Best Drivetrain

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by Sgreco27

On another note, swerve has the most capability because it has full power in all directions and can instantly change direction.
My advice would be to try to develope a swerve drive in the offseason and if you aren't comfortable with the swerve drive by the build season then go with six wheel skid and finish developing your swerve drive for the next year.

Swerve cannot "instantly change directions", it has to allow for the wheels to be re-oriented. Holonomic and Mecanum systems are as close as any FIRST team has come to instantly changing directions, but even they still have to overcome momentum and interia.
Additionally, while you retain essentially full power from your drive motors, you don't apply any of the power from your steering motor into your drive (in any swerve system yet implemented in FIRST), so it never really has "full power". However, it still can apply equal force to a scrub steered (4WD, 6WD, etc) system, something that holonomic and mecanum systems cannot do (assuming the same motor configurations).
Swerve has a great deal of capabilities and potential, and allows you a lot of strategic options. Some methods, however, do reduce (or eliminate) certain functionalities while enhancing others. 118 and 148, for example, could not rotate their robot's frames. 148 had no reason to, though, and 118 overcame it by placing their manipulator on a turret. Both were able to save weight and increase power by centralizing their drive motors though. It is also the most resource intensive drive system.