Multi-gun scoring - Time Plus

[Flexmoney]

Bruce,

As Ohio SC, my Area Director has urged me to approach a club or two that shoots 3-gun. But, I just don't have anything to offer them. Quite frankly, they are better off without us (USPSA) right now. And, the way it is sounding, it will be a year of better beofre the BOD gets thru the red tape with anything that might be an improvement.

We need something NOW.

I am a big fan of Comstock scoring. But, I just don't see it playing well to the 3-gun crowd. If the old-school pistol shooters on the BOD can't let themselves go with time-plus scoring for 3-gun, then I fear USPSA 3-gun doesn't stand a chance.

Just take me as an example. I am a USPSA enthusiast, a Section Coordinator, and a believer in Comstock scoring...and I'm not even sold.

You have talked about having a set of rules that works at Monthly Match, USA...that needs to apply to the scoring as well.

I hope you can get the message to the BOD.

Thanks.

[bgary]

I think there are two different flavors of this conversation - for lack of a better approach, I'll propose separating them as "pragmatic" and "philosophical".

The "pragmatic" question is, how do we do Comstock for multi-gun? It is clear that the approach we used last year is not optimal. We basically said that since EZWS looks at a stage as being either pistol, rifle or shotgun stage, then the way to score it "multi-gun" is to "declare" that it is a pistol, rifle or shotgun stage, no matter how many other guns are used on it. That sorta-kinda handled the power-factor issue, but it created other problems (such as requiring that the "other" guns were only given a-zone-only targets, so that PF issues were negated). That approach *clearly* didn't work well. But there are others. One is the "San Angelo" scoring, which we are trying in some matches this year. Other potential approaches are things like changing EZWS to do what we want it to do, or writing a new scoring program that does what we want it to do, or... other things.

In *my* mind, I'm comfortable suggesting that the fact that we have not yet delivered a good way to do comstock scoring in a multi-gun context, does *not* necessarily mean that we throw out Comstock scoring. I'm hotly in pursuit of ways to do it, and optimistic that we'll get there. So... I'm focused on *how* to do Comstock in a multi-gun context, noting that past approaches have been unsuccessful.

But that leads directly into the "philosophical" question, of whether or not Comstock is the "right way" to score a multi-gun competition?

Clearly, different matches have different approaches. Some use a time-plus approach, adding seconds for lower-quality hits. Some use a time-plus, adding seconds for not adequately "neutralizing" a target. Some apply different "weights" to stages. Some declare that all stages count the same in figuring out the match score. Etc. Etc. Etc. All of those approaches have things that make them attractive. Yet, all of them also have "holes", which may end up adversely affecting the outcome of a competition. (let me know if you want to chase that thread)

In my personal opinion, Comstock is a surprisingly "elegant" scoring system. It (when it is done right) does a pretty good job of considering accuracy *and* power *and* speed, as executed on a stage. It also does a pretty good job of reflecting "balance", in that bigger more round-intensive stages "count more" in a match, and simple or complex stages generally "telescope" the standings by compressing or expanding the spread of hit-factors. So... there are some pretty cool things that come out of Comstock.

Having said all that, I'd also note that Comstock was designed around the "pillars" that define USPSA shooting (D-V-C), and.... it may well be an uphill battle to get USPSA to move away from its "differentiating attribute" and move towards something that - from its parochial perspective - is a more problematic solution.

What's all that mean? It basically means that I am actively working on ways to get Comstock working for USPSA multi-gun, both because I think it is a viable and "doable" approach, *and* because it means that I can deliver the approach much sooner than I could if I had to *also* try to build consensus around a bigger philosophical change (i.e., building consensus with my Board brethren about doing TimePlus). I think we'll have Comstock working *soon* - hopefully weeks, rather than years. And.... perhaps once we have Comstock working (and, by working I mean it works for stage designers, competitors, stats people, etc), then we'll be in a much better position to make intelligent decisions about whether it works philosphically for the org, or whether something else might be better.

My hope.... oh, hell, lets call it a vision.... is that USPSA becomes a *contributor* to the continual evolution of the multi-gun game. I'm working to *eliminate* as many differences as I can between USPSA and the other multi-gun matches, because I think it is far more important to celebrate our common ground than it is to fight over the differences. At the same time, I'm working to *fix* the problems with USPSA multi-gun, within the principles that USPSA holds dear. So.... I'm hoping to get to the point where the major multi-gun matches have largely the same rules for ROing, for handling hot guns, for target and scoring values, etc.... and maybe one of the *few* differences is that USPSA is Comstock and someone else is some flavor of TimePlus.... ultimately, what I'd like to get to with USPSA is a situation where a match director can decide whether he wants to run his USPSA match under any of several approved and time-tested options within the rules, and his "customers" can tell him which kind they prefer.

I think we're a couple years away from that last bit, but.... heck, one step at a time. Last year we got multi-gun stages "legal" in USPSA for the first-time ever. That was a quantum shift, all on its own. This year we'll get the major wrinkles out of how it works. Next year... well, I think the way to get it "right", is to keep chunking at it until it is, and to use the "learnings" to help change the thinking and move us forward.

Hope that makes some sense - sorry for the long and semi-random spew.

bruce

[ErikW]

I don't understand the attraction to a scoring method for 3 gun that is pretty much disliked in 1 gun (IDPA).

Get it done in Comstock. If you have the power to create or change the software, there's no reason not to.

[Flexmoney]

Bruce,

Nice post. Like I said, I am a fan of Comstock (it being a variable hit factor is what makes it so effective to those that get it's positives).

I am with you all the way through your post...until yor get to where you start mentioning "years". Such is the nature of the system, I guess.

[3GunF1Guy]

I know that allot of people want comstock scoring for 3-gun. But being the simpleton that I am, I have just never spent a whole lot of time thinking about the "scoring ramifications" of it. Whenever I look over the scores of the USPSA matches that I shoot I see that the shooters who put 2 holes in the paper in the least amount of time are the winners. I would bet that if you were to take ANY USPSA match and just re-score it using what is IMGA scoring that the results would be the about same. I would bet that a person's scoring position would be the same 98% of the time. i.e. if I was in 5th with comstock, re-scored Imga (time plus) I would still be in 5th. I also do not think that comparing IDPA scoring to IMGA score is a fair comparison either. As the president of a 3-gun club in Utah, what would make our club switch from Imga to USPSA comstock scoring. Is it that much better? and why?

Scott Peterson

[MikeFoley]

I shoot 3Gun in any form I can get it, and I also shoot USPSA every weekend, some Steel Challenge, and GSSF. I used to shoot IDPA too, but that was several years ago. I am shooting my first ICORE match tomorrow. Time plus scoring is very penalizing if you are fast and sloppy, which is why I like it, and also why a lot of USPSA shooters hate it. It just makes the game a little different, as long as there is accuracy and speed, what is the problem? If it works for all these other sports, why not USPSA 3Gun?

BTW, I don't want to change hit factor scoring for USPSA handgun matches at all, and I am not sure what is best for 3Gun. For some of you math majors, isn't hit factor and time plus both just points per second with a slightly different weight on accuracy? If that is so, can't you fix the penalties such that the time added would be different points down for different scoring zones? Has anyone considered a modified target scoring system for 3Gun as a possible solution(two values only or hits and misses)?

[BigDave]

Doesn't this really boil down to a software issue if we want to go the Comstock route?

[EricW]

Bruce is on the right track. W/O Comstock scoring (or massive hardcover), the pistol shooting becomes irrelevant. Sure, USPSA could adopt time plus scoring, but the match wouldn't resemble anything like a USPSA match as we know it.

Bruce is working with a bunch of knowledgable folks (read: not moi) and I have a high degree of confidence that a solution will be found this season that both allows easy and quick match scoring as well as preserves the principles of USPSA. Comstock brings accuracy to the party and is worth preserving.

[bgary]

But being the simpleton that I am, I have just never spent a whole lot of time thinking about the "scoring ramifications" of it. Whenever I look over the scores of the USPSA matches that I shoot I see that the shooters who put 2 holes in the paper in the least amount of time are the winners.

At a high level, yes, I'm pretty sure that the top shooters will rise to the top of the results no matter what scoring system you use. At least, I would *hope* so.

But... at a lower level, a lot depends on just what it is you're trying to "measure", and what things you're willing to ignore.

Some examples:

"PURE" TIME PLUS:

Your score is your time, plus seconds added for penalties. So, if the target requires two hits, and there are two holes on the target, you're good to go. If there is only one hole, they may add 5 seconds (or whatever) to penalize the miss. If there are no holes, they may add 15 seconds (or whatever) to penalize two misses and a failure to engage.

Strengths: It is easy to score on the range, it is easy to score in the stat shack, it is easy to understand, everyone goes away knowing exactly what their score was.

Weaknesses: It biases the scoring for *speed*, and tends to ignore *accuracy*. If you get two holes somewhere on the edges of the paper, that counts as much as two dead-center A-hits. Additionally, it ignores power - or, at least it does at most matches. Two hits with a puff-load 9mm count the same as two hits with a full-power round, so there is no advantage to shooting a "real" caliber. I am not aware of any major 3-gun matches that use TimePlus *and* recognize power factor - if there are some, I'd love to hear how they do it.

Unintended consequences: Most of the TimePlus implementations I've seen set a "standard" time penalty for misses that is constant through all stages. That means that a miss on a long-distance rifle stage is effectively meaningless (if it takes more than 5 seconds to hit the target, just launch a round and move on); at the same time, a miss on a speed shoot is pretty much a "death penalty".

That, too, tends to bias the competition towards speed and away from accuracy: to win, you have to really shoot well on the quick courses, and it is less important to shoot well on the long ones.

Just an absurd example, but... consider this: Let's say there is a stage that has a single plate at 500 yards. Shooter A gets the beep, goes prone, finds the target, gets his hold-over, controls his breathing, breaks the shot, does everything right, gets the hit... and spends 10 seconds doing it. Shooter B gets the beep, flips the safety off, cranks a shot in the right general direction, hits *nothing*, and is done in less than a second. Under most TimePlus approaches, Shooter B would "win" the stage with a time of something under 6 seconds (1 second plus the 5-second penalty for a Mike). Loosely translated, that means (in this admittedly extreme example) that the scoring system measures how fast you can make the thing go "bang", rather than whether you actually *hit* anything.

[ObNote: we're working to solve that same problem in USPSA. A popper that is worth 5 points at hoser distance is "worth shooting". An 8" plate at 500 yards that is worth the same 5 points is probably NOT worth shooting. I'm working on an approach to give the course designer discretion to assign higher values to targets that meet certain criteria. Stay tuned. But - and this is an important difference - at least in Comstock, you have to hit something to get the points... you can't "win" by ignoring targets.]

Another "interesting" facet of most time-plus implementations is that they count all stages the same. At the SMM3G for example, all the stages are "worth" 100 points. Taken to an extreme, that means a 6-round hoser stage that takes 2 seconds to shoot, counts the same in the match results as a complex technical field-course with tough shots and awkward positions that takes 180 seconds to shoot. That, too, tends to bias the competition (the speed shoots count disproportionately more in the results than they "should")

"COMSTOCK TIMEPLUS"

Just like TimePlus, only the worse the hit is, the bigger the penalty is. eg, an A-hit is down-nothing, a C-hit costs a 1/2-second penalty, a D-hit costs a full-second, a Mike costs 5 seconds.

This has [arguably] all the problems of TimePlus, *plus* all the complexity of Comstock, *plus* some interesting anomalies... for example, it penalizes you proportionately more for inaccuracy on fast/close targets than it does on harder/farther away targets, which... I don't know, it seems backwards to me, but I'm not sure I can articulate why. In any case, if anyone is using this approach, I'd love to hear from you... I can't see what the advantages are over just doing Comstock.

VARIANTS

One common variant of TimePlus is a points-based "neutralize the target" idea, sometimes called Paladin scoring. The idea is that you need to get one "quality" hit, or any other two hits. (One A, or two holes anywhere). Sometimes this is described as a "bonus for accuracy", i.e., if you shoot one good shot, you can save the time you would have spent launching a second shot.

This has all the benefits of "normal" TimePlus. It also has all the *weaknesses* of TimePlus, with the additional note that it completely negates any potential for rewarding accuracy or power in the results. One A-hit with a puff-load 9mm counts just as much as two C-hits with a full-power blaster. Two As count the same as two Ds. Etc.

(A sub-variant of this approach has a minimum number of points: you have to get at least 5 points on a target, which means 1 A, or one C and one [anything else], or a handful of D's. This sorta-kinda measures accuracy - or, more to the point, it has a built-in time penaltly for inaccuracy, because you have to spend time shooting more bad shots - but it *really* gets ugly if you have different power factors involved. Lets see, shooting minor you'd have to shoot 5 D's to equal one A... )

Another common variant that gets talked about (although I haven't actually seen it on the ground in too many places), is to use Paladin as a bonus for "power" instead of "accuracy". A shooter has to have one hit on a target if shooting "major", two hits if shooting "minor". This was discussed a lot in USPSA in the context of trying to figure out how to address rifle power factor - one hit from a 30-cal weapon would count the same as two hits with a .223. The big concerns I have about this, in addition to the above, are that it has the potential to be a nightmare for the RO and Stats (they have to know what the shooter's power-factor is in order to know if he gets penalized or not). And if there is a Chrono involved.... what happens if the shooter doesn't make major halfway thru the match? Does he get retroactively given a bunch of Mikes for all the single-hole targets he shot? Additionally, it negates the ability to recognize accuracy: One 30-cal edge hit is the same as one 30-cal A-hit; two .223 edge hits are the same as two .223 A-hits.

As a result, this approach may also affect things like equipment choice. For example, it may be that shooters would choose their equipment based largely on whether or not they think it is faster to fire one shot than two. Keep in mind that the TimePlus scoring is already biased toward "speed", and ... this might mean that the way to win a shooting competition is to pick a gun that allows you, under the rules, to win by "shooting less". In other words, winning a shooting match might come down to a decision made before the match started, which allows you to shoot fewer shots. Not sure if that is a strength, a weakness, or just a "design feature".

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Opinion Mode = ON

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Other than calling things "strengths" and "weaknesses", I've tried not to load the comments above with too much of my own opinion. Those are just some observations that have occured to me as I have analyzed the different IMGA-type scoring variations in the hope of finding things that would work for USPSA ("work for" means a combination of "it works on the ground" and "it has a reasonable chance of getting passed by the Board"). I am open to ideas... but, it *is* my opinion that Comstock does a pretty good job of measuring accuracy *and* power *and* speed (good thing, since that is what it was designed to do).

-- Good hits count more than poor hits.

-- Powerful hits count more than weak hits.

-- Fast hits count more than slow hits.

-- Long courses count more in the results than short courses

-- "Hoser" courses generally have high HFs but lower stage points

"Technical" courses generally have lower HFs but higher stage points.

It all sorta seems to balance out fairly nicely, at least for the things that USPSA wants to measure. Thats why I'm so motivated to make it work for USPSA multi-gun.

You know that old saying "you can have it cheap, fast or good: pick any two"?

My instinct is that most of the TimePlus-type approaches fall in there somewhere:

At one extreme, picture a course with a single target, and nothing matters but how fast you hit it. Doesn't matter whether it is a center-hit or an edge hit. Doesn't matter whether it is a powderpuff load or a powerful load. Just put a hole on the paper. As fast as you can.

Comstock covers all three.... it measures not only how fast you hit it, but how well you hit it, and how powerfully you hit it. And... the sublime beauty of it is that the *shooter* gets to decide what trade-offs apply. Want to trade speed for a good hit? Want to trade controllable recoil for points? You have all those options in Comstock... in TimePlus, most of those choices are "designed out".

Does that mean that Comstock is the only approach? Heck no. There is obviously a lot of value in TimePlus. Some very good matches have great success using it. My only point (did you think I'd ever get to one?) is that TimePLus measures *different* things than Comstock does (or, perhaps more succinctly, TimePlus does not measure *all* the things that Comstock does). And... I suspect that those very-good-matches would be very-good-matches whether they used TimePlus or Comstock.

My own opinion is that Comstock does a more "complete" job of measuring a shooter's skills, across the spectrum of typical stage challenges (shooting, moving and thinking), and provides minimal incentives for trying to substitute equipment or speed for skill. But... that's just the opinion of an I'll-die-of-old-age-before-getting-out-of-B-class shooter.

As I alluded above, I'm focusing on Comstock for USPSA Multigun because I think that is a solvable problem, AND I think it is an easier (and certainly quicker) problem to solve than trying to move an organization away from one of the philosophical principles that has defined it for 25+ years.

And when we've got Comstock solved, at least then we can [hopefully] morph the conversation from "USPSA Multi-gun sucks because Comstock doesn't work", to "both Comstock and TimePlus have their strengths in Multi-gun - which one do the members of USPSA *want* to use in Multigun competition?"

Bruce

[bgary]

would bet that if you were to take ANY USPSA match and just re-score it using what is IMGA scoring that the results would be the about same. I would bet that a person's scoring position would be the same 98% of the time.

Bill Sahlberg and I are going to experiment with exactly that. At a couple of matches - starting with a multi-gun match in Eastern Washington in a few weeks, we're going to work thru the results of at least one stage using two or three different approaches (probably "pure" TimePlus, Paladin and Comstock), so that we can see how things do change. Its not necessarily a definitive experiment, because the scoring system used for the match will drive the way shooters shoot the stage (ie, shooters will shoot it differently for TimePlus than they would for Comstock...) That will bias the outcome of the comparison somewhat, but... we're hoping to learn something.

bg

[bgary]

the shooters who put 2 holes in the paper in the least amount of time are the winners

Last post, and then I'm going to go join my wife in the other room. It *is* Friday night

I've run stats at a fair number of big matches.

I can confidently assert that the separation between 1st and 2nd/3rd/4th at a major match is more likely to be about the *quality* of the hits, not the speed with which they were generated

Watch TGO, or Todd, or Eric Grauffel. They are not going for uncontrolled speed - they are going for *good hits* as quickly as they can make them. They almost never shoot a D, and when they do it pretty much takes them out of the running for a stage.

More often than not, the stage winner is xx.95 seconds, down 3 (!) points, and 2nd place is xx.60 seconds, down 4 points. The small delta in "quality" very often outweighs the delta in speed.

*That* propensity for measuring - and rewarding - *quality* hits is, more than anything else, is the difference between Comstock and TimePlus.

My $.02

Bruce

[3GunF1Guy]

Using Imga scoring does reward speed, I agree, and I do like comstock scoring. I just wish that in our matches we could find a way to sort of integrate the two. I would like rewarding the shooter for getting better hits on paper. In the example of the one shot at 500 yrd, that is easy to fix in time plus scoring, as a match director is is easy to assign any target more time penalty, say 15 seconds. I also like the speed in which it take to score the match, You only need to mark the number of misses on the score sheet rather than A, B, C, D, for each shot. On the other hand comstock does reward speed and accuracy.

Bruce, I hope you can find a way to make comstock scoring work in USPSA 3-gun. I am really rooting for you. As a USPSA member I will be coming to the 3-Gun Nationals in Vegas. I would like nothing more than to see it work perfect.

Thread drift (ON)

The only thing I would like to see in Vegas, IMHO, is that the RO's on each stage have to have shot in at least 5 3-gun matches.

Thread drift (OFF)

Good Luck

Scott Peterson

[Paule]

Bruce,

You make a good case for the Speed/Power/Accuracy measures of Comstock. My concern is that it seems there is a big hole in the rules when disappearing targets are used. I see a big difference between a turner that is visible for half a second and a flipped or flying clay bird. In every match I have seen this year with those types of targets, winning meant skipping all the disappearing clays. Period. If the rules are left as is for those targets they will be relegated to fun only, not for those competing to win. I saw the same thing in Reno last year when many shooters found it best to fire a few shots into the mountainside and skip the rifle targets from the wagon.

I have heard the arguments that it's a game and part of the fun is figuring out how to use the scoring system to advantage. To me that is not, or should not, be what the game is about. When and how to reload, move and shoot or stop and set up, stand, sit, kneel or go prone... Lots of decisions on how to win a stage. Skipping half the targets should not be a best option.

I don't know if the answer is higher target values, penalties for skipping targets, or a general "Spirit of the Game" or Failure to Do Right" penalty such as the ones used in other shooting games. I do know that disappearing targets add excitement to matches and require more shooter skills. But the current USPSA rules undermine their effective use.