[EricH]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

I'm not going into the possible decisions they could be making. I just trust that the GDC has enough foresight and intelligence to work around the problems given. Work around would be proper use of safezone.

Right. What I'm saying is, what happens if things don't go the way the GDC expects? (Witness: 2013 Frisbee storm. 2014 refs-as-scorekeepers. 2014 Dead Ball. Bumper rules every year. 2010 ranking system and consequences. I could probably continue.)

So let's say a robot can't get into a safezone and does autonomous anyways--should be no problem at all, but what if it hits the other three that weren't in their safezones and damages them inside frame perimeter? Or a robot that would ordinarily be well clear of the safezone has a malfunction and is crippled or mostly crippled right next to or in the opponents' safezone--and executes its automode before it can be E-stopped, hitting one or more robots/game objects/field elements. (Say, a Dlink reboot or something of that nature.)

I think my point is this: If the endgame is executed autonomously, the rewards had better be worth it, and all the random cases of something going wrong need to be accounted for, and NOT solely by penalties! (Translation: It needs to be designed assuming a 50th percentile robot/alliance instead of the 75th to 90th that the GDC seems to have assumed for certain items this year--but be worth enough to make the 90th percentile go for it despite the challenge.)