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Unread 03-04-2005, 18:27
Lil' Lavery Lil' Lavery is offline
TSIMFD
AKA: Sean Lavery
FRC #1712 (DAWGMA)
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Re: Winning Defensive Allaince?

Yes, but a robot with a weak drive train defending a goal with their arm can be pushed aside.
The problem with defending, especially when your defending a particular goal instead of a robot, it ofren becomes a 2v3 (or 2 and a reduced capability robot, so like 2v2 1/2).
Defense is part of the game, but to dedicate a robot to defending the entire or most of the match is usually a foolish decision. The robots who call to be defended are usually the power house teams. These are the robots can cap score 20-30 points on their own. Even when defended they will still usually score some points. Now you have to hope your other two robots can outscore their other 2 and the few points the defended robot contributes. And that is harder than it sounds, because that defended robot is a powerhouse and is probably ranked pretty high, meaning hes got good alliance partners.
And beyond that defense typically will have higher penalties. Not always more penalties, but the penalty points a defensive robot accumulates will usually be higher than that of an offensive robot. They also run the risk of DQ or decapping as aggressive driving may DQ you, and if you defend goals with your arm you may accidentally knock a tetra off.
And then theirs the matter of the qualifying matches. Most defensive robots arnt as flashy and dont finish as high in the standings as offenseive bots (not that they are lesser robots, but they typically wont be ranked as well), so it puts them at a disadvantage during the selection process. So some alliances will pick a defensive bot knowing their strategy ahead of time. But the problem with that is if you find yourself down in points late in a match, a defensive robot wont be able to help you gain those points back as quickly as an offensive robot would. But if you choose an offensive robot instead of the defensive one, that bot wont be as good for your defensive roll.
Now if you choose to go 3 offensive, you wont have that dilemma. Plus, there are certain situations, specifically late in a match when you have a lead, that you may choose to play defense. Now you can commit 2 or even all 3 bots to that task, and in numbers they can perform better than 1 dedicated defensive bot.
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