Optimum Ball Mechanics

[Jecht22]

I was just wondering if people would be able to help me with a few things before I go into prototyping our shooter.
Although our design is very common, here it is
4 wheels (2 on top and 2 on bottom)
2 CIMs
My 2 questions:

1. what is the optimum gear ratio for shooting the balls (Direct drive using CIM's or gearing them up to go faster)
2. What is the optimum angle to set the shooter at (fundamentally I see a 45 degree angle as the perfect angle to maximize distance but I wanted another opinion)