Picking up balls or not

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Bongle

The most successful teams in 2006 were those that could both human-load and vacuum-load, though the human-loaded ones tended to be more common.

With that said, I think that human-loading will be far less effective this year than in 2006 because the human players are forbidden from leaving their little zones. One thing that stands out in my mind from 2006 was all 3 human players reloading one of the triplets in about 10 seconds in a hail of balls. In 2006, human-reloading effectiveness was very high because you were allowed getting all 3 of your alliance's HPs about 4 feet away from your robot simultaneously. With the rules for Lunacy, you can only get 1 human player close to your robot at a time because they are spread all over the field.

Also, you are extremely vulnerable while stopped for loading because:
A) Your opponents will have a dead-stopped trailer to aim at (and they'll have 2 HPs close to you). Your opponents might fire a ball or two in your hopper, but balls in your hopper aren't scored yet, so that doesn't matter much.
B) Your own human players might mis-chuck and fire a ball into your trailer by accident.

In review, why this year is not like 2006 and why I think vacuum-loaders will be more effective:
-Stopping to reload in 2006 did not expose you to getting scored on
-In 2006, you could reload at essentially triple the pace of this year, which made human reloading that much more attractive.

Human players could score in 2006.

Other than that, I agree with what you say.