I updated the Team 190 site in a couple of ways...

• The Team info page has been updated. Currently online is the finalized Organizational Structure.
• In the works are Descriptions of all the positions on the Hierarchy, the task timeline and calendar.

- JonA
posted by jon abad at 13:23

The game has been finally announced! It goes a little something like this, four teams work together to gain the largest score possible. To quote the rules, "However, during the qualification matches some teams may earn additional bonus points that apply only to their team."
This year is an asskicker just like the ones that preceded it. In qualifying matches, the alliances are made and dissolved on a round by round basis while in elimination matches, four alliances fight their way to determine the winning alliance. Further out on the timeline, divisions are finally making an appearance at Nationals. Each team will be assigned to one of four divisions and play qualifying matches only against other members of their division. Additionally, Nationals will produce 4 Division Champion alliances and one National Champion alliance.

The gameplay is really something else as the scoring opportunities are everywhere. First, you put the small balls in one of two goals, you can end a match with your robot in the End Zone, balancing the goals on the bridge yields points, as does ending the match before the time of two minutes, or carrying a robot into the End Zone on a stretcher.

The toughest part of the game, save for that whole "Come up with a solution" part, will be the scoring as it is the most complicated yet. It starts out simple enough but gets complicated quickly:

• 1 point per black ball in a goal (not touching or supported by a robot of course)
• 10 points per large ball on a goal
• 10 points per robot in the End Zone
• 20 points if a robot is on stretcher and in the End Zone
• 2x multiplier per goal balanced on the bridge
• A time based multiplier if the match is ended before two minutes... This is a fun one... In classic gameshow fashion, the faster the game ends, the higher your multiplier. Here's a handy table to make sense of it.

  Time Remainding (seconds)	Multiplier
  120-91	3
  90-61	2.5
  60-31	2
  30-1	1.5
  0	1

• A team receives a 10% bonus if it's colored large ball is on a goal

All of these are calculated whenever the match ends and scores are rounded to remove decimals. That would just be too geeky. The rankings are going to be fairly straightforward, a round's score is added to the team's running total, with the lowest score dropped.
This game proves to be really twisted so as i read more i'll ramble some more.
posted by jon abad at 13:49