Reasoning of the GDC

[martin417]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Wait, so you're complaining about not being able to use a part that you purchased before you knew the new games' rules (and a rule that existed in 2009 as well)? Did you complain about not being able to use traction wheels last year, as well?

Perhaps people are misunderstanding the gist of this thread. I am not complaining (well, maybe a little). The title of the thread is "reasoning of the GDC" The purpose of the thread is not to complain, or to bash the GDC.

I started this thread as a discussion about the motivation and reasoning that goes into rules and decisions made by the GDC. I was using the valve rule as a case study on this subject. What could be the motivation behind limiting the Cv to .32? It is NOT flow limitation, because it is legal to use as many valves as you like, connected in parallel to create a Cv as high as you would like, provided you have the money to buy the valves. It is possible that, as AL said, rules are put in place as constraints to make teams think. I doubt that is the case here, because it doesn't take much thinking to put two valves in place of one.

So the question is, why the rule? (I realize now that the rule appeared last year, but that doesn't make any difference). One thing that lawmakers (rule makers) in general overlook is the law of unintended consequences. While there may be a perceived reason to make a change, that change may affect many things far beyond what was intended, sometimes, the negative outweighs the positive.

In this case, the restriction favors well funded teams, either by allowing them to get an advantage by using more valves, or by forcing a team to purchase new valves when they have perfectly serviceable ones in stock.(our case). This is, in my view, a negative. I don't see what he positive could be.

Again, not bashing, just putting forward thoughts for discussion. So, if you have a thought, put it out here. Discuss it civilly. Tell me what the positives of this rule might be, and how they outweigh the negatives.