[ToddF]

Once upon a time, the edge of the field was the inviolable barrier. Robots that crossed it got technical fouls. Players who crossed it go technical fouls. Everything was clearly defined, and the barrier was clear.

Week 0 events revealed that many robots were crossing the edge of the field with their appendages, and big foul points resulted. The GDC then reduced the penalty for crossing the field boundary to a regular foul, and came up with a new inviolable barrier: the boundary of the safety zone. As we saw in the week 1 events, resulted in whole bunch of penalties. This was primarily due to the face that human players can't easily judge where the tape line is.

The new rule change keeps the same graduated level of penalties for robots, foul for crossing the field barrier and technical foul for crossing the safety zone boundary. But it moves the barrier for the human players back to the edge of the field, EXCEPT when there is a robot already sticking into the safety zone.