Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

In the 2014 game all points that were not scored in matches in autonomous, with assists, or on truss activity were placed into a little bin at the end of the table for teleop goals and fouls. Foul statistics probably should be kept in any form, but I would put it at or near the bottom in the sorting order.

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

What happens to the alliance that lost because the other alliance broke the rules? Seems a bit unfair, don't you think?

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

I'm not a fan of foul points, but if there's no other way I agree with Jared - penalty point value alone is not enough to be a deterrent. The rules and game design have to be carefully considered to make sure fouls are a) clear-cut and b) avoidable

Take G28: "Initiating deliberate or damaging contact with an opponent ROBOT on or inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed" This rule fails both tests. By leaving qualifiers like "initiate", "deliberate" and "damaging", it is very difficult for refs to judge whether an infraction occured, and who is at fault. By the same token, drivers can't tell whether an impending collision will result in a foul, so they aren't able to change their behaviour to avoid one.

Imagine if G28 were instead worded "contact with an opponent Robot inside the vertical extension of its FRAME PERIMETER is not allowed". Now it's easy to see when a foul will be called, and who will be at fault. Had the rule been worded this way at kick-off it would have influenced teams' designs to minimize the chance of entering an opponents frame perimeter (fewer extensions outside the frame perimeter, fast retract for any extensions there are, and the ability to perform with extensions retracted). Drivers would know not to deploy their extensions near other robots. The combined effect would have been fewer foul calls.

(Note - I'm not saying this is the way the rule should be written, and I'm certainly not saying it should have been changed mid-season, I'm just demonstrating how clearer rules will influence teams to reduce fouls.)

G12 is a similar situation. Possessing an opponents ball is reasonably a) clear-cut (at least as far as possessions of any ball were this year), but for the most part they were b) unavoidable as written. There were instances of crazy bounces or even human players causing G12 violations. Creating a new "incidental" version of G12 with a smaller penalty did not address the avoidability problem. A better version of this rule might have been "possession of an opponent's ball for *more than 2 seconds* is not allowed." This would have ensured that teams designed their bots to discharge any ball within 2 seconds, and given drivers clear boundaries on what they can and can't do when the wrong colour ball approaches.

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

I agree here. Clear rules, clear fouls, and design the game so that fouls aren't a good idea. But the specific examples you suggest, and your proposed solutions, could have been better chosen.

And it's REALLY easy to get 90% of all event attendees ticked at the ref who just happened to be looking elsewhere when team X barely taps team Y, doing almost nothing to them, in a close match that team X wins. You want to stand in front of 3000 FIRSTers and announce that that sort of foul, which may or may not have affected the match play, or may or may not have been called, changed the winner, be my guest. I'll be in the volunteer lounge until the mob goes elsewhere.

Please note that the key word for Week 1 was "deliberate" or "damaging", not "initiating". (This was changed after tons of fouls were dished out during that week, some apparently due to Team X running into Team Y and Team X taking damage.) It can be pretty clear when there's deliberate contact, and definitely clear on damaging contact. (Though... I must say, in passing, that the RSLs are pretty poorly protected by most teams in a high-contact game. At least a couple of damaging calls were made during Week 1 because the RSL broke on contact.)

A problem that was designed into the game. Now, I disagree that possessions of an opponents' ball were unavoidable; many teams managed to avoid possessing an opponents' ball. A number of others were victims of a bad bounce. I think the HP possession cause is already dealt with by G14--intention to cause a violation of a rule. That said, I would agree with having a clause to the effect of "This penalty shall not be applied if the offending robot immediately removes the ball from their robot to the field, and assuming such removal happens in a timely manner (<X seconds)". And, of course, the refs get some kind of signaling method to let teams and the audience know about said foul being imminent, similar to the pin count.

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

Yea, after thinking about my proposal I see 2 major problems:

Problem 1. It is possible to deliberately sabotage an opponent by committing fouling them relentlessly and making them lose, accepting that you and them will both recieve 0 qual points. This could be viable when you think you are going to lose a match, and you are against someone right below you in the rankings. It is also possible for a situation like GTRE 2012 to arise.

Solution 1: Include in the rules that strategic infractions will result in a yellow/red card. It is still possible to "suicide bomb" an opponent team, but isn't it possible to do that to your partners right now? Same for accidental infractions: in this case it may be unfair that your opponents lose because of your actions, but in the current system isn't it unfair that your partners lose because of your actions? Pick your poison.

Problem 2: It is possible to have cases where it is advantageous to foul. For example: your opponent has a ball with 8 seconds left. If they score it, they win; if not, you win. You can either pin them and get 7 qual points or don't and get 0.

Solution 2: Same as solution 1. If it's strategic (and this would be quite obviously strategic), you get a yellow/red card. No more incentives to do this.

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

Speaking of poorly written and inconsistently enforced rules, G14 was not used this way at a lot of events, but was at others. If the refs (potentially correctly) deemed that the HP just threw poorly rather than intentionally loaded an opposing bot, the opposing alliance got the G12 foul (a tech, before the rule changed).

If the refs ruled a bad throw intentional, they had no choice this year but to give the HP a G14 tech foul. What they really needed was a no-call rule to allow no call when the opposing alliance causes a violation. Why wasn't there a no call rule this year?...ahem. I'm calm.

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

I think hockey-style penalties would be kind of fun. If you pin someone for too long, the ref pushes a button and your robot is disabled for 15 seconds. That will make it easy for the pinned robot to escape and add a tangible penalty to the alliance.

If you commit a technical foul - 30 seconds of being disabled.

The only issue is this system wouldn't have worked so well this year since it could create dead balls. Then again, the refs could wait until the offending robot gives up the ball before assessing the penalty.

Another issue is that it probably wouldn't be too much of a disincentive for barely functional teams, so maybe it wouldn't work at the low level competitions, but at the high level events I think it would be interesting to try.

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

Another issue here is that these calls can't be reversed without replaying the match. Point penalties can be adjusted after the match, but not live disabling. We would need a rule set far less ambiguous and subjective for me to be comfortable with this idea.

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

Lol ... Refs changing the score after the scores have been shown.

I personally like the idea of disabling robots for a set amount of time. Maybe 5 seconds for a small penalty. But the FMS would have to indicate to the Drivers that their robot was disabled. This could easily be done using LED or Lights in the driver station (Red Lights turn on around the glass) and a Count Down on the Team's Driver Station Computer.

I don't know how many times my drivers have went to the question box to find out what call was made. Then find out it was on one of our alliance members. We then go and talk to them to educate them on the call. They had no idea that the call was made or that it was even a rule.

By disabling their robot in a match it might help them question and seek out the answers of why they always get disabled in a match. Also this makes it less detrimental for good teams to be hurt by teams that just don't care (which I have seen before too). I would rather try to pull more "weight" for our alliance than have to make up a 50-100 point differential that was caused by a team that has little value added*.

*Please note that we always try to include our alliance partners in matches to do what is in the best interest for the alliance.

-Clinton-

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

Time to put a giant roughtop-covered plate on the bottom of my robot deployed by a single acting solenoid.

Re: 2015 - What would you like to see in next year's point system?
 

Honestly, I'm really not seeing a reason to change from the current system. Penalties being too much of an impact, which is what most people seem to be worried about, is not a failure of the point penalty system itself but a (possible) failure of the specific rules; if we had 1- and 2-point penalties this year, the complaints would be very different. The only other real complaint I've seen is that point penalties mess with scouting, which is understandably frustrating but not a reason to change the system.