Cliff Hilty wrote:

Youve hit on something that I have been thinking about
for several years now and don't see the relavence of
penalizing the landout so extremely. It seems to me
that if you base the landout on a percentage of the
slowest finishers score that you will significantly
reduce the 'Have to make it home to score' and will
allow a better decision making process earlier in the
flight. I Suggested this in the opinion section of
the recent poll that started this thread. I suggest
that you take the slowest finishers score and award
points to the landouts by a percentage of course length
acheieved. IE slowest finisher acheives 800 points
and flew 100 miles. Landout guy, flys 90% of slowest
finisher distance and lands at the last available airfeild
before unlandable terrain. He woud recieve 720 points.
Allowing him not to lose the contest on the first day
with a landout and giving him incentive not to risk
the alternative of a bad landing site. Ther are already
penalties for landing out such as long retrieves disassembly
and reassembly, less sleep ect. Obviously it can be
massaged for better numbers and maybe more penalty
for longer time on course ect ect. What do you all
think? I think this has real possibilities. At least
better ones than imposing higher finishes, 15 min add
rules, ect ect.


Did you see the movie "A Beautiful Mind" (Oscar winner for Best Picture
of 2001)? There's a wonderful scene in which mathematician John Nash
introduces the concept of the "Nash equilibrium" to his fellow grad
students, using the example of how their collective individual
tendencies to go for the prettiest girl in the bar will inevitably
result in none of them getting laid that night.

Here's the result I get when I apply the Nash equilibrium principle to
your scoring scheme: one pilot gets 1000 points and the rest each get
999 points. Each pilot's individual tendency to go for the highest score
that he can get will inevitably result in one pilot finishing and all
other pilots deliberately landing just short of the finish line.

To most easily see why this is so, imagine an Assigned Task with all the
pilots starting together in a big furball. Pilot A is the first, and
therefore the fastest, finisher and gets 1000 points. As pilot B
approaches the finish, he calculates that his speed will be 95% of the
winner's speed, earning 950 points. Ah, but if there is only one
finisher, the fastest finisher is also the slowest finisher. In that
case, pilot B would get 999 points if he landed just short of the finish
line, so that is what he does.

If pilot C comes along and finishes with 90% of the winner's speed,
pilot B would be bumped down to 899 points, so pilot B would have done
better to finish for 950 points, right? True, but that assumes that
pilot C would screw himself by finishing for 900 points when he too
could have landed short for 999 points. And so on, down the list.

The reason we have scoring systems with a high "landout penalty" is
precisely to eliminate these situations in which a pilot might get fewer
points for finishing than he would get for deliberately landing short of
the finish line.

Gary Ittner P7
"Have glider, will race"