Value of defense

[martin417]

Originally Posted by jdaming

What rules are you talking about? There is nothing like the key (in RR) this year. If you are talking about backing up into the outer works that seems to grey area that I am sure the QA will clarify.

Originally Posted by JesseK

There are no safe zones for scoring boulders, including on the batter. There are no rules which inhibit defense against scoring boulders, except those surrounding the outer works (i.e. ball flow).

Hope those batter shields are tough .

There is a safe zone stretching all the way across the field. The outer works.
I have it on good authority that the outer works protection rule was intended as a dual role. Protection for both breaching and shooting. I do not expect an update changing it.

Based on shooting from the key in 2012, I don't expect shooting from the outer works to be overly difficult, however, it is a high risk for the reward (missed shot is a huge penalty in time), so many teams may decide to forgo long shooting. With only one defensive bot allowed, there will always be at least one low goal vulnerable.