I’m looking at strategy and I’m trying to figure out what is a logical conclusion on how much the human player wall will be used (to grab power cells straight from the hole and not off the ground). Do you think the triple chute or the two floor chutes will be used more than just having them roll on the floor and then intake them?
Another thing that will come into effect (not sure if it will happen the first two weeks of competition) is, how many times will you be filling the power cells limit on your power port to make the opposing side have to throw power cells on the field even when they don’t want to?
Early on prolly a lot more than people think especially with the “sticky” issues teams have had between PCs and intakes.
The other big factor is whether of not an opponent is there (which they will be while scoring) anything rolled will be nearly free for the taking. Sure you have the protected zone… if you can get to it.
I can see them being relatively unused in the earlier weeks, but come district championships and champs, the higher performing teams will likely be able to fill them pretty quick. Along similar lines, people thought it was very challenging to get 8 boulders in stronghold, and by champs, 10 was required to take the tower down and numbers way greater than 10 were being put up.
I think human loading is very viable this year for a variety of reasons, though I think floor pickup is still critical.
I believe the 3 ball chutes on the upper loading stations makes it the fastest way to load with 3/5 balls. Picking 5 off the floor will almost always be slower since they’re more likely to be spread out around the field after a missed shot or drop.
Second, taking directly from the human player keeps the balls scored by your opponents in your alliance’s possession. Putting them back on the floor makes them fodder for the positive feedback loop for your opponents. This becomes less of an issue if your opponents can’t floor load, so having the threat of a floor pickup is also important if you’re hoping to force your opponents into the positive feedback loop.
The problem with using the loading station is it relies on having an opponent that is scoring enough that you can cycle more than once from it, and if you’re at that stage where you can get 5 balls from there consistently, you’re effectively tied with the other alliance. It’s going to be far easier to get balls from the loading bay, but it’s questionable if you can rely on it all the time, making a ground intake (at least for us) a higher priority.
I agree that having a ground intake is likely more important for most teams/strategies, but I wouldn’t be quick to discount being able to quickly load 3 balls at a time.
That’s true, if you’re not the only cycler and you get every ball from the loading bay you’ll end up on top. For us, our first competition is week 1, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we have matches where the opponent isn’t able to score meaningfully enough to make loading from the bay worth it. By choosing a ground intake, we will hopefully be more consistent than bots which are limited to the human player
