[GKrotkov]

Dawgma has a few possible answers for this - one of which we're trying out at Ramp Riot.

1) Superscouting/Subjective Scouting. Back in 2014, team 1676 introduced me to the concept of "superscouts." Superscouts are generally experienced strategists that simply watch matches subjectively and give direct input to the drive team*. With fewer matches to watch (like at a one-day event), subjective scouting can become vital, even to picklisting, assuming that the subjective scouts know what they're doing. At a longer event, however, subjective scouting becomes more valuable with regard to match strategy than anything else. That is, more matches decrease the value of subjective scouting with regards to picklisting.

2) Visual scouting sheets. Instead of having scouts put tallies in boxes or circle letters, at Ramp Riot we're going to have them draw what the robot did and record key figures using symbols. The numbers get input into Excel as usual, but the match scouting sheets help us to show where teams go and visualize the upcoming match for the drive team.

Now that I think about it, it's a bit like a nonelectronic version of TechFire's scouting system this past year.

3) Watchlist. If you're on the last day of a multiday competition and want to update your picklist, putting together a "watchlist" of teams that you want to pay particular attention to can allow your scouting team to shift resources around to scout those teams in more depth. For example, you might have superscouts pay attention to only those robots, and give some match scouts a break if you're confident about your assessment of a team.

I hope these are somewhat helpful.

* it should be noted that this should rarely, if ever, take the place of regular match scouting. The only time I've done that is when there were only two available scouts. (offseason event, I was there to help another team)