Tube starvation/stealing

[CallieJ]

Tube starvation, as with any strategy, needs to be something that is thought through completely. There is no strategy in FRC that can be applied successfully to every match- the variables are just too complicated. For the very, very good teams (and I'm talking 1114, 254, 233, that level) it becomes more about finding solutions to the defensive strategies other teams throw at you.

Single color starvation is probably the simplest to accomplish, since it has a very straightforward objective and doesn't require much in-match adjustment. I do know, however, that many of the top teams have been facing that strategy since Week 2 and it doesn't even faze them anymore. If anyone was watching the finals matches at SVR you can see we didn't even bother to try and use it against 254- their human player knows how to get around it.

Some form of tube strategy can make a very big difference when you know that your advantage is in the minibot. But all of these strategies have to be adjusted for the situation. And that's partly what is going to make Championship matches so interesting. At regional events there are often powerhouses who win all of their matches irrespective of their opponents. Occasionally the top couple of teams will play each other and have a difficult match, but usually they just have to play, not do anything stupid, and everything will be fine.

At Championships the way the OPRs play out (at least in Galileo) is that even the top 1 or 2 teams are not guaranteed to win all of their matches if they're playing 3 mid-ranked robots. However, there's not enough of a discrepancy for it to be pushed completely the other way, either. I personally am looking forward to seeing the combination of some of these simpler strategies to fit unique situations.