Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Leonard
Again, this is your experience at your event. Different events with different teams require different strategies. Talk to 1241 about whether running a defensive robot is worth it after Waterloo. I think they'll disagree with your analysis.
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Honestly, after watching Waterloo Finals, I think they'd have been better off with another 1-2 boulder high goal shooter.
(No idea if there was even one available though) 3560 didn't block shots at all, staying in the Neutral Zone entirely, and only really played a factor of really getting in the way twice during the 3 finals matches, maybe adding a total of 20-25 seconds delay to the opposing alliance per match. That's like 1 ball. They got more penalties than that in their final match.
5912 did a much better job of defense for the red alliance, and even then was only responsible for maybe 1-2 missed shots and 25-30 seconds of total delay per match. But they got a penalty for contact to a robot in the Outerworks each match, so that negates at least one of those boulders saved each match.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keefe2471
I appreciate the effort and thought put into this thread by you and others. Your personal experiance is a great addition, but I think I draw a different conclusion. While your other bullet points have merit, I think they are greatly overshadowed by #4. As a third robot, you held two robots that scored a combined high of 12 high goals to only 6, in two matches! Instead of saying defense is only an option if you can't stay with them, I think defense is the way to go if you can stay with them. You say in the same bullet point that their third pick put in 2 high balls, you prevented 6. Assuming the capture is a given and your other 2 bots offense is equal or better, you're coming out ahead.
Not even factoring in the other points brought up pro defense; like congestion from 4 bots, preventing a short circuit of balls being inbounded, availability of shooters as a top 3 seed alliance, etc. The PNW has seen defense consistently change the game at the highest levels seen thus far, we'll see how DCMP goes this weekend.
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While I appreciate your extrapolation, through watching specifically play on red's side of the field, we realistically only prevented/delayed 3-4 shots max. Alliance 1 was playing out of their mind in Finals 2, and would have not scored that much in their matches against us. And if 51 their 3rd robot had not been playing low goal offense, they would have not captured in either match, but still winning by proxy of larger high:low goals scored ratio.
Alternatively, if we
HAD played offense, we most certainly would have captured both matches too. But 6 of our balls would have been low, and 8 of their would have been high, so they still would have won. We were simply way outgunned. If either us or 4776 had been shooting 4 high (instead of each of us capable of 4 low), the only difference then would be two high boulders and 67's hang, which is much closer. But we don't live in fantasy land, we didn't, and they did.
Our inability to shoot high was the sole reason we relegated someone to defense. We could almost keep up with them in frequency, but not point value.
Is the capture really a given though. In most events, you'll be really hard pressed to find multiple robots capable of
consistently scoring more than 4 teleop high goals/match. We'll see more data as Regional Championships play out.
I have not watched much PNW, but coming from my friends in Washington, there were not that many high goal shooters to choose from at district events, therefore scarcity forced the hand of Alliance Captains to play defense with their 2nd picks. We'll see if defense can continue when shooters are more plentiful into the 3rd round of robots.