[Matt Adams]

I think that Car Nack is right, and I think that it takes a pretty good imagination with how the game will play out to understand why. I won't pretend to share this vision to the same extent that Car Nack does, but if I only understand half of it, I'll agree with his predicition.

So whoever wins autonomous has an extra 10 points. This is... moderately influential, but not too swinging.

What is terribly important is the order. If you lose autonomous, you're on offense first. Here's the problem: What exactly do you plan on shooting?

Each team will presumably start with all 10 balls in their robot. If you lose autonomous, you're heading down to the side of the field where there are most likely more balls strewn about because the losing machines were inaccurate. 5 machines are on that side trying to pick up those balls, so likely the offense will get only 60% of what was missed. Keep in mind, they're using this time to refill as opposed to score points shooting. Even if the defense doesn't play any defense and just picks up balls, or sits and gets refilled through a top loading mechanism under the human player station, they are NOT wasting time gathering the playing field balls during their 40 seconds of offense in the second round.

Second round, the team that wins auto now has picked up some balls, and ideally their back bot is full to the brim. These three machines do not need to spend any time loading their machines. I'm going to venture to say they have 15 or 20 more seconds of offense than the team that lost autonomous.

The last 40 seconds, the team that lost auto now needs to move to the other side of the field to score, while the team that won does not.

I'll be bolder than Car Nack:
Assuming equal caliber machines, I think the team that wins autonomous wins 100% of the time, and this would happen even without the 10 point bonus.

And to futher this point, I believe that if you're shooting the balls well this year, it's done with significant software control. If you win the autonomous mode, you likely have better aiming functions, and I think those machines, will be of a higher caliber. The most accurate shooting with descent strategy will win this game.

Matt