Defense in Ultimate Ascent

[cmrnpizzo14]

Originally Posted by karomata

Defense has actually probably had one of the largest impacts in Ultimate Ascent. At kickoff, many people thought that because of the placing of the pyramids, it was insane to get anywhere near robots shooting near their pyramid. However, with the rise of full court shooters, defense quickly became a good idea. Taller robots with more material higher up were successfully able to block full court shooters, however alliances without them were knocked out consistantly because of the sheer scoring power of full court shooter. For example, 3173 had an average score of 80 at the Boston Regional. This was not an easy team to beat, regardless of who their alliance partners were, this is shown in 3173s continuous success throughout the elims in both the Finger Lakes and Boston Regional. The only way to have any chance at stopping full court shooters, like 3173 or 148, is to have a defensive tall robot, or as shown in silicon valley, have them fall over on the way to their feeder station.

+1 to that, we could have averaged more without some motor troubles on Saturday that we unfortunately brought onto ourselves. We also noticed that when we had our shooter up to speed our flywheel acted as a gyroscope and helped prevent us from being tipped.

I think that this year defense is whatever you make of it. If you choose to try and actively defend a cycle shooter, you can do it. Maybe not to the extent that a FCS could be blocked (nice job 3003 ) but you could do it. You could also though just try and purely outscore a team because unlike last year whatever you score doesn't become available to the other alliance. Heck, 48 even showed us that you can defend a 30 pt. climber that wants to start climbing immediately after auton.

There have been alliances that have tried to get up in auton and then hold the lead. There have been the more traditional style alliances (469, 3539, 217) that used 2 Offense and 1 Defense. There have been teams that will just outscore you (2056, 1114, 1325).

I think that this is the reason that this year's game is my favorite: There are so many different combinations that you could use to effectively compete.