Simulator
Missions and scoring
What a mission asks for, how the score is built, what the time limit does, and what "best score" means after a retry.
A mission is one thing to fly and get right. It is the unit that carries a score, and it is what every number on a teacher’s dashboard is ultimately counting.
What a mission is made of
Objectives. A list of things that must happen — reach this point, pass through that ring, land on the pad. Each one is checked while the flight runs and ticks off live as it is met.
Objectives are marked either required or optional. The flight passes when every required objective is met. Optional ones are bonus: worth points, never worth failing over.
Constraints. Rules that must hold throughout, rather than things to achieve — stay below this height, stay inside this area. A constraint is set to one of two behaviours, and the difference matters to a student:
- fail — breaking it ends the attempt immediately.
- penalty — breaking it costs points for every second you keep breaking it (10 a second unless the mission says otherwise), and the flight continues.
A time limit, optionally. See below — it is stricter than people expect.
How the score is built
Every attempt starts at 1000 and loses points from there.
| Effect on the score | |
|---|---|
| Starting value | 1000 |
| Each collision | −25 by default |
| Breaking a penalty constraint | −10 per second, by default, for as long as it is broken |
| Breaking a fail constraint | The attempt ends, failed |
| Running out of time | The attempt ends, failed |
| Finishing, if the mission offers a time bonus | + up to 500, in proportion to the time left |
The time bonus is the one that rewards a well-planned route: finish in half the allowed time and you gain half of it. Missions that do not set a time bonus simply do not award one.
Some missions also convert the final score into a star rating using thresholds the mission author sets.
Two different scores, and which one counts
The simulator shows its own mission score — the one out of 1000 above, in messages like “Mission Success! Score: 850”.
The number that reaches the gradebook, the progress pages and every teacher dashboard is a percentage from 0 to 100. That is the one to talk about with students, because it is the one they will see everywhere outside the flight itself.
If a student ever asks why the drone said 850 and their progress says something else, the answer is that those are two different scales measuring the same flight.
Retries and “best score”
A student can attempt a mission as many times as the assignment allows.
Their recorded score is the best one they have ever achieved, not the most recent. A student who scores 91 and then scores 40 still shows 91. Retrying can only help them, which is deliberate: a scoring rule that punishes experimenting teaches students not to experiment.
Two details that follow from it:
- Only completed attempts raise the best score. A failed attempt is recorded and counted in their attempt total, but it cannot lower what they already had.
- The attempt count keeps climbing. This is why the progress grid shows the
score with the number of tries beside it —
91 (2)and91 (7)are very different pieces of information about the same student.
Where the attempt limit comes from, and how to give a stuck student more, is on Assigning work and Looking at one student.
What a student sees when they fail
The mission ends and says why — “Time limit exceeded!”, or the constraint they broke. Their attempt is recorded as failed, their best score is untouched, and they can try again if they have attempts left.
If they have used every attempt, the next one is refused with “Submission limit reached”, and only their teacher can grant more.
For teachers reading a class’s results
Two things worth carrying into the dashboard:
- A low score with few attempts is a different problem from a low score with many. The first is usually a misunderstanding; the second is usually being stuck. Reading your dashboard leans on this distinction.
- Completion and score answer different questions. A mission almost nobody finishes, where the finishers scored well, is usually too long or too strict on time rather than too hard.
Related
- What the simulator models — why a flight fails
- Blocks — the commands available to fly it
- Reading your dashboard — these numbers, per class