Rule change suggestions for MARC 2010

[Basel A]

More points for suspensions?

[kenavt]

Originally Posted by Basel A

More points for suspensions?

+1

Perhaps points scored in autonomous could be two points.

[tbuo1]

I agree, this year's game would have been much better if hanging could be a game changer. In my opionion, hanging should be worth 3-5 points. Many teams worked hard to comply with the original game challenge only to find out 2 points is not worth the 20 seconds of game time, resulting many teams abandoning the hanging part of the game.

[XaulZan11]

This is probably atleast partially a self-serving post, but I don't really like the rule changes that change the importance or weight of certain objectives. Teams spent a ton of time brainstorming and building their robot based on the point values in the game manual. I think giving extra points for hanging or autonomous goals changing the game too much from what the robots were built to play. As much I would like to see autonomous goals from the far zone worth 2 points, I don't think that would be fair.

That being said, I would like a change to the ranking system. Instead of the loser getting the winner's score, they could get 2 times their score. The winner would still get their score, twice the losers score and 5 points while the loser would get two times their score. This would eliminate the 6v0 strategy and would reward those teams that lose 13-12 instead of 13-0.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

This is probably atleast partially a self-serving post, but I don't really like the rule changes that change the importance or weight of certain objectives. Teams spent a ton of time brainstorming and building their robot based on the point values in the game manual. I think giving extra points for hanging or autonomous goals changing the game too much from what the robots were built to play. As much I would like to see autonomous goals from the far zone worth 2 points, I don't think that would be fair.

Well, my post was probably more self-serving than yours, but I think there's a good point to be made that most teams believed less points would be scored than were, and such that hanging would be more important (less people would try to hang knowing how much hanging would be worth relatively to other parts of the game). Also, considering the difficulty of suspension, the 1-point bonus granted was negligible, so I thought that should be taken into consideration in these rule changes.

Adding points to either of these things would perhaps even the balance of how many teams hang, though one could say that those who predicted accurately should have an advantage. More suspension points would be nice though.

[548swimmer]

If you were to post "official" rules relatively soon, some teams may be able to adjust their strategies accordingly. I know that we have a working hanger just sitting in our shop, for example. The reason we didn't use it was because it made us unable to cross the bump due to our elevated CG. We could switch to a 1-zone robot if we put it on, but since hanging is only 2 points, we didn't think it worth it.