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Scoring Discussion



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 19th 17, 06:10 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Steve Leonard[_2_]
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Default Scoring Discussion

To try and get this going separate from the discussion of the ongoing World Championships,I think we can agree:

Any scoring system will have an unintended consequences.

Current FAI scoring system used at World and Continental Championships tends to encourage group flying (reward for striking out on your own and completing when nobody else does is very small, but the penalty for coming up short is very large). It also does not provide speed point in proportion to the best speed. And it can compress (or expand) scores by having people intentionally land out.

Pilots don't like the idea of being 20 KPH faster than the slowest guy, but still getting the same number of points as him (minimum speed points).

Now, feel free to discuss various scoring system options, and be prepared for people to comment on the "unintended consequences" of that method.

Ready.... Go!
  #2  
Old January 19th 17, 06:17 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
krasw
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Default Scoring Discussion

torstai 19. tammikuuta 2017 19.10.44 UTC+2 Steve Leonard kirjoitti:
To try and get this going separate from the discussion of the ongoing World Championships,I think we can agree:

Any scoring system will have an unintended consequences.

Current FAI scoring system used at World and Continental Championships tends to encourage group flying (reward for striking out on your own and completing when nobody else does is very small, but the penalty for coming up short is very large). It also does not provide speed point in proportion to the best speed. And it can compress (or expand) scores by having people intentionally land out.

Pilots don't like the idea of being 20 KPH faster than the slowest guy, but still getting the same number of points as him (minimum speed points).

Now, feel free to discuss various scoring system options, and be prepared for people to comment on the "unintended consequences" of that method.

Ready.... Go!


Clipped from Benalla thread:

Ok, let's imagine score formula that gives 900 points to all finishers and remaining 100 points are awarded according to speed. No more gaggles, problems solved?

Wrong. Nothing changes. Same pilots will win and others loose. All we change is point spread between pilots. If winner of the whole competition gets 10000 points and last one 6000, new formula gives 10000 to winner and 9500 to last one. Point spread is very small, but it is as difficult to make any difference by flying as before. Next we start calculating decimals.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
  #3  
Old January 19th 17, 08:19 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
John Cochrane[_3_]
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Default Scoring Discussion

Steve:

Thanks, yes, let's keep Benalla on Benalla and scoring on scoring. My concrete proposal

points = (day devaluation) x max [ 1000 x speed / winner speed, 750 x distance , winner distance].

Let's leave day devaluation out of this for the moment, as it's much less important.

The ratio of speed to distance points does not change as a function of land outs. This is the major innovation. Therefore, just finishing vs. just short is always the same thing. We do not have the situation that the only finisher is 1000 with the gaggle just short at 999 while the only just short is 300 with the gaggle at 1000. The lone wolf can strike out.

It's not magic. There still will be gaggles. 750 is still a bad outcome. But it tilts the playing field a bit to the lone wolf, early starter, etc.

The main "defect" mentioned in the previous thread, is that someone going 66% of winner's speed and someone going 75% of winner's speed get the same points. Reply: That's already in IGC rules. Very slow finishes are counted as landing out. Reply 2: Yeah, but so what. If you lower the 750, then you lower distance points, meaning that going further on distance days counts less, and that a land out is more of a disaster. On that basis 800 distance points makes more sense.

Notice also that by removing 2 x speed -- which was pointless, as it makes speed points just as easy to get as to lose, and does not affect the final ranking -- these distance points are the equivalent of half as many under current IGC rules. So even 750 is harsh. That's another argument for 800 or even more.

Day devaluation? Again, it's a separate issue, but I would also not base this on land outs. We only use land outs to measure things because we didn't use to have gps. A concrete proposal:

day devaluation = min [ median time from start to finish or landing of top 10% of pilots / 3 hours, 1]

We measure time on course for everyone. If the top 10% of pilots fly 3 hours, it's a fully valid day. If we all land out, we're fighting for the full 750 distance points. This keeps the current IGC philosophy that distance days are valid days. It's the median and the top 10% so that one pilot does not affect the devaluation formula -- no incentive to sit on a ridge and orbit to run up the clock and lower the devaluation of a hopeless day

Advantage 2: This is all really really simple! It also removes the quirks of current IGC rules that encourage pilots to intentionally land out on some days.

John Cochrane

  #4  
Old January 19th 17, 08:50 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Andy Blackburn[_3_]
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Default Scoring Discussion

On Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 9:17:09 AM UTC-8, krasw wrote:
torstai 19. tammikuuta 2017 19.10.44 UTC+2 Steve Leonard kirjoitti:
To try and get this going separate from the discussion of the ongoing World Championships,I think we can agree:

Any scoring system will have an unintended consequences.

Current FAI scoring system used at World and Continental Championships tends to encourage group flying (reward for striking out on your own and completing when nobody else does is very small, but the penalty for coming up short is very large). It also does not provide speed point in proportion to the best speed. And it can compress (or expand) scores by having people intentionally land out.

Pilots don't like the idea of being 20 KPH faster than the slowest guy, but still getting the same number of points as him (minimum speed points).

Now, feel free to discuss various scoring system options, and be prepared for people to comment on the "unintended consequences" of that method.

Ready.... Go!


Clipped from Benalla thread:

Ok, let's imagine score formula that gives 900 points to all finishers and remaining 100 points are awarded according to speed. No more gaggles, problems solved?

Wrong. Nothing changes. Same pilots will win and others loose. All we change is point spread between pilots. If winner of the whole competition gets 10000 points and last one 6000, new formula gives 10000 to winner and 9500 to last one. Point spread is very small, but it is as difficult to make any difference by flying as before. Next we start calculating decimals.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."


I think where we crossed is the assumption that speed points need to equal max points for the day minus distance points. In that case where you separate the two doesn't matter, but that's not how scoring needs to work. If you allow overlap you can dial up or down the relative disaster of a landout to your heart's content. The price you pay is the point of overlap - dealing with the conflict between very slow finishers and long landouts. You can either set limits to prevent the overlap or not - that is, either allow some ties for the very slow (or extreme nonlinear scoring of speeds below 80% or so to forestall it), or allow some long non-finishers to score higher than very slow finishers.

Devaluation formulae complicate matters further, particularly if they are asymmetric - leading to all kinds of undesirable results and pilot behavior - as was demonstrated at Benalla.

I don't get the obsession with pilots who finish less than 75% of the winners speed. Missing the granularity of scoring 750 points versus some pilot who scored an even lower number when the bigger point is both pilots have likely been knocked way down. I'd rather keep them both more in contention. If we were looking at a situation where much of the field was on a consistent basis hitting the limit, I'd feel differently, but in a system where the points are 1:1 proportional to the speed ratio, that just doesn't happen unless someone really got into trouble - in which case it was more likely bad luck anyway so why score it like it's really a representative score of that pilot's abilities that day.

9B
  #5  
Old January 19th 17, 09:20 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Bruce Hoult
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Default Scoring Discussion

On Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 8:10:44 PM UTC+3, Steve Leonard wrote:
To try and get this going separate from the discussion of the ongoing World Championships,I think we can agree:

Any scoring system will have an unintended consequences.

Current FAI scoring system used at World and Continental Championships tends to encourage group flying (reward for striking out on your own and completing when nobody else does is very small, but the penalty for coming up short is very large). It also does not provide speed point in proportion to the best speed. And it can compress (or expand) scores by having people intentionally land out.

Pilots don't like the idea of being 20 KPH faster than the slowest guy, but still getting the same number of points as him (minimum speed points).

Now, feel free to discuss various scoring system options, and be prepared for people to comment on the "unintended consequences" of that method.

Ready.... Go!


Ok .. how about ...

rawScore = speed/referenceSpeed * distance/referenceDistance

finalScore = 1000 * rawScore/max(rawScore)

For those who don't finish the task, their task time and distance are to the GPS fix immediately before they declare a landout (by pressing a button, or possibly by a radio call). The pilot might then proceed to land out, or return to home, or start some means of propulsion.

If someone lands out just short of home they will score a little less than someone who overflies them as they land and makes it home. For concreteness, if pilot A lands out 2 km short on a 300 km task, after 3h20m on task, they'll score the same as someone about 90 seconds behind them but who makes it home.

If two pilots land in the same field, then the one who go there first will score more points.

I specified "reference" not "winner" deliberately. It doesn't actually matter what the reference distance and speed are, as everyone is normalized relative to them. Make them the task length and 3 hours (or 5 hours). Or the task length and the fastest finisher's speed. Or the distance flown by the longest landout, and their speed getting there. It doesn't actually make any difference.

This formula would work equally well for conventional tasks and AATs.

The astute will have noticed that in ...

speed/referenceSpeed * distance/referenceDistance

.... speed = distance/time and therefore this is actually proportional to ....

distance^2/time
  #6  
Old January 19th 17, 10:03 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
[email protected]
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Default Scoring Discussion

I think this all depends on exactly what the basis for the argument to change the scoring system is. Safety? That has some short term merit with the 2 collisions here, but the better safety arguement is probably 1 glider per country and half the total number of gliders. Half the gliders is a major break with WGC traditions however and has not been adopted despite years of effort by several distinguished parties. I personally think this is the smartest solution. If the arguement is fairness, that is going to be hard to close as well. Rules are relative. Everyone here is playing under the same rule system and this is how world championships have been scored for decades. Start gaggle games are clearly enjoyable to many from a tactical perspective. Most here feel gaggles are fine, they just get out of hand in the blue from time to time. As I have often expressed, flying around alone injects an element of luck into the game. This is why gaggles exist, to counter that risk. Don't forget, we still have large pre-start and on course gaggles in the US under our experimental rule system (how it is perceived by other countries) and system of no racing tasks (OLC timed task only) culture. So our safety arguement is already quite flawed in my opinion.

All I will say is that the gaggle "tendency" is very strong here. The reason is, partially, that many pilots have the confidence that they can A) stay with the gaggle and B) pass the gaggle and outscore it. But in reality most who are playing the gaggle well here fly with the same group all the way around (such as yesterday). Anything that can be done with scoring or general organization to de-incentivize this sounds good for safety. But this will have to go to an extreme to successfully break up gaggles here (or at home in the US). Also, the need for scoring system change is not the opinion of the majority here. Gaggles are clearly accepted as part of the sport. Most I have takes too do not fully believe that slight changes in scoring ratios will have much effect. This is the feeling I get at least. They seem to favor pleading with the pilots to behave :-).

As I recently demonstrated, along with several others in other classes, this scoring system does make it very hard to catch up once significant points are lost after an A) slightly slow day (1kph is typically worth 20 points, 5kph 100 points on slower days around 100 kph for the winner). In other words, it is very easy to lose points, but extroidinarily difficult to gain points back in terms of scoring scenarios. A landout with the main gaggle finishing is literally game over (not saying that's entirely wrong but, yet again, taking risk to fly alone is "sorta" punished twice). All this equals a huge tactical incentive to stay in touch with the gaggle. This is part of the sport of soaring as flying alone can create huge anomalies in scoring. The best pilots/teams here are experts at controlling risk.

One other idea that I personally love is a 25-75 km from start "bonus points steering turn" (say 50 points for the first pilot, 30 for second, 20 third and so on. Something the gaggle will have to "let go" to play the typical 20-30 minute behind the early starters game.

The truth is that it's unlikely that the IGC is going to make a major change in scoring formula. The political power to keep this system appears strong. I for one think many changes are necessary.

Why not some concrete, comprehensive safety rules? For example: a pilot who gets within 100 feet of another gets a penalty. This seems reasonable, no? If being in a close gaggle meant several 10 point penalties, the gaggles would be dangerous for points! Hmmm?

Some number crunchers here did some interesting analysis on which pilots (in each class) were flying in closest proximity to others. This produced a bar chart which was displayed on the big theatre screen at the pilots meeting for ALL to see. It appeared to be fairly accurate (happily, I was among the lowest "closeness" in 18m) in my opinion from what I had witnessed. Peer pressure like this is fine but without actual penalties, gaggles will remain aggressive as it is a skill to use others visually as our vario and try to gain competitors in all gaggle thermals. This effort to climb better than others in the gaggle is what makes them risky.

Looks like no fly today here.

Sean
  #7  
Old January 19th 17, 10:45 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Tim Taylor
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Default Scoring Discussion

On Thursday, January 19, 2017 at 10:10:44 AM UTC-7, Steve Leonard wrote:
To try and get this going separate from the discussion of the ongoing World Championships,I think we can agree:

Any scoring system will have an unintended consequences.

Current FAI scoring system used at World and Continental Championships tends to encourage group flying (reward for striking out on your own and completing when nobody else does is very small, but the penalty for coming up short is very large). It also does not provide speed point in proportion to the best speed. And it can compress (or expand) scores by having people intentionally land out.

Pilots don't like the idea of being 20 KPH faster than the slowest guy, but still getting the same number of points as him (minimum speed points).

Now, feel free to discuss various scoring system options, and be prepared for people to comment on the "unintended consequences" of that method.

Ready.... Go!


Does anyone have history of why FAI is based on a 2X for the speed points? i see that it encourages higher risk flying, but the high hit for land-out promotes the opposite.
  #8  
Old January 19th 17, 11:42 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Dan Daly[_2_]
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Default Scoring Discussion

One other idea that I personally love is a 25-75 km from start "bonus points steering turn" (say 50 points for the first pilot, 30 for second, 20 third and so on). Something the gaggle will have to "let go" to play the typical 20-30 minute behind the early starters game.

I like this idea too, but would use a radius along track from the centre of the start line (better for AATs which would allow the pilot to choose a better energy line).

Why not some concrete, comprehensive safety rules? For example: a pilot who gets within 100 feet of another gets a penalty. This seems reasonable, no? If being in a close gaggle meant several 10 point penalties, the gaggles would be dangerous for points! Hmmm?


I like this idea a lot. Listening to the radio feed, I hear a lot of "contest id whatever just passed me 20 ft away". I don't see any specific penalty in the SC3A for flying too closely, so to the causal reader, it appears that IGC is not concerned that in two WGC that I have followed closely (at Uvalde, watching Benalla) there have been four mid-airs, with four gliders lost and four damaged, and two pilots injured enough for hospitalization.

I don't see much difference between a hazardous manuevre during a finish which gets: "Finish: hazardous maneuver 25 pts, n x 25 pts, Disqualification" and one in a gaggle, although I agree the ground is not forgiving.

Why no specific penalty for flying too close in a gaggle?


Some number crunchers here did some interesting analysis on which pilots (in each class) were flying in closest proximity to others. This produced a bar chart which was displayed on the big theatre screen at the pilots meeting for ALL to see. It appeared to be fairly accurate (happily, I was among the lowest "closeness" in 18m) in my opinion from what I had witnessed. Peer pressure like this is fine but without actual penalties, gaggles will remain aggressive as it is a skill to use others visually as our vario and try to gain competitors in all gaggle thermals. This effort to climb better than others in the gaggle is what makes them risky.


What a great idea - not difficult to do, with IGC files. Define a distance which is unsafe, and gives point penalties which either:
- grow rapidly to discourage close flying; or
- if you are high pilot on the graph, you sit the next flying day - a soaring "time out". Make it carry into the Championship from the practice days as well. Multiple mid-airs at WGCs shouldn't be common. Leaving it to peer pressure has not worked.

Looks like no fly today here.


Bummer but I'll get a lot more sleep tonight in Canada as a result!





  #9  
Old January 20th 17, 12:21 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Scoring Discussion

In sailing you are allowed to "drop" a bad race result. The impact of this is that one bad result does not mean that the competition is over for you. This could be a way of encouraging flying along as the cost of one bad day is small compared to the possibility of being faster than the gaggle.

On Friday, January 20, 2017 at 4:10:44 AM UTC+11, Steve Leonard wrote:
To try and get this going separate from the discussion of the ongoing World Championships,I think we can agree:

Any scoring system will have an unintended consequences.

Current FAI scoring system used at World and Continental Championships tends to encourage group flying (reward for striking out on your own and completing when nobody else does is very small, but the penalty for coming up short is very large). It also does not provide speed point in proportion to the best speed. And it can compress (or expand) scores by having people intentionally land out.

Pilots don't like the idea of being 20 KPH faster than the slowest guy, but still getting the same number of points as him (minimum speed points).

Now, feel free to discuss various scoring system options, and be prepared for people to comment on the "unintended consequences" of that method.

Ready.... Go!


  #10  
Old January 20th 17, 12:22 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
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Default Scoring Discussion


alongalone.(autocorrect)
On Friday, January 20, 2017 at 10:21:27 AM UTC+11, wrote:
In sailing you are allowed to "drop" a bad race result. The impact of this is that one bad result does not mean that the competition is over for you.. This could be a way of encouraging flying along as the cost of one bad day is small compared to the possibility of being faster than the gaggle.

On Friday, January 20, 2017 at 4:10:44 AM UTC+11, Steve Leonard wrote:
To try and get this going separate from the discussion of the ongoing World Championships,I think we can agree:

Any scoring system will have an unintended consequences.

Current FAI scoring system used at World and Continental Championships tends to encourage group flying (reward for striking out on your own and completing when nobody else does is very small, but the penalty for coming up short is very large). It also does not provide speed point in proportion to the best speed. And it can compress (or expand) scores by having people intentionally land out.

Pilots don't like the idea of being 20 KPH faster than the slowest guy, but still getting the same number of points as him (minimum speed points).

Now, feel free to discuss various scoring system options, and be prepared for people to comment on the "unintended consequences" of that method.

Ready.... Go!


 




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