MCTF Game Rules and Scoring

Capture the Flag is a commonly-played team-game involving two opposing teams playing within a bounded playing field. The field is divided into two halves, one for each team; each team has a flag located inside their respective half. The objective of each team is to score points by capturing the opponent’s' flag, while not accruing negative points by preventing its own flag from being captured by the opponent’s team. The game ends after a certain, pre-determined duration. In this challenge, we consider a Maritime Capture-the-Flag (MCTF) game where the players are autonomous marine vehicles. The main features and events in the MCTF game are described below:

MCTF Game Features and Rules

The game is played within a rectangular playing field measuring 160 m X 80 m, divided into two halves, each measuring 80 m X 80 m.
Two teams called red and blue play the game. For this competition, a team consists of 3 players.
Each team has a home base that is a 10 m diameter circular area inside the team's half. The home base contains the team's flag at its center.
A player can move around inside the playing field. If a player goes outside the boundaries of the playing field, it is immediately returned to its home base.

Game Events

- Tag: Get within 10 m of its opponent team's players inside its own half. (Note that this implies that for a tag to occur, both players must be inside the same half and the tag gets awarded to the player that owns that half.)
  - When a player gets tagged, it has to return to its home base to get untagged.
  - If a player gets tagged while carrying its opponent's flag, it loses the flag. The flag is automatically returned to the opponent's home base.
- Flag Grab: Enter the opponent's home base in an untagged state and pick up the opponent team's flag, if it is there.
- Flag Capture: Return to its team's home base with a grabbed opponent flag without getting tagged by an opponent team's player.
- In addition, the game enforces an Auto-Tag action on a player if it goes outside the boundaries of the playing field. Auto-tag immediately returns the player to its home base.

These actions are illustrated in the adjoining video.

Untagging: A player that has been tagged (either by an opponent or by auto-tag) can get untagged by returning to its team’s home base. Players that are in a tagged state, are not able to tag opponents, grab or capture the opponent’s flag. If a player gets tagged the game controller will automatically take over the agents controls and drive it back to its team's home base.

MCTF Game Events x4 Speed

Game Duration and Scoring

Each game will last for a total of 10 minutes.

The scoring rules in the game are the following:

Primary Score = Number_of_Team_Flag_Captures - Number_of_Opponent_Flag_Captures - Number_of_Team_Collisions
If there is a tie on the primary score, then the following score is used for tie-breaking: (Number_of_Team_Flag_Grabs + Number_of_Team_Tags) - (Number_of_Opponent_Flag_Grabs + Number_of_Opponent_Tags).

Scoring Rule Definitions

Number_of_Team_Flag_Captures: number of times your team was able to grab the opponent’s flag and bring it to your team’s side.

Number_of_Opponent_Flag_Captures: number of times the opposing team was able to grab your team’s flag and bring it to their team’s side

Number_of_Team_Collisions: number of collisions that occurred on your team over the course of a 10-minute game. A collision is defined as getting within 4 meters of another agent, teammate or opponent.

Number_of_Team_Flag_Grabs: Number of times your team successfully grabbed the opponent’s flag

Number_of_Team_Tags: number of times your team successfully tagged an opponent player on their team’s side

Number_of_Opponent_Flag_Grabs: Number of times the opposing team grabbed your team’s flag

Number_of_Opponent_Tags: Number of times the opposing team tagged a player of your team

Game Rounds

The MCTF competition will be held in two rounds. The timelines for these rounds are given on the homepage of the MCTF competition Website.

Qualifying Round: Each team plays against three hardness levels, easy, medium and hidden, of a 3-player opponent team. The movement of players using the easy and medium hardness levels is shown in the videos below.

The top-performing teams from the qualifying round will advance into the final round of the competition.

Finals Round: Teams play against each other in a round-robin tournament.

Results

Results will be recorded and displayed on the leaderboard of the MCTF Codalab page for both the qualifying and final phases of the competition.

The names of competition winners and top performing participants will be displayed on the competition Website. Competition winners will also receive an unofficial certificate at AAMAS.

There will be no monetary or non-monetary prizes for achieving first place or for participating in the competition.

Disqualification

The competition organizers reserve the right to disqualify any submission they deem ineligible to compete. An entry can be deemed ineligible for failing to comply with rules or eligibility requirements. Additionally, no participant(s) is allowed to create more than one account to participate in this challenge. Any violations of this rule by a participant(s) will result in disqualification of all entries submitted by the participant(s).

Non-obligation of Organizers

This competition does not in any way obligate the organizers, U. S. Naval Research Laboratory, the Department of the Navy, United States Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Labs to procure any of the items within the scope of this Challenge from any submitters, including the winners.

Release of Claims

The Submitter agrees to release and forever discharge any and all manner of claims, equitable adjustments, actions, suits, debts, appeals, and all other obligations of any kind, whether past or present, known or unknown, that have or may arise from, are related to or are in connection with, directly or indirectly, this Challenge or the Submitter’s submission.

Compliance with Laws

The Submitter agrees to follow and comply with all applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations, and policies.

Governing Law

This Challenge is subject to all applicable federal laws and regulations. ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS WILL BE GOVERNED BY THE FEDERAL LAWS AND REGULATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Limits on Exchanges

Government personnel involved in the MCTF Competition shall not engage in conduct that favors one competitor over another to ensure all competitors have equal opportunity and access to resources.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse