defense tackle or offensive guard?

[blaze8902]

Well you can't directly interfere with the opposing alliance's ball, but you can "Offensively Defend". Whether a goalie is effective really comes down to the effectiveness of the opposing robot's shooter. A successful deflection can drastically extend the cycle time of the opposing alliance. However I suspect that in later weeks of the competition this is going to become less and less effective as we begin to see powerful shooters. The problem, I believe, with trying to have two defensive robots is turn-around time. Can you spend any meaningful amount of time defending if you're also trying to multi-task and make sure that you're in position when it is your turn to possess your alliance's ball during your cycle? The robot that possess the ball during the beginning of your cycle has plenty of time to get into the goalie zone, but while the ball is in position of the zone 1 and zone 2 robots, the third robot has the most time to defend through disruption.