[donnie99]

The way our team discussed this problem at the beginning of the year was different because of the new way the playoffs are held. With the top four teams in the quarterfinals and top 2 from the semifinals advancing, then alliances that maximize their own scoring while limiting the scoring of as many other alliances as they can, would be the ones to advance. With this in mind, the RC's on the step are the most important part to this strategy.

With only the three RC's that start on an alliances side of the field, if they stacked all their totes (including those from the step) and the 3 RC's they own, they would score 212 points (I'm not including noodles in any points, as it is all dependent on both alliances use of them). So this alliances max score would be 212 (plus autonomous and noodles).

The other alliance, if they had taken all 4 RC's from the step, would have a max score of 284 in teleop (everything stacked) plus autonomous and noodles.

The difference may not seem like a large gap in terms of FIRST games, but when you think about the time and ability it would take to score everything on your side of the field, it would take three extremely efficient teams to pull this off.

My point is that the RC's being taken off the step can make or break an alliance's run in the playoffs.