paper: Spanking the Children

[cmrnpizzo14]

Originally Posted by inkling16

Except that in 2012 and 2013, you could have three robots with full hoppers. In 2014, you can only have one robot with a full hopper.

Then theoretically a foul is more damaging because there is only one robot scoring. One foul this year could potentially stop an entire alliance from scoring whereas a foul in previous years slows down the alliance 33% (pseudo-math, I know but I'm not sure how else to look at it without some serious analysis).

By this logic, a tech foul should be actually worth more points this year because it can be more harmful against the scoring alliance.

I hadn't really thought of it this way before. Wouldn't it suck if your robot was holding a 30 point ball, lining up to shoot in the last ten seconds of the match, and then was pinned for 8 seconds? If the value of the fouls was significantly lower, it would be "worth it" for the other team to draw that foul. Intentionally fouling isn't "in the spirit of FIRST," and the point value of these fouls makes a lot more sense now.

I think that you are with a lot of people on this one. Most people don't see that the logic behind the values of the fouls is to rule out any situation where it would be beneficial just to take the foul. Imagine if the last 30 seconds of a match became like the last 2 minutes of a basketball game where the losing team actually benefits from fouling in many cases. Even though these cases seem ludicrous, FIRST teams will find a loophole if there is one. I imagine that it wouldn't seem so ludicrous if it was a viable strategy one year, like in 2004 when Jim said teams would force penalties by ramming the opponents into their goals.