[pipsqueaker]

I think there's a lot to be said for a dedicated ball scorer to be honest.

Gears will give you, in elims, 260 points. A good ball scorer should probably be cycling 150 balls (50 points per cycle), meaning they'll have to cycle 5 times over the course of the match.

My measured estimate is that getting the 150 balls from the hoppers will take 15s. With 120s in the match for teleop, that leaves you needing to cycle every 23s. Getting your pieces from the loading lanes will probably take 7s. Allowing 8s for transit time means your shooter will have to be capable of firing off 150 balls in 8 seconds, or about 19 balls per second.

Call me crazy, but I think 19 balls a second is doable.

Of course, I'm not accounting for defense here, but gear bots will be hurt more by defense than shooters because if they come up even one gear short MORE THAN HALF of the point value they bring will be annihilated.

Shooters wont suffer from that. If in a match a shooter 90% of what it aims to do, it will score 90% of the points. If a gear bot achieves 90% of its goal, it will score 45% of the points.

My gut says that dedicated gear bots without shooters will be competitive at high levels of play, and that good shooters (with the specs I described) with no gear handling-capacity will become incredibly strong as the game progresses