[Kevin Sevcik]

Mike,

I think as it stands, we can all see the large, large advantages to winning autonomous. 10 points, plus defense, offense, offense. It's a powerful combination. So, think about the inverse. The team that wins autonomous, call it Blue, goes on offense first. They've just shot all their balls to win auto, even if the Red team doesn't do anything. Worse, if they scored all the balls, then Red has complete control over those balls, and Blue is left with the 10 remaining balls in the bins. So, Blue gets maybe 10 more balls to work with, plus the reloading penalty. Red gets to starve Blue and be on offense 2 periods in a row. Worse, Blue can't reload for their final offense period until Red has scored points.

Overall, I think all that adds up to a disadvantage much larger than the 10-point bonus. So you'd have the odd situation of the really highly capable teams NOT wanting to win autonomous. It might be interesting to see robots aiming for opposing goals in autonomous trying to score just enough points to put the opposing alliance on offense first, but it wouldn't be right.