So I thought of an edge case based on the current rules. Currently, there are no rules prohibiting an opponent from de-scoring a HIGH NOTE that is on a MICROPHONE. Theoretically, if an opposing team were capable of shooting a NOTE in such a way that it dislodges the HIGH NOTE from a MICROPHONE, you could potentially deny an opposing alliance a ranking point.
I assume this is unintentional as past games have usually placed rules explicitly preventing de-scoring from an opponent.
Disclaimer: I do not endorse modifying your robot design to be capable of doing this.
I would suspect that, given the timing and some of the other geometries involved, it will be rather difficult to accomplish this.
First strategic note: Either you have two robots capable of getting the RP by themselves, or you have no hope of the RP. If you need all three robots for the RP, then presumably you won’t be trying this.
Second strategic note: The High Notes can only be thrown in the last 20 seconds of the match. Let’s assume that you essentially have 15 seconds to get it off (transit time of the High Note, plus a couple seconds to confirm Spotlight status). Assuming, of course, that you don’t go for sniping it out of the air–and assuming that the High Note is scored first try, which if it isn’t you could have as little as 5 seconds. (If it is, you may have to contend with 2 more as well.)
You have 15 seconds to acquire a Note if you don’t have one, line up a shot on your opponent’s Microphone, fire, and score a hit enough to knock their High Note off. If you miss, you have 10 seconds to repeat.
WITHOUT contacting any opponent with bumpers in the Stage Zone! I suspect most robot shooter angles will make that last part, er, difficult.
On to potential rules violations:
comes to mind as a violation here–Intentionally making it harder for an opponent to complete a challenge using game pieces.
is a bit of a catch-all. It could possibly be used here, though that would be a bit of a stretch.
and G407 are noted as “if something goes horribly wrong with this strategy” violations.
Just to add yet another potential rule you could break while doing this: G424 for transitive (depending on how this is interpreted) contact through a NOTE with a robot in its STAGE ZONE. If your note hit one of the opposing robots, you could give them the ENSEMBLE RP plus get two tech fouls. G406 is probably the more likely call but it could potentially be both.
Not saying a team couldn’t do this, but a HR has a lot of potential interpretations to dissuade this move.
In past games, opponent actions that explicitly interfere with an alliance’s ability to get a ranking point usually come with the penalty that the alliance automatically gets the ranking point (or at least makes it much easier to get it). The only rule that follows that pattern this year is G424, which does not cover interfering with an opponent’s HIGH NOTE. So as long as the opponent doesn’t break G424 as written, regardless of any other penalties incurred, the alliance has no way to regain that RP through penalties. As a result, there can be certain edge scenarios where teams can feel incentivized to do so to deny an alliance an RP (e.g. stopping a particular team from ranking first), even if they are heavily penalized for doing so.
Will this happen? Probably not, but I think it is an oversight that should probably be covered more clearly in the rules.