While discussing strategies, some have suggested that a possible strategy is to block the tunnel of another team, in order to limit mobility to only robots that can climb over the bump.
My question is: is it really worth it to block the tunnel? Any robot that’s doing it is just a dead brick that isn’t contributing (other than indirectly) to the alliance’s score. If one or two of the robots can get over the bump anyway, it doesn’t matter much. It’d be much better to be picking up balls and shooting them back than to just block the team’s tunnel.
The blocker would be at a disadvantage because the opponent robot being blocked would probably have a kicker to either score from the middle or pass to a teammate in their zone.
say as an example the defense bot from the opposing alliance is trying to make it across the field during the finale, and that it has a drive train that is incapable of climbing the bump (e.g. a killough drive). Dependent on time remaining, you could have the bot in the middle block the tunnel and touch the tower. Now you have <G34> on your side. If they contact you (and in order to get through, they will), they could get either a penalty or a red card.
I feel it really depends on your robot’s location in the field. We were talking about it today in our meeting, and where you stand on the field can completely alter how you play the game:
For instance, if your robot is in the far secion (ie: a blue robot in the red scoring area), then I don’t feel like it would be very useful because you’d probably want to worry about about preventing the other robot from scoring. Unless there are no balls in that area, then it might be a good idea, but only if the other opposing robots don’t have the power to get balls over the bump.
On the other end, if you’re in your own end, then it’s pointless. No other opposing robots can be on that side, and you’d only be preventing alliance robots and balls from getting onto your side. The only reason I could think of is if you wanted to prevent any defensive robot from crossing that tunnel to reach their tower for finale points.
But, if you’re in the middle section, then I could see more use in this strategy. Not only to prevent other robots from moving a lot, but also to protect balls from rolling into opposing territory. In the end, it really all depends on scouting and figuing out how you want the field orientation to be in the end.
But, in all honesty, I feel like that tunnell is really only going to be used for ball movement and most robot movement will be over bumps. Yet another reason why I only see it being a worthwile strategy in the middle section.