Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

For all of you scouting guys, the GDC just made your job a little bit easier. The field will track the implications <G14>and display it to the audience.

Q&A Response

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

Cool, now there's an automated system to punish us for being good at what we're assigned!

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

Alternatively: Cool, now there's an automated system to ensure that factors pertaining to the game carry over effectively and without reduced chances of a flub materially affecting the game (a la autonomous scoring causing the wrong team to go on offense first in 2006).

G14 gripes aside, at least they're trying to make sure everything is enforced properly.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

I think this will be most beneficial to audience members, especially people who haven't been that exposed to the game (families/friends/other guests). The people on the field probably could keep decent track of it themselves. Anyway, it's good to know that we have this now, rather than it be implemented after week 1 or something.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

Beg to differ. I could see a number of coaches - excuse me, commanders - glancing at the scoreboard during the match to know when to have the drivers hold back on the scoring.

That makes me hope that the projectors will be aligned so as to allow the drive team to see the score easily. Otherwise, illegal signals from the audience would be rewarded, even if they are outlawed.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

I have a theory.

A very low percentage of alliances will actually score more than 2 super cells anyway, so up to 2 teams in an alliance can have 2 super cells / empty cells taken away without it mattering. Let me explain.

Two teams on an allinace get 2 super cells each in their fueling stations. One team gets 4 empty cells. If two teams in an alliance get their super cells / empty cells taken away, then you put one in a fueling station and one in an outpost and you still will have 2 empty cells and 2 super cells left.

Based on this fact, we are not sweating G14. Our goal is to get a G14 penalty in every match we play! I love this game!!

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

It sounds like the system will only track the G14 final results, not the real time score, so it would be useless for real time feedback to the drivers.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

But the realtime score can give an indication. Remember, <G14> is pre-penalties, so if your commander sees that the score is 32-10, he can alert the drivers.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

That's my point. I don't think there will be a real time score.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

But at any rate, the commanders will have been watching the field all match anyway, and they'll have a decent idea of what the score is, whether there is a real-time score or not. Hence why seeing about <G14> on the scoreboard screen thing is more of a simple reassurance for commanders, and a real clue-in to people less familiar with the game.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

There will be a real time score. If you look at the pictures the Blue Alliance circulated from the New Hampshire Kickoff, there were pictures of the scoring controllers 4FX Design designed for the game.

Controllers
and
Controller Screen

and the Audience Screen Score Bar

Each robot will have a individual "scorer" (total of 6) that counts the moon Rocks and Cells in a robot's associated trailer. The cummulative Rocks and empty Cells for an alliance will be number that appears next to the symbol that looks like a game piece on the screen, "legal" Super Cells in trailers will appear as lighting bolts under that number, the cummulative score of Rocks and Cells will be the total score for an alliance in the associated colored square towards the middle of the screen. the ovals around the team numbers (green in the associated picture) will change color to indicate if a team has a <G14> penalty from the previous match. This will be evident as soon as the team numbers are brought up for the forthcoming match. Also this year, when a team is issued a penalty, it will immediately be indicated on the audience screen above the team score with a "penalty bar" similar to what they use to indicate "flags" on tv football games.

BotBash BOB Pitzer
4FX Design

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

I thought penalties weren't determined until after the Referee calling it consulted with the Head Referee after the match.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

So now everyone will know which teams won their previous match by a large margin when they're up on the playing field. :rolleyes:

If the number of teams affected by this rule is over 16.67% (1/6), then the odds are that each match played this year will be affected by this rule in some form.

And after quickly looking over scores from last year from a few random events, it looks like this rule will affect about 35-50% of all matches. Now while these numbers were based upon the post-penalty scores, it's quite possible that we'd see similar rates on pre-penalty scores.

These values were a bit shocking at first, but the more I look into it, the more I agree with basically "ignoring" G14 strategy-wise, and then just treating the extra balls you would have lost as "bonus" balls going into a match if you hadn't won by a 2x or 3x margin. Especially since you can only use them in the last 20 seconds, this essentially means they're human scored only (it will be rare that a robot will be able to get and score one of these in 20 seconds).

If the robots won't have much of a chance of scoring them in time, and if there isn't a good shot for the human player, the ball is worthless. Just a distraction. And if you're already ahead by a [significant] margin, then scoring these balls would only put you further into the hole for future matches.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

First let me say Thunder Chickens is a great team.

Second I totally agree with you. I think it may be difficult to get those empty cells from the outpost to the fueling station. Then the human player must score the super cell. All that to say i agree with keep scoring.

Re: Should you invoke the wrath of <G14>, the whole world will know!
 

I highly doubt the average scores and standard devation of this year will be similar to last year and other previous years. I think scores will be closer together, forcing G14 into effect less than 35% of the time.