intentionally starting without a ball in auto

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

Is anyone planning to start matches without a ball inside of their robot and immediately grab one from the center instead?

The possible advantage to this might be that this alliance starts the match in control of one extra ball.

I think it's a viable strategy, but keep in mind that it's high-risk low-reward. You're putting yourself in a position to give the enemy free points, performing an auto that will require some very precise motions and above-average complexity to get a score that you could put up in a much simpler manner.

[pntbll1313]

I can see this only slightly benefiting teams at the highest of levels, but in general I don't think this will matter until Champs elims/IRI. Starvation of BOULDERS with 18 game pieces is not something we're currently worrying about. 18 BOULDERS means there should always be at least 1 BOULDER somewhere on the field to grab (most likely more than 1). If our robot can traverse defenses/get into our own secret passage as fast as we hope it should be little difference to us whether the next BOULDER we grab is from the center line or from our secret passage.

I like the next level thinking though!