2017 Team Update 4

[Peyton Yeung]

Originally Posted by rspurlin

Longtime scorekeeper here. As soon as the previous match is scored, we begin the setup for the next match. The major part of that is setting up the field access point to respond only to the six teams coming onto the field and to establish a virtual private network for each team. This is why you have no comms if you're in the wrong station. Station assignments also allow the FTA to see exactly what is going on with your team linking to the field by looking at the stack lights.

Schedule generation attempts to make a qualification schedule that maximizes the variety of partners and opponents, maximizes time between matches, balances appearance on red/blue and in each station, among other things. Giving teams the opportunity to alter this for every match not only makes my job much harder, but would likely slow down the process, resulting in fewer matches per team. There also seems to be an opportunity for better teams to strongarm a weaker team into an inferior position, which wouldn't be GP.

Many offseason events don't use a full FMS and instead set up shared networks with no VPN. In those events it wouldn't matter which station you're in.

I think what people want is to select positions for playoff matches only. This shouldn't affect the number of matches each team gets.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Peyton Yeung

I think what people want is to select positions for playoff matches only. This shouldn't affect the number of matches each team gets.

And for playoffs, I would see why. Each alliance would want to maximize each team's usefulness.

But, the GDC has ruled the way they ruled. I expect there will be some complaining during the season.


I would also expect that whoever ISN'T a Pilot or Driver/Operator will be busy as extra eyes, unless they're the Human Player on Loading Lane duty.

[rspurlin]

Originally Posted by Peyton Yeung

I think what people want is to select positions for playoff matches only. This shouldn't affect the number of matches each team gets.

For elims you are correct, but it might require extra time to run them. There are a lot of ramifications to running behind schedule. Some of the comments above seemed to imply that they wanted to select stations for any match. Maybe I misunderstood.

Last year's FMS (I haven't seen this year's yet) did not have the ability to do individual edits to the schedule, so it would be up to the scorekeeper to override the schedule prior to each match. I know it looks like we're just sitting on our butts behind the scoring table, but we're really busy during match play and busier that that during most breaks (especially prior to alliance selection). We're trying really hard to make sure you get on the field on schedule and that every match is run as fairly as possible. There are also impacts to queueing to consider.

[ollien]

Originally Posted by rspurlin

Last year's FMS (I haven't seen this year's yet) did not have the ability to do individual edits to the schedule, so it would be up to the scorekeeper to override the schedule prior to each match.

What happens at champs then? Per last year's rules, (emphasis mine)

ALLIANCES may start with any three (3) of the four (4) ROBOTS on their ALLIANCE during Subdivision Playoff MATCHES and during the Championship Playoffs. The list of three (3) Teams participating in the MATCH and their selected PLAYER STATIONS is called the LINEUP. One representative from the Team not on the LINEUP is allowed in the CASTLE as a thirteenth ALLIANCE member.

Do they just manually override the schedule there?

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by ollien

What happens at champs then? [...]

Do they just manually override the schedule there?

Because Champs runs 4 team alliances and the alliance selects which 3 of the 4 play, they have to be manually entered because the FMS does not know which 3 teams to put. If they're already manually entering teams for playoffs there's no reason not to allow the alliance to also pick their driver stations. Champs is a special circumstance in this regard, and there are set rules at Champs about when teams and driver stations must be submitted.

[rspurlin]

Originally Posted by ollien

What happens at champs then? Per last year's rules, (emphasis mine)



Do they just manually override the schedule there?

Yes, usually, though that is just swapping one team for another. It's not a fruit basket turnover of positions. Some of those who've been around for a while remember when teams would be randomly assigned positions for Elims also. Which meant that at least once per elimination tournament teams would have to switch driver stations between back to back matches. The fixed assignment at least gets rid of that silliness.

FIRST has their reasons for what they do, even if they don't always share the full thought process. The fact that they addressed it in a team update shows that they are thinking about it.