[45Auto]

469 doesn't need any defense from me, but since we built a looper similar to 469 (but nowhere near as awesome, since we can't get the returned balls all the way back to the goal) I'll give you our team's interpretation of the rules. Seemed like to us they were pretty straight forward, I have a hard time seeing where all the confusion comes from. The initial poster seems to be thinking that RETURNED TO THE FIELD means that the ball has to touch the carpet. This is NOT true, otherwise you would keep getting DOGMA penalties until the ball hit the carpet. The ball is consiered RETURNED TO THE FIELD as defined in <G16> once it passes the ball return timer, which is obvious once you read <G17>. <G47> controls what happens once it passes the timer.

<G16> BALL Return - HUMAN PLAYERS must place BALLS on the BALL RETURN using the TRIDENT. No other means are permitted for TEAMS to return BALLS to the FIELD. Violation: Two PENALTIES and YELLOW CARD

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Says teams have to place balls on the BALL RETURN rails using the trident.

<G17> BALL Return Timing - BALLS must be returned to the FIELD within a specified period of time to prevent delaying the game according to the following algorithm: Texpire = Tscore - [11 + (4 * n)]

From this rule, it's obvious that the ball is considered RETURNED TO THE FIELD once it trips the timer (which is close to the top) of the BALL RETURN BARS. Otherwise you start getting penalties for not returning the balls. However, you cannot touch the balls once they've passed the timer but are still on the rails because because of <G47>:

<G47> BALL RETURN Interference – Neither ROBOTS nor TEAM members may interfere with BALLS in contact with the BALL RETURN downstream of the BALL RETURN counter. Violation: Two PENALTIES per affected BALL.

So once the ball passes the timer, it's RETURNED TO THE FIELD, but you can't touch it until it falls off the rails because of <G47>.

Nothing to stop you from doing anything you want to with it once it comes off the rails!