Did Lunacy really level the playing field?

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

217 this year stands out to me in this regard. It is fair to say that Lunacy was won by the dumpers, but 217, a turreted shooter, strategized the heck out of every match and had one of the most successful seasons in FIRST history.

I just want to correct this statement. While 217 certainly played with great strategy all year, it really was their ROBOT that was so good.

There's a very common misconception this year: DUMPER = GOOD, SHOOTER = BAD. This is very far from the truth (at least the whole truth). The REAL maxim this year should be: HIGH THROUGHPUT = GOOD, LOW THROUGHPUT = BAD.

The reason why the turreted shooters got a bad rep is that very few teams built a turreted shooter with high throughput. 217 was an exception (as was 1114 and a few others). 217 could unload 20 balls (er, moon rocks) in about 3-4 seconds - very dumper-like throughput levels. What made 217's ROBOT so great is that they could unload as fast as any dumper, but they had the turret so they didn't have to be well aligned. THAT is what made 217 so deadly - they didn't have to hunt someone down and pin them with perfect alignment to score. Their turret allowed them to score while chasing or when they were in an otherwise poor orientation, while us dumpers had to be sure the planets were properly aligned. Heck, I've seen 217 score when they themselves were being pinned. It was a truly impressive machine.