Looking through the manual and I saw this:
And this:
Looks like auton just got a lot more important.
Wow, in addition to a harder auton, there is a more important auton.
can you post a link to the manual?
I’m happy about it, I don’t feel like VEX has put enough emphasis on the autonomous period before.
Autonomous will be extremely important this season
I love it. Finally auton is VERY important.
hype!
That is a huge change! I think it is for the better too. Programming just became a whole new level of important!
just like it was in FRC this year
Finally!
This is amazing.
Now rankings aren’t based in luck (as much 
)
@SamuelC (7842D) Statistics. (Benjamin Disraeli reference).
In all seriousness, it’s a good idea, but I wish it wasn’t prioritized above SPs, especially because it doesn’t give any rewards for ties.
Nor did SP.
@factorsofx But it does, because then SPs treats the tie score as the losing alliance score and goes on working. WPs include a proviso for both sides to get 1 WP in case of tie. There isn’t a method to get points back for APs, even if both sides somehow have a twenty point auton, they both only get zero APs if they have the exact same score. It’s really just a fairness issue.
Admittedly, this opens a whole new can of worms with people not scoring period, but that’s a different problem that can be solved differently.
I think this is a great change. I know they needed a way to ranks teams with the same WP, and putting Autonomous AP above SP seems logical, and yet another way to ranks teams.
I like the new rule, but I do agree that it is not perfect. When two teams tie during auto by each getting 10 points…neither will get any AP. But a team that wins an auto by only scoring 1 point while the opposing alliance scores neither, will get AP.
I would guess that this may have been overlooked and the GDC would consider somehow modifying tied auto’s that are not 0-0 ties???
I honestly don’t think it will make auton that much more important. There will likely be lots of ties in APs and then it just goes to SPs again. I think for the most part, how often a team wins auto is more or less random, and doesn’t really correlate to the difficulty of their opponents or their own skill.
APs is Vex’s way of making autonomous, and therefore programming, more important. They’re basically compensating for this year’s autonomous bonus, which represents less than 2% of the maximum combined score.
Sps will be kind of hard to judge this season, but I think we will see sack attack like game play.
It is about time that VEX starts valuing the autonomous points more. Plus, Strength points are harder to judge by because every item scores in this game. Every object is always in a scoring zone unless it stays on the scoring fence.