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When it comes to traction it's 90% experimentation. Its easy to calculate friction by material and normal force(NOT pressure). Surface area can help or hurt. For deformable surfaces you want slightly more but it you have to much surface area then the pressure on every square inch is very little so you don't deform the materials. To little material and you won't maximize the deformation. So you shold experiment with the material you have to see what amount of surface area gives you the best result.
If your experiment shows that more surface area would help then build a tread system but if it shows less is better than use wheels. Width of your treads and wheels further helps you optimize this.
A general rule is wheels are faster and more manueverable and treads have more pushing power. A small minority of teams though can be fast, manueverable, and have enourmous pushing power ::cough technokats::.
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