I remember earlier in the season, people were emphasizing picking up cones that were knocked over. There was a lot of discussion about knocking over cones as a strategy. The most recent thing about this was the 27 CPS reveal that I can’t find for some reason.
I’m pretty sure most robots can still pick up knocked over cones, but it takes more time than upright cones. Will robots that efficiently knock cones over and pick them up be viable, or even strong, at worlds? Is the game-breaking strat that people stopped talking about game-breaking? Did I ruin someone’s secret plan by bringing this up?
I would think the knocking cones over strategy is an interesting risk-reward study. Is the time it take to knock over the cones and leaving your partner alone to score advantageous? The better robots here are reasonably efficient at righting and picking up tips cones. They might also be fast enough getting to and grabbing a significant number of un-tipped cones before they can be tipped. If you are talking about a robot that is designed to knock them over and then pick them up, that would take more time than just picking them up to begin with.
I was thinking along the lines of a tipping mechanism (maybe just a c channel that flips out) instead of a tipping robot and taking 2 seconds destroying one corner of the field (a dream alliance would be both robots doing this in opposing corners). With the dream alliance, around half (probably a bit less) of the total cones will be in an advantageous position for robots good at picking up knocked over cones. Is it worth losing auton to get this advantage? If this mass tipping is done in auton, it would be a trade: some control of the field for the auton loss. The 10 “safe” cones in the center of the field are untouched, so every bot goes for them. Now, the remaining field cones are tipped. Is that good enough to win? I’m not sure how to guesstimate this well.
Honestly, most reasonably good teams have a lot of practice picking up tipped cones. You might slow down some passive intake stackers without a lot of practice, but anyone else will do just fine. I think this strategy isn’t worth the time/weight/space
Will slowing down a 1 second cycle time to 2 seconds be worth it, especially if you maintain a 1 second cycle time with knocked over cones (with magic)?
1s cycle is absurdly fast of the field. I think its more like slowing a 2s cycle to a 2.5s cycle. Unless you have a super clean solution to knock over cones, you will definitely need to compromise your offensive capability.
Defensive strategies are inherently detrimental because, while they might reduce your opponents ability to score, they almost negate yours.
For example, at states, there was a large spectrum of offensive and defensive robots, but one mogo/pushbot really stood out. They had an excellent driver and a very solid robot: a best case scenario defensive robot. Though they were super effective against mediocre stackers, anyone who had practice could outscore them because they 1) were too busy blocking and pushing to do anything else, and 2) were physically incapable of stacking.
Knocking over cones is similar. Unless you could knock over literally every cone and mogo in auton and play perfect defense, a decent stacker would outscore you because you can’t actually score.