Value & Credibility of 4th robots on an Alliance

[EricH]

Originally Posted by pandamonium

so I have been putting more thought into this and a rule that would require 4th robots and I have came up with a unique solution. What if an alliance at championships gets a small bonus for using a 4th robot. This year I think that a 4 point bonus would be fair. This adds a strategic element to this choice and rewards teams for including a 4th robot. Thoughts?

Third robots wouldn't see much of the field, as points is points. You'd have to phrase it such that both the third and the fourth robot played in the set of matches, which I rather suspect would end up very similar to the "every team plays at least once per round" setup. Possibly, use that as the first tiebreaker in eliminations (he who uses the most robots in the round wins)--see also "another can of worms".


I think the requirement that every team play in every round would be quite sufficient. Sets up some interesting strategy decisions and I'd be willing to bet that third matches have a matchup that didn't happen in either first or second matches.