Station 2 & Match Schedules

[Bob Steele]

Our team has noticed an issue with playoffs which seems to favor the Blue alliance in every match. (Note... this actually may be an advantage for RED rather than Blue....I am checking... regardless one alliance does have an advantage) It is a result of the assignment of the alliance picks in a static manner and the apparent lack of flexibility in designing a strategy by giving teams a particular place for their drive stations. If the assignments are 1,2,3 for each team, I think that the Red team will always have their second best robot driver station on the boiler side every match and that team will never be able to see the gear/ball retrieval station on the other end of the field directly because of the airship blocking the line of sight. Additionally, the #3 robot in the alliance will never be able to see the boiler in any match. (Again this is for playoffs only)

Traditionally the #3 robot is the defender... at least this is true many times in District and Regional play so the Red Alliance will also carry this disadvantage in playoffs along with the other one.

The Blue Alliance, because of the mirrored field ALWAYS has these two robots in the opposite positions and therefore their 2nd best robot can always see the retrieval station, and the #3 robot can always see the boiler area.

Have you noticed this? We are wondering if we should bring it up to the GDC or in Q and A. It really gives an advantage to the Blue Alliance. It could easily be alleviated by changing the order of placement on the Red Alliance side to 3,2,1 (left to right) This would make everything equal.... or they could do the opposite and give EVERYONE the disadvantages.
I am just wondering what you think about this.

It is a result of the mirrored field obviously... which I can't remember ever having been done before.

Any thoughts by anyone regarding this? I know the issue was brought up in another thread but not the BLUE/RED issue to any great extent.