[gblake]

Originally Posted by fredliu168

Ya, but you have to keep in mind, in Atlanta there will be at least 15% of the teams that can score in the high goal as fast or faster than in the low goal in terms of balls. If pressed, I can personally probably list around 10 robots that can average around 17-20 high goal balls per game.

I'm gonna put myself out on a limb here, and say that there will probably only be 2-4 out of 24 teams in the elimination matches that can ONLY score low goals without hybriding with hanging/high goaling, and they will all be second picked.

How many balls do you think those high goal bots can score if they have a high capacity low-goal bot hauling the balls to them, instead of having to go fetch them on their own? Hmmm, that might work well.

How many balls do you think those high goal bots will be able to put in the hole if they have a low goal bot constantly between them and those goals or between them and any balls they want to harvest off the floor? Hmmm, that might cause some lowered scores.

How many of those high goal bots will be delighted to have a low goal bot use much of its 18x18x18 for components that are very good at getting and keeping the Atlas Ball, even if an opponent wants to toss it out of the arena. Hmmm, doubled softball scores might be nice to have.

I'm not saying I would build a low goal bot if I were going. I'm not saying I wouldn't. I'm just suggesting that there are non-trivial advantages to devoting machinery (volume, weight, motors, ...) to parts of the game other than high-goal scoring.

Non-trivial doesn't mean better than any other strategy, but it does mean that if I had a high-goal bot, I would think carefully about whether I wanted an ally that had the same weaknesses and strengths as me, or if I maybe wanted an ally that could complement my weaknesses and strengths with a different set of capabilties...

Blake