[Rhelik]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

Furthermore, a situation I have seen a lot is when an alliance gets the opponents ball stuck in their robot accidentally. If the red robot had a blue ball land in their robot, and red robot doesn't have a working mechanism and cannot get the ball out, which alliance is supposed to declare the dead ball? Blue's ball is "dead", but it's in the red robot.

Now if red's robot DOES work, but they're confused and don't know if they should eject it or not, and the ball is declared dead, it is a strategic advantage for red to the eject blue's ball. Blue has a new ball on the field already, but now they're forced to go score the dead ball that just got put back into play by the red robot. Oops.

I've seen this happen at least 3 times so far in matches that I've watched. The result is generally absolute chaos and pandemonium, and usually results in a replay because nobody has clear direction on what to do.

Red already got the tech foul for accidental posession, so they have no incentive to eject it until the ball is either declared dead, or they think they'll be assessed a 2nd tech foul for prolonged violation. If you've already got the tech foul, might as well delay your opponents a bit. If the ball was declared dead immediately, you get to play havoc with their strategy, and maybe even prevent them from getting to score the new ball!

Disclaimer: The above strategy is not what I would consider GP, but it is a valid play that is not addressed by the current rules.

From the rulebook 3.1.2
If an ALLIANCE’S BALL becomes stuck in an opposing ALLIANCE’S ROBOT, the Head Referee will signal an extended infraction of G12 (the assumption is that the ALLIANCE has already been penalized for the initial G12 infraction). At this point, the Head Referee will suspend the current CYCLE and re-illuminate the PEDESTAL, beginning another CYCLE for that ALLIANCE. If the stuck BALL is freed, that ball will be considered FIELD debris.

I agree with your assessment in that if a team gets an opposing team's ball on them they will be assessed a G12, and if they keep it for some period (Ref's interpretation) they will be assessed a second G12. At that time the ref declares introduces a new CYCLE. He does not declare the ball dead because a dead ball comes with more restrictions (having to clear it before scoring). Its essentially FIELD debris at this point, or the point in which it becomes clear of the robot.

To back up the OP, this would cause even more chaos. After clearing auton balls, Red could essentially have 3 balls on the field. Dead, debris, live. It's even worse if you consider opponents picking up loose Auton balls before they are scored.

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

Note that this situation (at least the intentional part) is remedied by making it a regular foul (or no foul) for incidental posession of an opponent's ball if you get rid of it immediately (eg within 5 seconds or so). That encourages teams to get rid of the ball ASAP, because they haven't gotten the tech foul yet but it is imminent.

As a team that had an opponents ball pushed onto us, I think this approach would have been better. Get a foul for possession, have the 5 second count (much like they do with a pin) to clear it or receive a Tech Foul. When this happened to another team at Tech Valley and they questioned it, they were told it was not against the rules to force the ball into your opponent. I don't understand why that doesn't violate G14 however.

G14
Strategies aimed solely at forcing the opposing ALLIANCE to violate a rule are not in the spirit of FRC and are not allowed. Rule violations forced in this manner will not result in assessment of a penalty on the target ALLIANCE.

Violation: TECHNICAL FOUL