Defense, It's still here.

[Bongle]

Another defensive maneuver I saw posted yesterday:

Let's say your robot and an opposing robot are in your home stretch. The opposing robot is herding a trackball. If you bump the trackball out of your homestretch* into the previous quad (i.e. move the trackball clockwise), then you prevent them from hurdling for 8 points or herding for 2 points when they finish their current lap. They won't be able to score substantial herding or hurdling points for 6 quads of movement.

*This is legal so long as your robot itself does not cross the lane divider between your home stretch and their post-home-stretch. IIRC, you can still move clockwise within a quad, just not clockwise from quad to quad.

I'm happy about the no-defense type rules. In previous games, even those that included low cost-of-entry scoring methods like the low goals in Aim High, it was often much more profitable to abuse the opponents to prevent them from scoring than it was to attempt to do the low-point option. This game basically forces you to either be a clever defender (no pinning, no impeding, no bashing while hurdling, etc) or actually try and get points yourself. Rack 'n Roll was deathly boring because it was far, far, easier to build an effective defender than an effective offender. In Aim High, a well-designed offense robot could be effectively immune from defense since they could score from anywhere.