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Re: Ranking
FIRST has made winning or losing a match this year unimportant (for qualification matches). Its how everyone does (including your opponents) that affects your seeding score; not winning or losing. FIRST seem to have set up a version of the prisoner dilemma (game theory). Almost everyone I have talked to at the DC regional (on Friday) is playing this year's game as a zero sum game(my gain is your lost).
Imagine the scoring potential if all SIX robots were working together to score all the points for blue or for red. According to this years seeding formula:
winner seeding points = (winning alliance score - Penalty) + 2*(losing alliance score)
loser seeding points = winning alliance score
If everyone works together and the losing alliance does not have any points, then the winner and the loser get the exact same seeding score.
Where this is not a zero sum game is the number of balls score will be much higher when all six robots are working together then working against each other or the alliance leaving each other alone. Its very easy to move all the balls from the middle to the offense zone if there are 3 to 4 robots in the middle zone. You're more likely to have a robot free to handle a returning ball if the other robots taking a little longer dealing with their current ball(s). With the remaining 2 to 3 robot in the scoring zone, you have a situation where 1 to 2 robots are scoring while the other robot is collect balls to be score. With 6 working robots, the limitation on points will be how fast the human players can get the balls back into play, so that there are no penalties.
Under this strategy, the robots that cooperate the best together get the best seeding scores.
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