Value of defense

[Sunshine]

Originally Posted by ahartnet

I think a key thing everyone here is missing is that the defender may not be focusing so much on blocking shots or messing up a robot trying to shot but preventing boulder pickup from the secret passage.

The team update made it very clear the rule is designed such that trying to get a boulder from the secret passage is going to be dangerous if there's an opposing robot over there. If there's not then if you have two boulder scoring robots you can pretty well guarantee a selection of boulders to choose from without leaving the enemy courtyard.

You are correct if alliances do not plan for this. Offensive bots need to rotate through the field so they are not getting in each other's way in the court yard. Have one in court yard while other is in secret passage area, rotate. You'll be in greater risk of penalty.

[mjc49]

While defense is risky, I would expect that when elims come around, teams will have enough scouting information to have a strategy where they may want to slow down the opposition if they are able to get a decent lead during the Autonomous period.

Since the mysterious force known as Murphy's Law happens, we want our drivers to know how to play defense in case something goes wrong. Scoring is what we are building the robot to do and our strategy to plan for but stuff happens!


I'm really looking forward to seeing the game strategies evolve this season.