GP, Ramming, and Practice

[Lil' Lavery]

I am one of the most outspoken supporters of physical, defensive play, and will continue to be an outspoken supporter of it. That should only serve to show how serious of a problem I view it as.

There are times for hard contact defense, and there are times where it shouldn't happen. Namely amognst those times are practice matches. You gain nothing by winning, and are penelized nothing be losing. The true point of practice matches is to test and get practice. By playing defense on another bot you are denying them a chance to test and practice effectively. IF you are testing a defensive mechanism, such as a blocking arm or autonomous mode, that's one thing, but otherwise you have no excuse for playing hardcore phsyical defense. The only results that can stem from that is damage and low scoring matches.
I won't mention team numbers, but here are a few examples from Peachtree today of horribly innapropriate actions of defensive acts. After having their shots blocked by the other bot, a team retaliates by pushing them all the way across the field, onto their ramp, and when the opponents try to force their way off of the ramp, they tip over.
In another match, one alliance has far more offensive potential than the other. Instead of just playing superior offense and testing shooters, herders, etc, the defensive alliance repeatedly rams the opposing alliance's biggest offensive threat.
In another match, there are 4 robots in front of one ramp. Instead of allowing the action to diffuse, one bot attempts to push another onto its ramps, causing that robot to tip over.
In the second match (practice matches are held in batches of 2), that team rams the same team it tipped hard into the wall, causing it to be disabled for the remainder of the match.

Two words, Gracious Professionalism. Learn them, Respect them, Live them.