could placing balls in hard to reach areas be a viable strategy for cap bots? for example, putting balls in corners formed by flags and the perimeter, where an intake might have a hard time reaching. Or what about putting balls on top of caps, and then placing the caps on a post? this could potentially keep almost all the balls out of reach from any opposing flag bot, unless they have a descorer.
if each cap can have 8 balls resting on it, then you’d only need 3 of those caps on posts to take away all the balls from the field. As far as I can tell, this violates no rules. And maybe this is even why caps have those indents? Is this sort of strategy something that could work really well, or is the effort of building something capable of getting balls onto caps and lifting them on posts too much effort for what it’s worth?
I personally feel that it would be very time consuming and inefficient to do that, and remember the possession limit for this game. A robot can’t hold more than 2 balls at a time. One more point, after going through all the work to put the cap with balls on a post couldn’t someone just descore it and put the balls back in play? Thus making this strategy pointless? I do suppose you could put it on a high post because many bots can only descore low poles but do keep in mind how hard it would be to ballance balls on a cap that you move with, turn with and lift.
-Team 56J
true, true. with only high posts, you could get 16 balls away. but then you and your partner can each hold 2 balls, making all 20 out of play. but I think your right, this strategy probably isn’t viable.
I thought this was a joke thread. Only Xenon would be serious about this. 
Manipulating balls as a cap bot at all is probably a waste of time, considering descoring and all. But plowing a couple of free balls into a corner on your way somewhere may not be a bad idea, though.
If someone ever did this to me during a match I don’t know what to do I would be very confused really
I suppose you could push balls to the far side corners and then just grab two, but if you’re a cap bot, caps would come first
Why push the balls into a corner? Any fast shooter could flip flags to their colors, then shoot the balls out of the field. Balls are NOT returned to the field. I almost expect to see something like this at Worlds.
I think an equally viable strat for ball based robots is to flip the caps to their own color and shove them against the wall and/or the corners of the field. It leaves opponents having a really hard time getting and flipping caps, not to mention that if placed right, they will be unable to flip the low flags to their color. Just a thought.
Intentionally shooting the balls out of the field would probably lead to a DQ
Just build a robot that juggles the ball so your opponents can’t get them. Seems to be the only way to legally stop them from getting balls.
why not juggle caps as well?
Or just throw caps at flags?
or throw audience members at the head ref?
Just juggle the other three robots while you’re at it.
I just wanted to share a video. This is what happens when you’re allowed to intentionally remove game objects from the field:
I guess I’ll contribute too. It seems like way too much effort to put balls in hard-to-reach places. I think there are too many balls for it to be worth it. Balls on caps on posts would almost always be knocked down (most people would have a descorer if caps become viable). Juggling balls is probably the best option. You would only need a 3 or 4 ball juggler to be competitive at local competitions. To get to worlds, though, you’ll definitely need to be able to juggle 5+ balls.