You better believe that I darn well hope this "blocking" thing doesn't become illegal in hybrid mode. What a downer to not be able to do ANYthing about watching the powerhouses drive laps around you and get a huge lead in the first 15sec of the match. The defense has become just about ZERO in this game, and by negating any possibility of putting a damper on the hybrid awesomeness just plain sucks IMO. If the hybrid is that awesome, they can find a way to go around, or use their robocoaches. To expect everyone else to sit idly by and wave as they fly past you in hybrid, is sorta ridiculous.
So.. let's see.
We have "blocking and obstructing traffic". If I were on 4 lane expressway and stopped in one lane - it will suck for whoever is behind me, but they have 3 other lanes in which to get around me. I may be slowing them down a bit, but I'm not "preventing" them from getting around me (see reference to preventing below).
We have a definition of "impeding" - which we should logically carry it's definition over to whatever mode we're in... so again, preventing or obstructing an opponent robot's abiility to get around the track. One robot in it's way doesn't prevent it from getting around the track in another lane. Even if you want to argue that it IS impeding, then as long as there is 6sec left on the clock, there's no impeding penalty...... but it's not impeding.
"During teleoperated mode" you'll be impeding if you're "preventing" a team from going around the track (Update 2). Moving back and forth to prevent them from passing you could be considered "preventing" and "impeding" but that hasn't been specifically called out yet. But regardless, if there's a lane around you in which a robot can maneuver through, you're not "preventing" them from going around the track - you're just in their way in that particular spot.
Yes, 45 blocked 148 in the finals at St. Louis. But in the match prior to that, they went around us. So... in both cases, we moved out XX distance and stopped hoping to get in the way of one of those beasts. In one case we got in the way, in another we didn't. So because we happened to get in the way once, as opposed to not the other time, we should be penalized for that? We got lucky and they ran into us the second time - so we should be penalized? They could have changed their automode to go around us the next time after seeing what we did. Why do I have to change mine? One could argue - by them not changing THEIR automode, they ran right into us hoping to draw a penalty on us for impeding - which is also illegal in the rules....(I'm not arguing that though - just devil's advocate).
We had trouble with our automodes each day - so except for us, who's to say it didn't simply move out and stop with no particular intention? Maybe we wanted to drive past the finish line, but due to an error in the last modification, it stopped short..... I won't debate the intention thing - it's been beaten already.
Anyway, maybe I repeated a few things, but I for one hope they don't make it illegal unless it blocks the entire track, just as in tele-mode. With virtually no defense in this game, this is one little glimmer of possible tactics that can work. Just because you have an awesome automode doesn't necessarily mean we have to allow you to repeatedly crush us with it, right? Those who have already mastered the automode need some sort of added challenge, right?
