[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Cory

I'm not sure what you mean, but it is pretty clear that this is the year the rich get richer and the middle of the road teams have no way to differentiate themselves.

Look at 148 as an example. They will potentially empty the human loading stations entirely. That would be 3 stacks, with noodles and cans and 34 points in auton. Total of 160 points by themselves (plus coop points, if they do it themselves).

An average robot probably can't even create a 6 stack or takes the entire match to do so. Let's be charitable and say you could make a 6 stack and a 3 stack. That's only 18 points without someone getting cans off the step to cap with (which assumes someone other than 148 can cap cans). 18 points isn't trivial, but its basically 1/10 that of 148.

To be fair, even elite robots will fail to make 5 6 stacks on their own, so the bar isn't quite that high. But the overall contribution of the average team will still be minimal, compared to last year where you absolutely needed them to contribute in order to get high scores.

The only way a middle of the road team could have differentiated themselves was with a multi recycling can autonomous grabber...but the problem is the elite teams will all do it faster/better than those middle of the road teams do, leading to the middle of the road 2 (or 4) RC grabber robot being useless once lined up against the elite team with their 2 or 4 RC grabber robot.

Have you seen how long it takes 148 to stack 6 + RC+ noodle? (I saw a lot of clips of it driving around with 6 loaded which many bots can do) Remember theroretical scores are just that until duplicated in action under game conditions in 135 seconds. Its easy to be enamored/wowed with glossy reveal videos...lets see it in action first. It takes TIME to build any stack (even at HP station) and many of these robots need perfection to build those stacks in the first place.

Potentially empty the HP station is just that... potential not necessarily reality..our bot could potentially score all landfill totes doesn't prove anything. I think 148 will be solid but also rely to a certain extent on decent alliance players or they will fail it they expect to "do it all" and waltz into the Championship Finals.

I see a shakeup this year at the Top...not a predictable as in past do to variability in game conditions. Many robots are very similar in design and that makes it difficult for many to separate including powerhouse teams.