftwareBug2.0
In 2012 it was pretty common for an alliance to have a robot that chased around the same ball for half a match. This reduces the alliance's score by roughly: 1/3*1/2=1/6. That's not good, but the match can still be competitive. On the other hand, since there's only one ball this year chasing it for half a match might reduce the alliance's score by 50%. When that happens this year I would expect the alliance to almost always lose.
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If such a situation occurred in Aerial Assist (where an ineffective team deliberately hogged a ball for half the match just to prove that their design and/or driving was poor), that would be the case of the weaker team bringing "Ill Will" upon the game. Such an attitude is just as offensive as a strong team eschewing any interaction from a weak team simply to avoid the possibility of that weak team from disturbing the scoring drive.
As I implied before, the truly great team will be able to use anything that moves to their advantage. If a team has built a weak-bot, they should acknowledge that, and do the best they can with it. If they can't shoot, and their alliance partner knows it, they should be prepared to take the advice of the de facto leader of the alliance.
This is a zone game. In any qual match-up, a non-shooting robot can be an effective zone 1 or 2 bot. For example, Bot 1 bumps the ball into the white zone. Bot 2 bumps the ball twice (herding) in the white zone, Bot 3 takes the ball and scores.
If, on the other hand, the above Bot 1 thinks it deserves to keep the ball, and sloshes it around for 90 seconds without doing anything, that team is rejecting the spirit and written intent of the game. Well before that point, a strong-bot would and should intercept the ball and score it. If that team can't do so, then it is not as strong as they think they might be.
In any case, this will be a huge year for scouting, I think everyone saw that very early. The standings will have almost no bearing on the effectiveness of the robots being picked; an alliance will need to find robots that are strong for each zone. If a hack-bot causes a strong team to lose in the quals, knocking them out of the top 8, or even back into the 20's,,, well you know the rest.
Our team has clawed it's way past the middle, but we are still in awe of the superteams out there. We still find them inspiring. Stay gracious everyone!