I noticed something during our qualification matches on Newton yesterday: some teams placed two of their return bins on the return bin shelf before the match started. This would allow them to collect more fuel and more would have to be scored before significant overflow could accumulate for the opposing alliance.
The legality of this seemed questionable as 3.11.5 notes that
Once FUEL is processed, it exits the BOILER into a RETURN BIN
(emphasis mine)
I asked the FTA if that action was legal and his response boiled down to “yes”, and provided an interesting example
If you wanted to wear a return bin on your head, you could
You can do anything you want with the return bins, as long as all other rules are followed. (safety may be relevant in that example)
This had me thinking, can overflow be completely denied?
I asked the Newton head ref if it would be legal to hold two bins upright on the edge of the shelf, completely blocking the overflow bins of the opposing alliance and creating a giant “super bin” out of the shelf assembly. She confirmed the legality of this with the FTA and approved the action. During our two finals matches, the human player holding the bins reported that no fuel made it into the opposing alliance’s overflow bins.
This does have some downsides, as it will require a human player to hold the bins, and it may be difficult to retrieve fuel for yourself.
Has anybody else used or considered using a strategy like this?
The thing is, the only team over the entire event that I saw actually use the bins effectively was 2122 Taters in the playoffs. This is one of those strats that is cool but doesn’t actually have any real effect.