FIRST promotes CoOpertition and has made it part of this years game
Cycle numbers are going to be low for non-elite level teams, particularly early in the season, meaning that achieving the RP for completing links will be difficult to accomplish
Would the following strategy make sense?
The two alliances agree that at the beginning of TeleOp, each alliance will go to their substation and gather 2 cones and a cube and drop them over the barrier into the opposing community
Each alliance agrees that they will place these pieces as they are able into their coopertition grid
After that it’s game on
Advantages
Low time investment. Assuming a 5-10 second cycle to pick up from the ramp substation, turn and drop, that is 15-30 seconds to get 3 pieces into your/their community …… likely each alliance’s fastest possible means of collecting 3 pieces from substation
Score neutral if you both do it…no advantage to either alliance
Greatly increases chance of gaining a ranking point by reducing threshold (only 12 pieces needed) and gives 3 easy ones for both alliances
Overall increased scoring potential for each team to pad their stats, help in tie breaking, etc
Disadvantages
Other alliance breaks their word and you lose the match
So,
Is this legal?
Is this in the spirit of CoOpertition?
If an alliance offered this deal would you accept?
Will this become a meta that you need to do in order to compete?
I think this type of agreement might remain legal, even after other bendings of the rules are disallowed (like an agreement to descore a piece from each other’s grids to get the Sustainability Bonus.) The thing is, it is in the spirit of coopertition and it doesn’t explicitly break any rules. Making an agreement like this is not throwing a match (both alliances are still playing to win) and it is to the benefit of both alliances equally. I can see this being done, or even just a simpler agreement between alliances that they will both fill in three pieces in the coopertition grid during the match if they’re both less likely to make five links. That said, I don’t think this kind of thing will last long during the season. As teams improve their cycle times we’re likely to see more that can get the Sustainability Bonus for their alliance without this, and they will be unwilling to aid their opponents and potential rivals. It’s also true that many alliances that are scoring a lot of pieces may well need to fill three pieces in their coopertition grid anyway whether they want to help the other alliance or not, making any agreement unnecessary.
Actually, it’s not quite 1 RP, it just makes 1 RP a little easier to get. An agreement like this may benefit two alliances, but it also may not. It all depends on how many LINKS each alliance thinks they can get before the match starts.
I don’t even think this is janky or anything weird. If I was on a team aiming to seed high, I would absolutely approach my opponents and tell them I am giving them game pieces, if I thought that they would otherwise not be able to get the RP, because it would help me get an RP.
I don’t think this applies here. There’s no rule violation to dropping off game pieces for the opposing alliance as long as you don’t violate G207 or, less likely, G108.
One, blue boxes do not have the force of rules. They’re intended to clarify rules and provide examples.
Two, there is no specific rule against giving your opponent game pieces, intentionally or accidentally.
You’d have better arguments with OTHER rules. I would suggest G108 or G207–the former isn’t an issue if your bumpers stay on the proper side of the Barrier, and the latter isn’t an issue until someone runs into you, which if you’re coordinating they won’t.
And for H105, H106, and H107… It would be difficult to argue that you’re tanking for someone else’s ranking.
The weird part of H105, H106, and H107 is that H107 uses a different wording for “throwing” than H105 or H106.
H107 says “A team may not intentionally lose a MATCH or sacrifice
ranking points” which wouldn’t pertain to this strategy, IMO. However, H105 and H106 say “may not play beneath its ability” or “to play beneath its ability” which might be more explicitly against mutually assured construction.
This is an optimal strategy for gaining 1 RP for mid- to low-power alliances, which is the opposite of playing beneath ability.
If my scouting data says my own alliance will build ~4 links, I’m definitely willing to drop a game piece to my opponent to incentivize them to play the coop grid early.
Even more so if my scouting data says I can do ~3 links, and them deciding to match the coop game piece drops means I can do 4 for the RP.
You could do it one at a time, too. No need to immediately dump all 3, just dump the first one and watch where they score it. Coop grid? They get another, up to the total of 3.
