IRI Rule Changes

[Chris Hibner]

Sorry to the IRI organizers for jumping the gun here, but there are a few rule changes for this game that I'd like to get out in the open before I forget about them.

1) If the ball leaves the field of play on the drivers' side of the truss, the ball must be returned to the driver station human player. This includes truss-passes that do not count because they were wide of the pole. (I felt this should have been the rule all year.)

Rationale: there needs to be more risk in the truss passing. As of now, if you're under any defensive pressure you can just shoot the ball wildly out of bounds and the down-field HP will get the ball in about the same amount of time as if you made a perfect truss pass. The game should require some accuracy in the truss game. The current game is like if you were given a 15 yard gain in football for throwing the ball out of bounds under pressure - that's crazy.

2) Allow up to 6 balls for autonomous.

Rationale: There are going to be so many good teams at IRI that I would love to see a lot of teams run multi-ball routines in the same match. It would also add a bit of risk/reward - can you imagine having to chase down 3-4 albatross balls. Yikes.