This game has a very similar floor layout and game mechanics as 2012 Rebound Rumble, so a quick tip from a 2012 driver:
Utilize G10 and G11 to your advantage, but beware of the double edged sword.
There is a reason this is an exception to C8 and it is because positioning is king, and If you can take advantage of a robot with poor positioning: Do it! and collect your 15pts
Now this may seem cruel and down right dirty, but positioning in any game is linked to respect, and if you take an aggresive position that is a sign that you are not respecting the opponents abilities, and 1 of 2 things happen. Your arrogance pays off because your opponents abilities are less than yours, or you get “bodied” because you underestimated your opponents abilities.
In summary:
if some team isn’t showing you respect. Draw the foul and collect your 15pts…
If you want to take aggressive positions near/in your opponents loading, target, or trench zones then you better have fast reactions and a speedy bot, or prepare to get “bodied” and give up 15 pts.
I will be interested - since there are rules about not trying to get other teams to foul… will there be drama on how they get enforced this year? Blue boxes seem to indicate it’s somewhat cut and dry, though I’ll be curious to see exactly where the line gets drawn as the season progresses.
Is this explicitly stated in the manual? Based on the three blue boxes beneath the rules, it seems like intentionally running into a robot in your trench zone would be allowed, but as far as I can tell it’s not explicitly stated.
Generally, as this has been explained to me countless times by head refs* “If you’re not doing anything and just drive over to collect the foul points, you’ve illegally drawn a foul”.
With that said, it’s very easy to make it look like you’re doing something. Are you going to the goal with balls to shoot? Are you driving towards a ball to intake? Are you accomplishing some kind of XYZ game task and just happen to hit the opponent robot? If any of those are true, it generally isn’t called as illegally drawing a foul. Even if those aren’t completely true, referees in my experience tend to side with the robot that would be drawing on the foul.
Now, if you’re obviously abusing the system, refs start watching and will likely call it if you continue. This is something you want to tattle on your opponents for during elimination matches as well, politely reminding the head ref of the relevant rules with a print out.
*to be fair, I always ask to make sure things are being called consistently.
I would suggest that “defending” your TRENCH RUN, so that your ALLIANCE can pass through at full speed is fully within reasonable game play and thus going over and chasing away ROBOTs in or breaking the edge of the TRENCH is completely reasonable, even if your ROBOT is too tall to pass through the TRENCH. Chasing ROBOTS away from the LOADING ZONE is obviously strategic since you are defending “your” POWER CELLs.The blue box pretty much says C8 is not going to be called on this behaviour. Break the zone, get touched, get the TECH FOUL.
C8 might be called on you if you “intentionally” push a ROBOT into the protected ZONE. I suspect that it would be deemed intentional if you do it repeatedly.
The flip side of that is that it is going to make the middle a very high defense zone.
Was coming here to say exactly this. Just because you’re not chasing a power cell shouldn’t mean you can’t defend your zones. The other alliance is entering at their own risk.
C8 is very vague in terms of how it affects protected zones, so there might be some variance in how exactly refs will call it. However, its blue box does elaborate on how it affects this:
C8 does not apply for strategies consistent with standard gameplay, for example, a Blue
ALLIANCE ROBOT contacts a Red ALLIANCE ROBOT in the Blue ALLIANCE’S
LOADING ZONE.
C8 requires an intentional act with limited or no opportunity for the TEAM being acted on
to avoid the penalty, such as:
…
a Blue ALLIANCE ROBOT pushing a Red ALLIANCE ROBOT from fully outside the
Blue ALLIANCE TRENCH RUN into the Blue ALLIANCE CONTROL PANEL.
Even though this concerns the Control Panel, a much more egregious violation, as long as you’re not pushing a robot more than a foot or so into a protected zone I think it’s okay.