I just want to get a feel of what people are leaning to for their game
- Tall robot
- Mid Robot (can do at least the middle section of the rocket and lower)
- Short Bot (can do the cargo ship and lowest section of the rocket)
0 voters
2 Likes
There’ll be enough tall robots that I can see good room for my team to have a competent short robot that can climb to the third platform.
5 Likes
Not with a team this year, but based on the mid-resource team I’ve been with, I’d recommend being able to score the hatches and cargo bays at “ground level” as pri 1&2, followed by levels in and out of the HAB, with the mid and high levels in the rocket on the back burner. OBTW, mid level on the rocket is to me is a non-starter; if you’re going to go up, go UP; why do ~3/4 of the work for less than half the benefit?
Keep in mind that CD is generally made up of higher level teams. Depending on your region your poll results probably won’t accurately reflect reality. That said, I think it’s probable that many teams will build tall robots that can score at the top of the rocket, just not quickly or effectively. The same thing happened in 2018. I’d say half of the robots at the regionals my team attended were capable of placing on the scale, but very few could place more than 1 or 2 cubes in a match.
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I know personally, my team is thinking about creating a 4 foot or smaller bot that can both score high on the rocket ship and secure the 3rd tier step, climb, thing
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Based upon what I saw last year, I predict that low bots will be picked for elimination round alliances for week 1-6 but high bots will dominate elim alliances after week 6.
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And the fun thing about this game is that if you can’t do this quickly and effectively, being able to score up high is pretty much useless.
2 Likes
In competitive events Team captains and 1st picks are going to be able to score high effectively. Just scoring low very effectively would make you a good 2nd pick and potentially a good member of a competitive alliance.
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Right, the rocket has no point benefit like the scale or stronghold high goal so high scoring exists only for ranking points and high levels of play. It’s an interesting decision by the game committee and I’m excited to see how it effects robot design across the spectrum of teams.
2 Likes
I am not as optimistic as you are about how many quality bots will be at competitive events. Low bots that can score efficiently, with quick cycles, will be high picks. There won’t be any left for round 2.
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The stronghold high goal was worth 10/5 points in auto/teleop vs 5/2 in the low goal
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I think that this year’s rocket is going to be an extremely similar task to last year’s scale: everyone will try, but only the very best robots will be able to do it consistently. Cargo ship will likely be the same as vault. That is to say, it makes the difference in elims, but the alliance captains wont focus on it. Having a short robot is definitely a competent strat for selections.
Additionally, you may consider being able to score cargo ship consistently during sandstorm. From last year, alliances seemed to like the security of having some points out of the gate.
Sorry, I intended to contrast the two. My wording was rather ambiguous. I’m aware of the auto point bonuses in most previous games and my point was that they aren’t present in this game like they were in the past.
I’m concerned that many teams aren’t taking into account the fact that, unlike with the scale last year, while you’re trying to score up high on the rocket a defensive team can ram the living crap out of you at full speed–and if you fall over, that’s a “you” problem, not a “them” problem.
Given how high you have to reach to place hatch covers compared to how high you had to (unless you threw them) reach to place power cubes on the scale, and how often robots almost tipped over under their own volition, I can’t imagine that it’s not going to be an effective defensive strategy to hit any robot trying to score high as hard as you can (until the last twenty seconds).
3 Likes
I think that G19 would stop over aggressive defense at the rocket, but you never know what strategies teams would try during elims.
Your elevators can be way lighter this year though, I don’t think many teams are considering climbing on their elevator.
What exactly does G19 read as again? Can’t access the manual right now. Thanks. 
G19. Don’t tear others down to lift yourself up. Strategies aimed at the destruction or inhibition of
ROBOTS via attachment, damage, tipping, or entanglements are not allowed.
Violation: TECH FOUL and YELLOW CARD. If harm or incapacitation occurs as a result of the
strategy, RED CARD
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As @GoalkeeperBoss said, it basically means that you shouldn’t intentionally try to tip other robots.
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Wouldn’t you want someone who can score fast down low? How I look at it is the top levels of the rocket won’t be touched in the playoffs up until past week 6