[ManicMechanic]

It doesn't always have to be either/or. Sometimes, the Atlas ball is safely pinned in your zone by an alliance partner or a sea of softballs (we had this happen once -- the opponents didn't have a means to effectively push the balls out of the way and couldn't even enter our zone, let alone get the ball). Or the Atlas ball might be so securely pinned in your opponent's zone that the chances of getting it back are slim to none. In both cases, it makes sense to go for the chin-up (and knock off an opponent's robot while you're at it).

Our initial strategy had actually included trying to push the Atlas ball out of play to increase the relative value of our chinning up, but we found it impractical.