Is it possible to develop a stage difficulty rating? (SR for Stage Rating)
I see this being helpful for match directors, competitors and mostly new shooters, but then again, I'm a numbers guy so maybe it just helps me. This is me thinking out loud (or typing quietly in my office... welcome to my brain)Before we get started; I do understand this will never be a truly fair system for rating a match or comparing one match to another. There will always be variables that affect the difficulty of a match like wind, weather, Terrain, match layout, barricade wibbly-ness and many other things. I mostly want to focus on just the Stage rating for this post rather than a match rating. If the stage rating starts to work we could look at a match rating system.
As a shooter this could be used to evaluate what your level of shooting is. Its a metric to measure growth. Its a way to look back at a match and figure out what you need to work on to get better. Similar to what @ChrisWay is doing to evaluate the shooter's capability maybe we can couple this the stage difficulty to understand what we suck at.
As a match director its also a way to know if your match is harder than last year. Maybe last year you had a 70% hit rate by the winner of your match and you can now evaluate how or where to make the match easier/harder next year. Maybe there becomes a target combined or average Stage Rating number to try to get when designing match.
We have about 7 different variables to take into account when looking at a stage. I hope we should be able to get a fairly good idea of the stage rating by just reading the stage description. Picking out these variable is usually pretty clear. The variables are : #shots, #Postions, #targets, Yardage, Target Size, Time and "Other". These could be broke into 3 categories;
1. Shooter - # shots, # Positions, # targets - These are things that take time to complete.
2. Targets - Yardage and Target size - These are what drive Precision and you might say wind calling.
3. Competition - Stage time and "other" - These the the restraints added by the match director.
Here is how I define each of these pieces.
# Shots - How many rounds for the stage. (12 round more difficult than 8)# Positions - How many positions you have to move between. (5 positions is harder than 2)
# Targets - How many targets you have to transition through. For this the targets need to be at different yardages or different angles to the shooter. Its adding weight for the need to adjust the sight direction (target acquisition and fundamentals) and or change the scope dials (or hold over). 2 targets at the same distance in the same direction is only considered 1 target for this factor like A KYL rack with 5 plates would be 1 target. (4 target transitions/dials is harder than 2)
Yardage - How far are the targets. I propose to use an average here. (Targets at 800yds are harder then 300 yds. [if they are a the same size]).
Target size - How big/small are the targets in MOA. I suggest using an average here as well. 1.5 MOA targets are harder to hit than 2 MOA targets.
Time - How much time for each stage. Maybe using more of less than 90 seconds as a start.
Other - This is if the match director throws something extra in the stage. Random target order, no bags, requires a tripod, ranging on the clock, mag changes, etc. This is a scale factor That is a bit arbitrary meaning everyone might come up with a different number to slightly adjust the Stage Rating #
Including more of these variables in to the stage evaluation will create a more accurate stage rating, but maybe having 7 variables is too much to keep track of. This is where I would like your help. How many of these variable do we need to use to get a good idea of the stage difficulty. Also remembering not not all of these variable are always available in the stage description such as target size.
The rating system
We're going to use 3 examples stages to try to evaluate a couple different scoring options.Stage 1 - Prone Troop line - 10 shots, 1 position, 5 targets, 700yd Avg distance (500,600,700,800,900), 1.5MOA targets, 120 sec, 1 Mag change required.
Stage 2 - PRS Barricade - 8 Shots, 4 Positions, 1 target, 400yds, 2MOA, 90 sec.
Stage 3 - Positional - 10 shots, 5 positions, 2 targets/transitions, 525yd avg, 1.5 MOA, 120 sec.
Here is a way to put all of these variable together on one big evaluation. This is weighing every option in to the scoring. Its slow and cumbersome but probably the most accurate.
Full Rating
Stage Rating(SR) = Shooter x Targets / Competition
Stage Rating(SR) = [(shots x Positions x Targets) x ((Avg Yards/100)/MOA)]/(Sec/120)*Other
Stage 1 = [(10*1*5)*(7/1.5)]/(120/120) = 233 SR
Stage 2 = [(8*4*2)*(4/2)]/(90/120) = 171 SR
Stage 3 = [(10*5*2)*(5.25/1.5)]/(120/120) = 350 SR
Can we remove some of the variable from the Full Rating to make rating easier?
I think the shooter portion of the equations is the base for any option. The # shots, # positions and # Targets is the idea of this game and should be in any evaluation of a stage. Here is a SR of the 3 stages for just the shooter portion:
Shooter Rating
Stage Rating(SR) = Shooter
Stage Rating(SR) = [(shots x Positions x Targets)
Stage 1 = 10*1*5 = 50 SR
Stage 2 = 8*4*2 = 64 SR
Stage 3 = 10*5*2 = 100 SR
Does this match what you thought each of these stage would rank? Troop line, then Barricade, the Positional?
Target size can be a big factor in how difficult a stage is. I would go 1 step further and say the target size could be a deciding factor for how difficult a stage is. 1 MOA targets are surly harder than 2 moa targets from any position you are shooting from. If we added the target size in the equation we get a bear bones rating system. its as simple as it can get but also starts to take into account all of the shooter and come target variables. Here are the same stages with a target size factored in:
Bear Bones
Stage Rating(SR) = Shooter/ target size
Stage Rating(SR) = (shots x Positions x Targets)/MOA
Stage 1 = (10*1*5)/1.5 = 33 SR
Stage 2 = (8*4*2)/2 = 16 SR
Stage 3 = (10*5*2)/1.5 = 67 SR
This could work because when we take into account just the target size. We should be able to remove the target distance factor because the target MOA is alreay based on distance. Do you think a 2MOA target at 300 yards as easy as a 2MOA target at 800yds? Is there an element of more difficulty in farther targets the same MOA size we need to keep in the rating? Wind is the biggest element that is being left out when the target distance is removed and we all know wind is the hardest part of this game. Farther targets require better wind calling and bigger wind holds to get on target. But then again, wind is different at every stage and event so maybe it should be removed.
How about the stage time? If feel like a 90 second stage is much harder to get more shots off. To make things easy on the time side maybe we can say a 120 sec stage is (*1) and a 90 second stage is (*1.5) this makes a 90 second stage twice as hard. Deciding on this factor rating would be a hard decision.
Bear Bones with Time
Stage Rating(SR) = Shooter/ target size * Time Factor
Stage Rating(SR) = (shots x Positions x Targets)/MOA * Time Factor
Stage 1 = (10*1*5)/1.5*1 = 33 SR
Stage 2 = (8*4*2)/2*1.5 = 48 SR
Stage 3 = (10*5*2)/1.5*1 = 67 SR
This bumps the PRS barricade to be as difficult at the troop line. If an entire match is 90 sec or 120 I don't think the time matters as much. If you try to compare stages match to match the time factor starts to matter more.
The " Other" Factor is a bit arbitrary, but it can make a big difference in a stage. If the MD makes you crawl under a table with limited space and movement while shooting off the 4 leg supports is a lot harder than moving 4 positions on a PRS barricade. This factor might always be the unknown difficulty rating and will have to be applied by the individual shooter or match director.
Bear Bone W/time is what I would use to start. What do you guys think? Is that a good starting point? Have I missed any elements? How would you rate a stage? (honest questions)
Because I'm a numbers guy I think the Full Rating is the best matric but damn, that sucks to calculate without a spreadsheet.
Maybe to help figure it out, give me your 3 stages that would be easy, Med and Hard and we'll see what rating system works best to fit.
