The V5 is so much better than the Cortex that anyone, given the choice and the current rule book, would take the V5. What would they have to do to make the choice between the two a wash? I don’t know enough to make an honest evaluation, but I am quite curious about what you think.
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I think there will be some teams who can make the cortex work. Don’t forget how many systems you can have with 12 motors.
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even though cortex is obviously disadvantaged, they could still be viable. I’d say
4 motor intake, 6 motor drive, 2 motor tilter, 2 motor lift for a standard complex tray cortex bot.
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cortex has an advantage with pneumatics. you can use 2 cylinders with 10 393s or only 6 smart motors.
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Yes but then the smart motors are 2 times more powerful than the 393s so it would be equal to 12 393 motors, However it would help if there were more system on the robot.
actually…smart motors are 3 times stronger than 393s. But the 10 393s plus pneumatics option does allow more systems and make usagi style bots more viable.
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So would 14 motors do the trick? 16? Would they have to allow another power expander with battery?
Cortex is meant to be phased out. If they were planning on keeping it V5 wouldn’t exist. Just take a look at VexU; cortex isn’t allowed.
Doesn’t mean the Cortex isn’t viable though with its larger motor count, larger amount of triport sensor ports, and pneumatics still being something viable. Not ideal, but you could definitely beat a bunch of V5 teams with a good Cortex bot.
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Yes, but given the choice the way the rules are written can you see any teams choosing the cortex? What modifications would be needed to make it more enticing?
for cortex to really be competitive again you’d probably have to have an 18 motor limit
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The GDC has 3 years to make games. Thus, every game will be possible to play well with 8 motors. Also @CarCar you shouldn’t use motor power for what you can do with it. Just because a v5 motor is 3 times as powerful doesn’t mean that you can build an h-drive with it. I can understand that’s not the intention, but being on the forum, we have to make sure that people who are new to vex don’t get confused.
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Well if I can’t geek out on vex here where else can we do it??? 
And a motor is not a motor. The way the rules are currently witten, 12 cortex motors are allowed and 8 v5 motors are allowed. There’s obviously not an equivalence there as I don’t know of many teams that given the option would use the cortex as the rules are written.
Agreed - maybe more like 15-16 motors for a relatively even selection? I don’t think it would be 18, as 1) they may be theoretically 2-3 times better but in actual use it doesn’t turn out like that and 2) you don’t always need more power for a mechanism (for instance, a claw - you rarely would need 2 regular Cortex motors to open/close in place of 1 mega-powered V5 motor; 1 Cortex would do).
Interesting question! I could actually see some teams opting for Cortex for another year if the playing field were more level, motor-wise. After all, it is a known system with known issues and known repairs / workarounds for those issues, the programming language used could have stayed at RobotC (or whatever), and most teams heavily involved in Vex already had all of the hardware available and ready to go. Some people might also stay with Cortex (if more motors were available) because their design calls for an extra motor to do a small function or maybe they want to use pneumatics.
Many of the first-year V5 issues have now been resolved (fewer hardware problems, VexCode seems solid, and hardware is actually available!), which makes it more likely to lean to V5, but definitely there is a huge cost associated.
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