Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri
The winners of the UTC and Chesapeake regional won all of their matches without the bonus points. I'm not saying this negates what happened at SVR, but I think we will see something different in Atlanta.
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I watched VCU, NJ, BAE, St. Louis finals, Great Lakes, Finger Lakes, UTC, NYC Finals, Midwest final finals, and maybe others?
The main point I got was that defense has a major impact. Ramps are important. Scoring is important. 2 robots on 1 scorer mean 0-1 tubes scored by that scorer. 4 well-placed tubes means no long rows. 1 well placed spoiler means

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The only times I've seen ramps not make the difference were at regionals with an insufficient number of good ramps. I've never not seen defense.
I agree that the attempts at playing defense by 25 and 176 were sub par. Finger Lakes, the other regional I saw live, was pretty strongly biased towards defense. I was actually surprised that they (25, 176) didn't try to score tubes, then ramp.
I say that the only saving grace for the offense scoring strategy will be a match with mostly offensive teams. But then, you'll still not really make very large rows, because the other alliance may be intelligent, and place their ringers well.
Prepare for defense. I think it will only get worse. I also say don't be foolish enough to think you can get by without 2@12, or three moving robots that do something throughout the round (whether scoring, defense, or otherwise).
The ideal alliance going into the finals may be three scoring robots, one of which is capable of 2@12. Also, at least one would have to have a good drivetrain that is capable of going on a mean defensive should it be necessary. Ideally, two of the three robots would have good drivetrains.