The Not So-Secret Secret End-Game

[aldaeron]

Based on this from 3.1.4

As competition at the FIRST Championship is typically different from that during the competition season, FIRST may alter each scoring value at the FIRST Championship by up to ten (10) points.

I believe that IF (and it is a big if) there was a change it would be between the regular season and championships. I agree with the many previous posts that disrupting the regular season is unlikely, but since the folks headed to championships should be "the best teams" they could handle changes to scoring mentioned in 3.1.4 and possibly an endgame. All they would need to do is amend R18 " At an Event, Teams may have access to a static set of FABRICATED ITEMS that shall not exceed 30 lbs to be used to repair and/or upgrade their ROBOT. ..." to add an additional 30 lbs for a <new cool endgame>


I also agree that there is a shift in the emphasis of this game which I like. Less experienced teams can contribute considerable points by assisting and super-duper-awesome teams can't score 100 points by themselves.

There is also a change in the balance between robot design and actually playing the game. Referencing 2013 - you can't make a full court shooter that can also climb to the 3rd level of the pyramid and just win by yourself. You have to drive well and interact with teams you don't know in advance (maybe they're great at passing, maybe not). I feel this more closely mirrors real engineering tasks - you know some things in advance and can design to accommodate them (i.e. making a high goal scorer) and some things you have to be flexible with (i.e. counting on scoring a 3 ASSIST CYCLE every time depends heavily on your randomly assigned alliance partners). As a real world example - say you are drilling a long tunnel - you can only scan or core a small percentage of the mountain you want to tunnel through (i bet its expensive). You design a path and feed/speed rates for what you can see, but monitor and adjust based on how the tunneler is running, what rocks actually are coming out, etc.

(Note: I am not a tunnel engineer and am making an educated guess here about how it works)

Cool thread - The conspiracy theorists of CD continue to make me chuckle.

-matto-