The Dead Ball Debacle

[Rhelik]

Gregor,

I can guess at two reasons that each Alliance is limited to declaring a single dead ball.

Originally Posted by Gregor

How exactly are the referees supposed to keep track of which ball is dead and which ball is live, when it's hard enough to tell the difference between different coloured balls when there 4 robots and 2 balls all together bashing into each other

1: Lets take your first point. Can you imagine a game where there are three dead balls for blue on the field. If you've seen a game where the dead ball came free you know the chaos that can ensue. Any chance that the teams or refs could keep track would be very limited with more than 1 dead ball per alliance. As you say, it was hard enough for the ref to watch his particular corner and the rest of the field. If he missed where the balls changed position, he'd never know which one to score and which ones to ignore. Limiting teams to 1 dead ball each at least provided a chance that the refs could keep track.

Originally Posted by Gregor

Why? What strategic advantages do teams have for calling multiple dead balls? If I have 2 alliance partners who both die in autonomous, I literally cannot score anymore points, other than drawing fouls (everyone's favourite, right?). How would you feel if this specific event were to happen in on Einstein final match 3?

2. Now for the strategic advantage of declaring a dead ball. At the New York Tech Valley Regional I watched a number of games where dead balls were declared. On two occasions a few of us noted that a team declared their ball dead once a defense had them cornered (not pinned). They could not escape, so they quickly declared the ball dead. This allowed their team to reintroduce a new ball and thus a chance of continued scoring. Obviously this is a strategic advantage. Allowing this to happen more than once would essentially just shut down the defensive side of the game. Any team could declare their ball dead, let a new one come onto the field and then toss their ball from the field to free up their robot to receive the new live ball.

I didn't notice anything in the rules that doesn't allow this action either.


-Bernie