Season One: First Tournament, Final
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
[X] Yes (Play 3498Z in the first match, play 8452A in the second match, remaining matches play 8452A)
[X] Don't take Desperate Measures (No check.)
A/N: So, I, uh, did some figuring. I think the chance that you'd win was something like one in a hundred million without taking desperate measures, but taking desperate measures would only increase your chance to something like one in a million. You guys did good; raw stats wise you were the second best after 3498. If you're wondering what happened to them, the two matches they lost were to the other members of their club on the opposing alliance while 3498 got stuck with robots that weren't even one third as good as them. This is really confusing to me; I don't expect, when I hypothetically play literally a hundred million matches against someone a bit better than me, that I'll lose every time. I'll probably change the mechanics for the next tournament.
You tried. You immediately came to the conclusion that taking desperate measures wasn't worth it. Ahmad and the Z team agreed that your best shot was matching you and Ahmad against their weaker team. Your group religiously checked your batteries, tightened loose screws, prepared new rubber bands, and triple checked your autonomous.
Your Alliance rolled: 2344. Opposing Alliance rolled: 2703.
You wince. This was expected, but it still hurt to lose.
Your Alliance rolled: 3923. Opposing Alliance rolled: 4833 + 100.
You grit your teeth, pushing down the gnawing anger and desperation.
Your stress is spiking. Your hands are starting to shake, your hands turning sweaty, sliding on the metal as you adjust your starting position without touching wheels to the tiles. This is it, you can feel it all over.
"Sis, being tense isn't helping."
"I know, but it does help, so shut up."
A hand finds its way to your back. You breathe, long and deep, and let your hands still, guiding you to the right position. You let go, trusting in that which you poured your heart into.
It struggles valiantly, edging out 3498 in efficiency, desperately trying to compensate for Ahmad's weakness.
It's not enough.
Your Alliance rolled: 2961. Opposing Alliance rolled: 3142.
You hold onto hope that Driver Period will be different, but deep down you know it won't. Both opposing teams are better at driving than your sister, and 3498 is better than Ahmad. The result is inevitable, the despair weighing more and more heavily with each object you fall behind.
You barely hear the final bell, barely see the shoulder shake of a sigh of disappointment, barely feel the reassuring handshakes of your alliance. None of it matters. You just lost in the Semifinals of a local tournament.
Your Alliance rolled: 4371. Opposing Alliance rolled: 5081 + 100.
You absently offer empty congratulations to the other team, which they seem to return, telling you "See you at States". You don't care. Their opinion isn't important. What matters is that you lost, here, with nothing to show for it save broken rubber bands and dreams.
As you walk back to the stands, you note the growing stains on your shirt, how odd your breathing is. How odd your sister's arm on your shoulder is, how awkward Ahmad's reassurance is. You notice how genuine Mrs. Conner's smile is, and how she beckons you to sit down.
"Don't take losing well?"
You have just enough composure to shake your head.
"Good. You keep your tantrum to yourself. That's miles better than some championship teams I knew."
You raise your head in shock.
"Surprised? Our school used to have a team that went to Worlds, you know."
"W-whu-what happened?"
Mrs. Conner snorts bitterly.
"Funding issues. We couldn't fund a team off what we could raise from the school board and our own pocket, and club membership dropped year by year. It's the reason why starting a new club isn't a pain and a half; I just backdated stuff so that 'of course you've been a member, robotics has been one continuous club this whole time'."
"Anyway, you understand now, your gut to your head, that losing is bad. Will you ever roll over and accept giving up?"
You shake your head, the hole in you filling with molten steel.
"Will you push yourself beyond what you thought was possible?"
You nod, steel pooling in your gut.
"Will you be World Champion?"
You raise your voice with your head, the tracks down your face drying with each passing second, the hard steel determination stiffening your spine.
"Yes."
"Good girl. Now, what's this I hear about not having an engineering logbook?"
You tilt your head in confusion. What was an engineering logbook?
"Christ..." your teacher murmurs.
"Alright, so you're supposed to keep track of your progress as you progress through a season, detailing challenges and your solutions to them. Apparently you haven't done any of that, so you'll probably have to spend a while writing it from scratch. Technically, writing an entry way after the fact is bad practice, but it isn't like it's worse than not writing anything at all, is it?"
A/N: Note that Mrs. Conner's goal is to get you to write, not instill good ethics in you.
You sigh.
"I knew you'd see it my way. Where do you want to go for dinner?"
There's really only one choice here. You could spring for a nice restaurant, sure, but even if your teacher was paying (not guaranteed), you honestly just wanted burger and fries. Okay, maybe your appetite is a little unhealthy, but it never goes anywhere so it should be fine, right?
...that sounded really weak, even to you.
You start looking ahead when you wake up the morning after. It looks like the next tournament is three weeks away, and the one after that is five weeks away.
Do you attend the one three weeks away?
[][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
[][Tour] No
You also consider building a new robot. Sure, your sister might not have the hang of it just yet, but she's going to hit the performance ceiling well before States. On the other hand, if you make a new one you'll have a whole lot of new expenses, plus your sister might not be able to get enough experience in it soon enough to be better than your current build. A difficult proposition, to be sure.
Start a new robot?
[][Robot] Yes, Medium Complexity (Medium Complexity, High Performance Ceiling, 10 Expenses to complete. While incomplete and above 3 expenses, act as Minimalist with -5 Performance)
[][Robot] Yes, High Complexity (High Complexity, Extremely High Performance Ceiling, 15 Expenses to complete. While incomplete and above 3 expenses, act as Minimalist with -5 Performance)
[][Robot] No
Alternatively, you might be able to up the quality of your code, give it some new sensors and go use those control loops you've been itching to try. If you did that, though, your sister would have to relearn everything, so...
Implement new programs?
[][Prog] Yes (Medium Complexity, High Performance Ceiling, -1 Expense. Week occupied with programming instead of driving. Wetware Performance resets to zero.)
[][Prog] No
For that matter, are you going to try and program a little more, or are you just going to hand it off your sister?
[][Train] Programming (Make Software roll, if exceeding performance ceiling remaining time will be spent driving)
[][Train] Driving (Sister does Wetware roll to improve Wetware Performance)
A/N: Note that building a new robot will not allow you to take Programming, and implementing a new program will force you to take Programming.
Free Time! 1 Free Time available per week!
[] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)*
[] Recruit at your school (Difficulty: Should be pretty easy, right? Everybody will want to join me, robotics is great and I'm so good at it!) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Recruit in the wild (Difficulty: I dunno, randomly looking for people probably isn't a good idea, and they probably aren't that great) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Try to get corporate sponsorships (Difficulty: Those suits will be falling all over themselves to support a new cool STEM program, right?) (Reward: ??? Revenue)
[] Try to get money from friends and family (Difficulty: Huh, my immediate family's pretty receptive. I wonder if my distant relatives are the same?) (Rewards: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get donations from random people (Difficulty: It worked for the Girl Scouts, why won't it work for me?) (Reward: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get a job (Difficulty: Some minimum wage job should be willing to hire fourteen year olds, right?)(Reward: 1 Revenue)
[] Backdate engineering logbook (Difficulty: I can just imagine all the difficulties I had, and then write them down. That'll work, right?)(Reward: ???)
[] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here) (Reward: ???)
[] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
[] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all, kinda want to do this anyway) (Reward: One time bonus to Hardware check)
[] Write in (veto/approval/reinterpretation at GM discretion)
*Still rolled with your stats.
[X] Don't take Desperate Measures (No check.)
A/N: So, I, uh, did some figuring. I think the chance that you'd win was something like one in a hundred million without taking desperate measures, but taking desperate measures would only increase your chance to something like one in a million. You guys did good; raw stats wise you were the second best after 3498. If you're wondering what happened to them, the two matches they lost were to the other members of their club on the opposing alliance while 3498 got stuck with robots that weren't even one third as good as them. This is really confusing to me; I don't expect, when I hypothetically play literally a hundred million matches against someone a bit better than me, that I'll lose every time. I'll probably change the mechanics for the next tournament.
You tried. You immediately came to the conclusion that taking desperate measures wasn't worth it. Ahmad and the Z team agreed that your best shot was matching you and Ahmad against their weaker team. Your group religiously checked your batteries, tightened loose screws, prepared new rubber bands, and triple checked your autonomous.
Your Alliance rolled: 2344. Opposing Alliance rolled: 2703.
You wince. This was expected, but it still hurt to lose.
Your Alliance rolled: 3923. Opposing Alliance rolled: 4833 + 100.
You grit your teeth, pushing down the gnawing anger and desperation.
Your stress is spiking. Your hands are starting to shake, your hands turning sweaty, sliding on the metal as you adjust your starting position without touching wheels to the tiles. This is it, you can feel it all over.
"Sis, being tense isn't helping."
"I know, but it does help, so shut up."
A hand finds its way to your back. You breathe, long and deep, and let your hands still, guiding you to the right position. You let go, trusting in that which you poured your heart into.
It struggles valiantly, edging out 3498 in efficiency, desperately trying to compensate for Ahmad's weakness.
It's not enough.
Your Alliance rolled: 2961. Opposing Alliance rolled: 3142.
You hold onto hope that Driver Period will be different, but deep down you know it won't. Both opposing teams are better at driving than your sister, and 3498 is better than Ahmad. The result is inevitable, the despair weighing more and more heavily with each object you fall behind.
You barely hear the final bell, barely see the shoulder shake of a sigh of disappointment, barely feel the reassuring handshakes of your alliance. None of it matters. You just lost in the Semifinals of a local tournament.
Your Alliance rolled: 4371. Opposing Alliance rolled: 5081 + 100.
You absently offer empty congratulations to the other team, which they seem to return, telling you "See you at States". You don't care. Their opinion isn't important. What matters is that you lost, here, with nothing to show for it save broken rubber bands and dreams.
As you walk back to the stands, you note the growing stains on your shirt, how odd your breathing is. How odd your sister's arm on your shoulder is, how awkward Ahmad's reassurance is. You notice how genuine Mrs. Conner's smile is, and how she beckons you to sit down.
"Don't take losing well?"
You have just enough composure to shake your head.
"Good. You keep your tantrum to yourself. That's miles better than some championship teams I knew."
You raise your head in shock.
"Surprised? Our school used to have a team that went to Worlds, you know."
"W-whu-what happened?"
Mrs. Conner snorts bitterly.
"Funding issues. We couldn't fund a team off what we could raise from the school board and our own pocket, and club membership dropped year by year. It's the reason why starting a new club isn't a pain and a half; I just backdated stuff so that 'of course you've been a member, robotics has been one continuous club this whole time'."
"Anyway, you understand now, your gut to your head, that losing is bad. Will you ever roll over and accept giving up?"
You shake your head, the hole in you filling with molten steel.
"Will you push yourself beyond what you thought was possible?"
You nod, steel pooling in your gut.
"Will you be World Champion?"
You raise your voice with your head, the tracks down your face drying with each passing second, the hard steel determination stiffening your spine.
"Yes."
"Good girl. Now, what's this I hear about not having an engineering logbook?"
You tilt your head in confusion. What was an engineering logbook?
"Christ..." your teacher murmurs.
"Alright, so you're supposed to keep track of your progress as you progress through a season, detailing challenges and your solutions to them. Apparently you haven't done any of that, so you'll probably have to spend a while writing it from scratch. Technically, writing an entry way after the fact is bad practice, but it isn't like it's worse than not writing anything at all, is it?"
A/N: Note that Mrs. Conner's goal is to get you to write, not instill good ethics in you.
You sigh.
"I knew you'd see it my way. Where do you want to go for dinner?"
There's really only one choice here. You could spring for a nice restaurant, sure, but even if your teacher was paying (not guaranteed), you honestly just wanted burger and fries. Okay, maybe your appetite is a little unhealthy, but it never goes anywhere so it should be fine, right?
...that sounded really weak, even to you.
You start looking ahead when you wake up the morning after. It looks like the next tournament is three weeks away, and the one after that is five weeks away.
Do you attend the one three weeks away?
[][Tour] Yes (-1 Expense)
[][Tour] No
You also consider building a new robot. Sure, your sister might not have the hang of it just yet, but she's going to hit the performance ceiling well before States. On the other hand, if you make a new one you'll have a whole lot of new expenses, plus your sister might not be able to get enough experience in it soon enough to be better than your current build. A difficult proposition, to be sure.
Start a new robot?
[][Robot] Yes, Medium Complexity (Medium Complexity, High Performance Ceiling, 10 Expenses to complete. While incomplete and above 3 expenses, act as Minimalist with -5 Performance)
[][Robot] Yes, High Complexity (High Complexity, Extremely High Performance Ceiling, 15 Expenses to complete. While incomplete and above 3 expenses, act as Minimalist with -5 Performance)
[][Robot] No
Alternatively, you might be able to up the quality of your code, give it some new sensors and go use those control loops you've been itching to try. If you did that, though, your sister would have to relearn everything, so...
Implement new programs?
[][Prog] Yes (Medium Complexity, High Performance Ceiling, -1 Expense. Week occupied with programming instead of driving. Wetware Performance resets to zero.)
[][Prog] No
For that matter, are you going to try and program a little more, or are you just going to hand it off your sister?
[][Train] Programming (Make Software roll, if exceeding performance ceiling remaining time will be spent driving)
[][Train] Driving (Sister does Wetware roll to improve Wetware Performance)
A/N: Note that building a new robot will not allow you to take Programming, and implementing a new program will force you to take Programming.
Free Time! 1 Free Time available per week!
[] Recruit Ahmad Solberg (Difficulty: Your sister made a good impression, maybe you can capitalize on that?) (Reward: Ahmad Solberg as teammate)*
[] Recruit at your school (Difficulty: Should be pretty easy, right? Everybody will want to join me, robotics is great and I'm so good at it!) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Recruit in the wild (Difficulty: I dunno, randomly looking for people probably isn't a good idea, and they probably aren't that great) (Reward: ??? teammate)
[] Try to get corporate sponsorships (Difficulty: Those suits will be falling all over themselves to support a new cool STEM program, right?) (Reward: ??? Revenue)
[] Try to get money from friends and family (Difficulty: Huh, my immediate family's pretty receptive. I wonder if my distant relatives are the same?) (Rewards: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get donations from random people (Difficulty: It worked for the Girl Scouts, why won't it work for me?) (Reward: ??? Expenses)
[] Try to get a job (Difficulty: Some minimum wage job should be willing to hire fourteen year olds, right?)(Reward: 1 Revenue)
[] Backdate engineering logbook (Difficulty: I can just imagine all the difficulties I had, and then write them down. That'll work, right?)(Reward: ???)
[] Forum Crawl (Difficulty: Too easy, nothing to learn here) (Reward: ???)
[] Programming Tutorial (Difficulty: How do I find the good ones for robotics?) (Reward: Software+)
[] Sketch a design (Difficulty: Not hard at all, kinda want to do this anyway) (Reward: One time bonus to Hardware check)
[] Write in (veto/approval/reinterpretation at GM discretion)
*Still rolled with your stats.
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