After seeing the game reveal while at worlds, there are a couple of things that I’m under the impression that many people are unhappy about. I’m just wondering what the opinions are about the no-descore rule and the limit of 2 pneumatic tanks.
Vote on the poll about whether you think we should be able to descore anything at any time, or if the current rules about extremely limited descoring is good. Comment about the pneumatics rules.
If descoring was legal, I’d only want it legal on the Posts and not the Skyrise.
Also, I understand the limitation of pnuematic reservoirs, it’s been getting a bit out of hand the last few years with some of the robots. This year, there isn’t really anything stopping a team from using as many tanks as they can fit on their robot - there aren’t any height limitations and there’s nothing to hang (to keep yourself lightweight).
This also helps us learn how to work within limitations as recently we could have as much power as we wanted on our robot from pneumatics, but now we have to think if that one little tweak is worth the pressure.
I forgot to mention about the skyrise. I do agree that it would be really dumb to allow descoring that. Extremely fun to do, but stupid lol and as far as the pneumatics, I think that there is no reason why there should be any limitations. Creative usage of pneumatics adds a whole new dimension to vex that helps separate the good teams from the average.
I come from a team that has access to a ton of pneumatic kits. I think what you just said in the last post is wrong, Luke. Lots of teams are not fortunate enough to be able to own a ton of pneumatics. Sure, creative uses of pneumatics separates the good teams from the average, however, having pneumatics at all separates the teams with a lot of money from the teams without a lot.
Go count. You can score every cube this year. All 44. Descoring would be nearly pointless.
As for the tanks, I’ve literally never used Pneumatics. So I don’t care. And you can still get what? 12 uses of a double acting solenoid per tank? Even if it’s only half that, you still have enough to use a pneumatic claw for building the high rise.
$$$$$
Money! Not every team has access to pneumatics and as far as I can tell vex is all about trying to keep a level playing field at a reasonable cost for everyone.
While it’s way to early to really know how efficient robots will be, I will say it’s likely that the time to score will be much more then the time to descore them which would turn into a very frustrating game.
Just because you have a limit doesn’t mean you can’t be creative or think outside the box. Think of it as the size limit (18x18x18). You don’t see many people complain about that, but they still get all of their mechanisms inside and those they deem unnecessary are not used. You also don’t see people complaining about the 10 motor limit. Overall, limitations make us look deeper into our design and think… Do I really need that [insert mechanism here]? Cost-Benefit Analysis is a major part of the design process that has previously been overlooked due to the unlimited pneumatics policy.
As to thinking outside the box, we already do. By about 10 inches, plus our 26 inch lift. Regarding it being unfair because some teams have more money, we have been underfunded all year and were not even planning on having a launcher until the very end of the year when a generous sponsor was willing to donate pneumatics. Even then, we had to work with only two pistons unlike most teams that were using three or four. We weren’t even able to build a launcher to use at state to qualify for worlds.
I think descoring is illegal because it’s just too easy. It take no effort to build a robot that just sticks something under the bottom cube and lifts, descoring everything. Not to mention a clawbot would be able to descore the entire skyrise section by grabbing on and lifting off the bottom piece.
I said earlier that I do agree with the skyrise section being protected by the rules.
You just proved my point right here. With the new reservoir limit everyone is on a relatively level playing field.
Why does everyone need to be on a level playing field?
We weren’t on a ‘level playing field’. But we worked around it with our engineering and thinking outside the box. 
Really? I feel like evening the playing field is one of VEX’s biggest goals. Lowering the cost of Aluminum, motors and many other parts is to relieve the financial burden. I for one have had an extremely hard time applying for grants and getting sponsors, and we receive absolutely no school funding. Also, there are enough financial pressures to deal with including registration costs, competition fees, transportation fees which are not easily overcome.
Right now our club is growing fast, we don’t have the resources to make expensive bots, all fudraising goes into new teams, and we made it to worlds with a lift are out of spare sliders, and a tower comprised of old scruffy steel c-channels. Going to worlds isn’t cheap either. We don’t have much aluminum, and we need to fundraise a lot this year. We’ll likely never get pnumatics, and limiting other teams is good for us. Because that is only a little more of an advantage for more well funded teams. It also encourages teams to be more creative and conservative with pnumatics, and not just use it for everything.
You have a good point and I think this ruling was for the best but it stinks for teams like me who have accumulated lots of pneumatics over the years only to be told that we can’t use them.
I also think there is another good reason for limiting pneumatics. The performance of our robots has increased to a point that with 4ft high robots could border on dangerous.
although I am not that excited about limiting pneumatics, I think vex deserves nod of approval for making a choice based on their customers wants in the face of good business sense.
Our team agrees with the 2 pneumatic tanks rule, mainly because of how pricy they can get. In the more competitive states, the rich teams can easily use upwards of 8-10 tanks (we have seen this in sack attack…) while teams struggling with their budget can get stuck with 1-2. The de-scoring is a tricky matter however. This really enables this to be a completely offensive game with little room for a defensive strategy, especially with the number of possible goals. I believe that this will make a good offensive game and will test the bots abilities to score and not which one has the best bullying strategy.
Don’t rule out defense yet. It’s been less than 48 hours. Wallbots are doable in every game. You come up with the winning strategy, and then build a robot to do that. Which, admittedly, we haven’t found. But worlds JUST ended. Give people a week, at least, to do some math and sketch some stuff out.
And don’t call defense “bullying.” It’s just as much a way to play the game as anything else. The goal isn’t to score the most points. It’s to score more points than your opponent. Start thinking of the game in those terms, and you’ll see why it’s been such an integral component of nearly every game.
I have a few opinions but I first have a couple questions and sorry if they’re already asked in some way. I haven’t completely read the rules either so they may be answered there but a direct answer would be nice so I don’t have to go searching 
Firstly: Are we allowed to pick up / move more than one skyrise section at any time?
Secondly: What if the skyrise sections were already placed in a tower so that it would be lifting a tower up by only touching one skyrise section?
Lastly: Would it be allowed for a robot to touch more than one skyrise section at a time but not move the tower? What if the robot was moving one skyrise section but the rest of the tower was static, and only the one skyrise section was moving?
Thanks