Item F. (deforming) includes game pieces. Does that mean any fuel shooter that squeezes the ball is illegal?
No, that means permenantly deforming.
Agreed. Otherwise you’d have a G15 infraction when you hang a gear on the peg, run into anything, or even roll over the carpet.
That’s the problem with engineers (myself included). We interpret things exactly as they are written.
Engineers understand the difference between elastic and plastic deformations. The former happens, to some degree, whenever two objects touch. The latter generally alters the way things interact afterwards.
I anticipate that plastic deformation of FUEL and the peg, causing them to differ substantially from their descriptions in 3.12.1 and 3.5, respectively, will be important factors in the way that STEAMWORKS is played.