Strategy

[Todd Derbyshire]

What do you believe is important this year speed or power? What is everyone's felling on the balls are you going to bother to use them or just going to rely on the human player station?

[Morgan Jones]

I personally feel that ability to manipulate the balls will be important. There are 60 points worth of balls during a match, more than enough to make a big impact in the course of the game. Plus, without using balls, your points will be multiples of ten, really. The balls would allow you to the most "fine-tuning" of your score (and potentially your opponents').

Anyway, just my $.02

[James Crivellone]

and valuable $.02 it is.

[JVN]

I think this entire game is basically going to be decided by drive systems. Since it is a fighting game, I think torque is more important.

Sometimes, unintentionally in the finals... Gracious Proffesionalism turns into Malicious Proffesionalism...

~JVN

[Jon Abad]

I feel that both are so important!

This game will be won by those that are first to the fight. Fastest to grab goals or balls first and then tough enough to hang-on and push people around.

But if i had to choose, i would choose torque. I could push you pretty far in two minutes.

[Jon Lawton]

Ehh... there should be an option for "both." I will say here what I told to my team: "Transmissions Shift!" 8)

No really, to be totally serious, there are cases in this game where you want to have high torque, and other cases where you want high speed. Being a master of both modes could proove invaluable. I think! 8)

[Mike Norton]

power power and more power. It will be the team that can have enough grip on the rug and power to move anything.

This is like 3 years ago when we had a puck to pull.

if you make a robot that put balls into a goal fast and even alot. we will steal it from you if you do not have the power to hang onto it.

We like pulling teams around the floor. Look at 3 year ago flims. you will see robot pulling the puck and 2 other robots with thier team mate on the puck. that is power.

drivetrain is the most important part.


If your team owns three goals you will win every match

mike

[oreocookeee]

there's a lot more to consider than sheer strength. a robot with high torque may be able to push the other robots around, but it would not be able to catch up them. likewise, a fast robot could not move anything at all, but as long as it will be driven well, it could be uncatchable.

[Mike Norton]

there is no place to hide on the field. Be prepare to have big strong robot take control of your robot. because if a strong robot wants to lock onto you he will be able to pull you everywhere he wants and that is not being pinned.


The winning combo for the finals are two powerful robots

[JVN]

I don't think your allowed to latch onto other robots??
But there is no rule against picking them completely up (as long as you gently put them back down again)...

[SuperMark]

Personally, I don't see a reason to try and score balls. You could spend a large amount of time and effort scoring balls just to have them taken away 2 seconds later. Also you're consuming energy working this pickup system, and the weight it takes up could be used towards making your bot more powerful and stronger. Why focus on scoring when you can just steal other teams goals? 2 minutes is a VERY short period of time and focusing on balls instead of goals and robots will waste quite a bit of it. I suggest having a bot that can overpower any other bot so you can steal what you need.

[Wetzel]

MORE POWER!!
*makes that Tim Allen noise*
The ability to maintain position and dictate where 1,2, or doubtfully 3(I would like to see the robot that can do that) goals are located can have a mojor imact on the score.
Just a reminder, by holding a goal in the goalzone you are far away fwom your own robotzone. And the 10 points of an empty goal are canceled out by the other robot going home.

[Ken Leung]

I look at the speed option with a different view point. Speed, as I see it, is fast to grab the goals, fast to get the balls, fast in controlling the game.

It is pretty important to be in control of the goals faster than your opponents. That way, you control the flow of the game.

It is also important to get the balls first, so you can control where the balls goes as you see fit.

As soon as you lose control of the scoring objects, you are playing someone else's game.

So, a fast robot can beat a strong robot by grabbing the goals faster, and run away with it. I think the fast robot should be able to get past the slower robot by maneuvering around the field but I could be wrong. But sometimes pushing force isn¡¦t everything.

That's another thing. If your robot has great maneuverability on the field, then you can probably out maneuver another robot.

It really depends on who you are playing against, and who you have as the two other partners in the finals.

This is what¡¦s so fun about finals this year. All three robots have to be out to play the game at least once for each series. The combination of robots will make an interesting competition to watch.

[Wetzel]

Originally posted by Ken Leung

...
That's another thing. If your robot has great maneuverability on the field, then you can probably out maneuver another robot.
...

That is why I am waiting to see the robot that can just spin in place with 1 or 2 goals...the other robots would have a fun time trying to grab on, as well as being 492lbs of stuff to have to try and move.

[jeremy562]

Our robot can do just that.. grab two goals and spin 360 degrees in place. Hadn't thought of doing that to prevent theft, so thanks for the idea!