that being said, the cube you knocked out wasn’t sitting in the tower properly. It would have counted for points, but I don’t think you can knock it out when it’s sitting all the way in the tower.
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This is a valid point but also the taller towers will sway more than the smaller ones, potentially causing them to fall even if they are fully in.
Edit : just watched video again and the robot hits the top part not the pole
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As you can see, the cube is barely in the tower which makes it vulnerable to being bumped out. While testing, I have put the cube snug into the tower where it’s flat in the cup and regardless of how much you bump it the cube won’t fall out. That action you see is based off of a specific scenario which will likely be rare.
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I would also point out that scoring in the towers will increase your SP’s (whether you win or lose), although it does carry a risk that it may increase your opponents’ points more than yours.
This would also depend on how efficient you (and your partner) are at putting cubes in the zones compared to putting them in the towers.
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Wouldn’t ramming into the towers potentially damage the field/field elements. I would check with a head ref because although it may not be explicitly stated not to do it, a ref might not like that you are ramming into the tower intentionally to “descore” a cube. Just something to think about. (P.S. I don’t have the field setup or anything so I don’t know how durable or withstanding the towers are, still wouldn’t recommend that strategy).
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The towers are held on by a crimp, which means that the tower base and cup may shift and may potentially fall apart if it is done repeatedly at a competition. You will be playing a Russian Roulette by descoring cubes by bumping into the tower. Also the cube being knocked out isn’t garunteed by hittng the tower it might as well be better to use a manipulator instead.
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Why would you even want to descore the towers? If your opponent is spending time placing cubes in those towers, it benefits you as well, and gives you even more time to stack cubes and benefit from their action. Also, if you are able to stack 12 cubes of each color during a match, you can win the match simply by grabbing another cube on the field after stacking those cubes, and hoarding that cube is unnecessary if you won auton. While that strategy might only be viable in early season, I still predict that towers will be used exclusively in skills late season because it isn’t worth spending time to do something that benefits your opponents. When all 66 cubes start being stacked every match, whoever stacks more will end up winning.
I actually disagree with that. As all 66 cubes get stacked, teams will do whatever it takes to keep playing and win. (As opposed to sitting there and talking for the last 30 seconds of a match.)
As such, I could see some more adept robots intentionally stealing cubes from their own stacks to put in a tower to gain the advantage.
From what I have in the works, and what I’ve seen around, the cubes will disappear pretty quickly as we approach Worlds and tower cubes will be the match deciding factor.
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I would think that placing your stacked cubes in towers to gain an advantage is extremely dangerous, as your opponents could just take those cubes out of the towers and stack them in their zone. While you could place a cube in your alliance tower, I don’t think a single multiplier would be enough to make much of a difference as we get closer to Worlds, since teams will most likely be able to get almost half of the each color, and placing one in your tower decrements the number you have stacked and gets multiplied. Even if it was enough to make a difference, your opponents could always access their alliance tower to shift the balance back in their favor.
I will concede that the alliance towers may influence matches in specific instances, but I don’t think the other five will experience much use late season.
The second cube in the tower would only make the first not count if they both reached more than halfway into the tower bucket, which seems to be extremely difficult. Otherwise, the one cube that met the definition of Placed (below the halfway mark formed by the edge of the frosted plastic) would count, and the other one would not, since it is not Placed.
It might be good for this point to be clarified in the game manual, though, since I can imagine a referee misunderstanding the rule if it ever comes into play.
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I don’t think it’s possible to have two cubes in the scoring section of a tower
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The note with the definition of Placed makes it clear:
Note: Only one (1) Cube can be Placed in each Tower. If multiple Cubes meet the definition of Placed for a single Tower, then neither one is considered Placed.
As you stated, the subsequent cubes on the tower do not impact scoring unless they are meeting the definition of placed.
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Not true, you can absolutely just grab the cubes and remove them from the neutral towers and your alliance tower.
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I’m genuinely curious as to why they have that no 2 cubes in one tower rule, as it seems impossible to fit more than one cube in a tower, and will possibly cause confusion with refs.
If they allowed two cubes in one tower to count, people might damage the field or the cubes by trying to get 2 cubes in one tower.
And if they only allowed one cube to count (such as the first one or the one that went the deepest), it might be hard to tell which one in a few cases.
The rule does say “meets the definition of Placed” and not just “is Placed”, so I don’t expect much confusion as long as the referees have read the rules, everyone allows students to show the referees the game manual (which was not always true this year). and no referees assume that putting/Placing more than one cube in the tower is illegal.
I mean, most refs sure, but there’s always that one event where you have to teach the refs everything… not that thats really bad, it’s usually their first time reffing, but the less confusion they encounter the better.
I suppose it could be to discourage cramming the cubes into the towers, but I don’t see any conceivable way you could fit place 2 cubes in a single tower.
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Personally I think that “color coding” really is not worth it unless you know for a fact that you can definitely control the towers at the end of the match. It is a very high risk high return situation, seeing as if the other team can descore towers quickly, almost all your points will be instantly gone. You’re also at a greater chance of not having enough of your color due to hoarding.
Honestly, so far, just stacking as many cubes as possible (no matter the color) and just figuring out the towers if needed during the endgame seems like the safest strat to me
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The stacks can only get so tall before they get too unstable, inviting uncontrollable tipping. I’m thinking 10 cubes is really pushing it.
Therefore, due to how small scoring zones are (but I don’t have a field to confirm my suspicions), cubes must be optimized via towers to some extent. Especially if your opponents can outstack you, which is inevitable at some point (especially for highly competitive regions).
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Good point, thus why I mentioned that I was not 100 percent sure if it was legal.
Let me just say that there is no clearly defined “Spirit of the game,” and if defensive play really was against the so-called “Spirit of the game,” Vex/Recf would have kept the expansion rules from ITZ and TP. But this is a different debate, just wanted to point out that it is still not clear whether there is a true “Spirit of the Game,” and whether defense should be in Vex, so it is unfair to say that defense shouldn’t be in Vex based on it not fitting into the “Spirit of the Game”
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