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TIME-BASED SCORING EXPLAINED

GOALS

Time-based scoring aims to be:

  1. Easy to understand

  2. Transparent

  3. Suitable for a racing sport

INSPIRATION

Time-based scoring is inspired by:

  1. Many, many questions, comments and (sometimes quite angry) remarks by competitors, organizers, spectators and media

  2. Bicycle races

  3. The existing system, GAP

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

  1. Performance is measured and expressed in a well-known and comparable unit: time

  2. Reaching goal has priority over being fast

  3. A pilot's score is only influenced by his own performance, and by better-performing pilots

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DETAILS

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HOW DO RACES WORK IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

Races scored by Time-based Scoring work very much the same as they do with the current scoring system:

  1. A task is set

  2. Launch and start times are defined

  3. Pilots launch, start at the defined start times, and then fly to goal as quickly as possible

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WHICH GAP CONCEPTS WERE ADOPTED BY TIME-BASED SCORING?

The current scoring system, GAP, does a number of things very well that affect fairness and pilot safety. Time-based Scoring adopts the following:

  1. Task devaluation if many pilots decide to stay on the ground rather than launching

  2. A minimum distance is awarded to every pilot who launches. They can therefore safely land in the official landing zone.

  3. After a certain time, which depends on the winner's time, the time at which a pilot reaches goal does no longer matter, so slow pilots can take their time and do not need to race any longer.

  4. In the case of a stopped task, the task is scored for the situation 5 minutes before the stop was announced.

  5. In the case of a stopped task, pilots still flying are awarded additional distance based on their altitude over goal at the stop time.

  6. Team scores work the same as in GAP.

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WHAT NEW CONCEPTS ARE INTRODUCED BY TIME-BASED SCORING?

Time-based Scoring introduces the new concept of "Sprints":


To encourage pilots to lead out, and to spread out the field, a task committee can define one or several turnpoints as "Sprint Goals".

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During the race, the first 30% of the field arriving at a Sprint Goal win a Sprint Time Bonus, based on the order in which they arrive at the Sprint Goal.

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For pilots who reach goal, the Task Time is reduced by their Sprint Time Bonus collected throughout the task.

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Organizers may choose to award day and competition prices to the best sprinters.

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HOW DO TASK RESULTS LOOK IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

Pilots are ranked by their task time: The lower the task time, the higher the rank.

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HOW DO TASK SPRINT RESULTS LOOK IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

Pilots are ranked by the sum of their Sprint Time Bonuses. The higher that sum, the higher the rank.

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HOW DO COMPETITION RESULTS LOOK IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

Pilots are ranked by the sum of their task time. The lower that sum, the higher the rank.

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HOW DO COMPETITION SPRINT RESULTS LOOK IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

Pilots are ranked by the sum of the Sprint Time Bonuses for all the task. The higher the sum, the higher the rank.

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WHAT IS A PILOT'S SCORE IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

Pilots are scored for the time they take to fly the "Speed Section" portion of a task, from the race start ("Start of Speed Section" or "SSS") to the "End of Speed Section" ("ESS").

 

If goal is different from ESS, then pilots must fly to goal to validate their Speed Section time. Pilots landing short of goal, even between ESS and goal, will be ranked below all pilots that reach goal.

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WILL SLOW PILOTS ALSO BE SCORED FOR THEIR SPEED SECTION TIME?

For each task, there is a maximum Speed Section Time. Pilots who take longer than this time to fly the Speed Section, but still arrive in goal, score this maximum Speed Section Time.

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This is to protect the scores of pilots who land just short of goal from being lowered drastically by very slow finishers.

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HOW IS THE MAXIMUM SPEED SECTION TIME CALCULATED?

The maximum time for reaching goal is determined by the fastest pilot's time:

  1. If the fastest pilot completed the Speed Section in 1 hour, the maximum time is 2 hours.

  2. If the fastest pilot completed the Speed Section in 3 hours, the maximum time is 4.5 hours.

  3. If the fastest pilot completed the Speed Section in more than 3 hours, the maximum time is 1.5 times the fastest pilot's time.

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WHAT TIME IS SCORED BY A PILOT WHO DOES NOT REACH GOAL?

To find a the task time of a pilot who landed before goal, we follow this simple procedure:

  1. Determine the time of the last pilot in goal (which is limited, so that a slow pilot reaching goal will not diminish the score of a fast pilot landing just before goal).

  2. Measure the distance the pilot did not cover

  3. Calculate the Adjustment Speed

  4. Calculate the Adjustment Time as the time the pilot would have taken for the distance they did not cover, flying at the Adjustment Speed

  5. Add the Adjustment Time to the time of the last pilot in goal

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Example:

Tweety Bird lands 15 km before goal. The last pilot who made goal, Daffy Duck, has a Speed Section Time of 2:03:35. The Adjustment Speed is 30 km/h. Therefore Tweety Bird’s task time is:
2:03:35 + (15 km / 30 km/h)
2:03:35 + (0.5h)
2:33:35

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HOW IS THE ADJUSTMENT SPEED CALCULATED?

The Adjustment Speed is calculated such that:

  • Fast winner: low adjustment speed (not making goal is bad)

  • Many pilots in goal: low adjustment speed (not making goal is bad)

  • Slow winner: high adjustment speed (not making goal is not so bad)

  • Few pilots in goal: high adjustment speed (not making goal is not so bad)

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Examples:

  • 1 pilot in goal, winner’s speed: 10 km/h: => 1 km short: + 0:52 min.

  • 50 pilots in goal, winner’s speed: 35 km/h => 1 km short: + 2:51 min.

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WHAT HAPPENS IF NO PILOT REACHES GOAL?

If no pilot reaches goal, an ad-hoc version of the task is created and scored:

  1. The first turnpoint not reached by any pilot becomes the ad-hoc goal and implicitly ESS.

  2. The ad-hoc goal radius is adjusted so that the pilot who flew the closest to it reaches it.

  3. Then this ad-hoc task is scored as described above, with the adjustment base time set to the winner's time.

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HOW IS THE SPRINT BONUS CALCULATED?

  1. The task committee defines which turnpoints are Sprint Goals.

  2. At each Sprint Goal, the pilots are ranked in the order in which they reach the Sprint Goal.

  3. The winner's Sprint Bonus for each Sprint Goal is 60 seconds.

  4. The first 12 pilots at each sprint goal are awarded 60, 55, 50...5 seconds Sprint Bonus.

  5. For each pilot's competition scores, his total sum of Sprint Bonus collected throughout a competition is subtracted from his total task time, to give the competition score.

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HOW ARE MULTIPLE CATEGORIES SCORED IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

Like in GAP, there are two options to score multiple categories (like for example female, sports class, etc.):

  1. Filter: Extract the pilots of the desired category from the overall ranking

  2. Recommended: Use a separate competition for each category. This ensures that in each category, the top 30% receive a Sprint Time Bonus.

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HOW ARE DISCARDS HANDLED IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

Discards are optional, and not recommended for competitions with less than 7 tasks.

  1. At the outset of the competition, the number of discards is defined. For example "1 out of 4 tasks".

  2. A pilot's worst task is defined as the task where the difference between their task time and the winner's task time is the biggest.

  3. When discarding a task, instead of the actual task time, the pilot is scored with the task winner's task time for that task.

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HOW CAN I SCORE A COMPETITION IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

  1. Download the FsComp scoring software and the TBS formula module (see "Software" on the Download page) and install them on your computer

  2. Score the competition like you would with GAP or the PWCA formula

  3. When producing result sheets, make sure to use the templates with the "tbs" prefix.

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WHERE CAN I FIND MORE INFORMATION ON TIME-BASED SCORING?

  1. Watch this video. Time-based scoring is covered from 1:09:08. Be aware that this talk covered V1.0 of Time-based Scoring. Some things have changed since then, mainly the handling of tasks with no pilots in goal, and the calculation of the Adjustment Speed.

  2. Read the full Time-based scoring formula specification.

  3. Write us an email.

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WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS IN TIME-BASED SCORING?

  1. The main effort right now is to find competition organizers who use Time-based Scoring in their competitions.

  2. Based on the experience collected from competitions, adjustments will be implemented in future versions of Time-based Scoring.

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