Just kicking this around. Are high goal shooting teams considering designing their robots such that low goal dumping robots can feed into them?
That is to say playing the strategy where in an ideal alliance, the high goal shooter stays in their sweet spot near the boiler while two “low goal dumpers/gear runners” refuel on their gear runs and then dump their fuel into the high goal shooter rather than scoring into the low goal.
This would require high goal shooters to include a slot on the side opposite their shooting direction with an opening 18" or lower.
I know this would require some practice and likely a few loose fuel units on the floor, but perhaps this is something worth considering.
First rule of alliance partners help do not rely on them, so no. If they want to feed us balls then by all means do so we will make good use of them.
If this was a ball only game I’m with you that would be a great strategy, with gear and climb too much to do to coordinate feeds IMO at the expense of Gears and Climb
There is a thread here about this idea. There are opinions on both sides. I personally see it as an effective strategy depending on the execution. If your team were to go about this, I would make sure you can deposit balls at the same angle and height as the retrieval station, rather than hoping any team designs their hopper to receive at boiler height. I would also try and be very good at ground pickup and gears.
I do not think that low goal fuel, in and of itself, is a viable enough strategy to spawn robots that will make this a worthwhile attribute for high goal robots.
The 2006 A-bomb strategy debuted in the championship elimination rounds. It required two very effective robots, and a high level of coordination. I expect a similar dynamic to be in play this year, where it’s largely only worthwhile at high levels of play, especially since doing so takes 2/3rds of your alliance off the task of cycling gears for a bit.
However, unlike 2006, I do not expect a class of elite, extremely high volume low goal scoring robots suitable for low goal level A-bombing to emerge this year. The point differential, difficulty in accumulating RP, mechanical difficulty compared to 2006, capacity limits of both the goals and the robots, and potential to feed your opponent with fuel that could be worth three times as much all stacks up to make this a relatively unattractive task. Certainly, teams will do the low goal, but I don’t expect very smart, very strategically mindful teams who target being a world championship level role player like 4334 will do it, which means that I really don’t expect any teams to be fantastic at both the low goal and the other tasks world championship caliber alliance captains will be looking for. Since I don’t think the perfect partner to pull this off is particularly likely to be built, I wouldn’t make designing my own robot specifically for the off-chance that one does come along a priority.
If a team designs specifically to execute the A-Bomb, they’ll be able to either reverse feed at floor level or hopper level, where it can be assumed that most high level shooting robots can receive fuel.
Yes, our team is trying to design a low open top hopper for ball feed not only from the dump bins along the side of the field but for robots that plan to dump large loads into the low goal for us to shoot high.
It’s always such a shame that in such a great community we consistently have games that always have this as a rule. High goal shooters are going to need tof be very good at scrounging for fuel and positioning quickly.
Hmmm… only issue I can really see with this is relying on your alliance so much. Not only would you have to rely on your high goal scoring teammates to make those shots every time, but you’d have to coordinate with them beforehand in order to work out a strat.
(Like occasionally feeding the robot would be fine, but having that as the sole strategy for each match probably wouldn’t score as much as you’d think)
You want to be able to steadily score your own points for your alliance, and I think that if all your focus is just towards helping that one bot score points, you’d actually end up with less points than you would if each alliance member went off and scored separate stuff.
One added benefit of this design is that this type of robot isn’t very valuable for slow shooters but can be very valuable for fast shooters. In my opinion, the best teams will be those that shoot fast and reasonably accurate so you are probably more likely to be picked by a stronger alliance going with this design, rather than being a pick for a weaker alliance. Of course you might not get picked at all too.
