Co-op bridge: Most (if not all) of the teams at IRI will be able to double balance with reasonable reliability. I worry that deciding the point at which you stop scoring and go to the bridge will create a sort of
prisoner's dilemma. (Delaying 10 seconds from an agreed balance time is good for winning an individual match but bad for earning other teams' trust.) However, I feel like removing its functionality altogether would take away a core aspect of the game. I like the idea of getting three robots on a bridge in teleop, but we don't want to be unfair to the team using two robots on the co-op bridge. Given all of this, how about the following?
- Normal co-op balances are worth 1 QP. Maybe co-op non-balances are worth .5 QP, maybe they're worth nothing.
- Triple co-op balances are worth 2 QP and 10+n points to the alliance with two robots on the bridge to cover the opportunity cost, where 0 ≤ n ≤ 5. If the triple balance rate were 100%, n would be 0, but the maneuver carries with it a relatively large risk; it'd be nice to at least throw a tiebreaker the way of the team taking it.
EDIT: Upon further reflection, n should probably be 0... we don't want any co-op balances sabotaged, and this reduces the chance of that.
Human player shots: They're cool, but I want to see robots doing things. If I want to see humans playing basketball I can watch TV
. Only very slightly more seriously, 6 points is too much of a swing for such a luck-based event. On the other hand, giving bonus points to robots making shots from behind the barrier (not on the bridges, which give a height boost) would be pretty cool. However, it would be nontrivial to find the source of every shot without extra referees.
Bridge penalties: 9 points is too much. How about 3 points until there are 30 seconds left, then stock rules after that?