Modalities and course of fire

A modality, in this module, is the course of fire. It is the piece that defines the shape of the Match — and the one that raises the most questions at first.

What the modality defines

• Targets per series — how many targets the athlete shoots in each round.
• Shots per target — how many shots go on each target. The system does not let you score more than that.
• Series — how many rounds the modality provides for.
• Has an X — whether the centre X ring exists. When it does, it is worth 10 points and counts separately for the tie-break.
• Distance and times — informative; they show on the scoresheet and on the Match page.

The equipment attributes — rifle or pistol, optical or open sights, standard or custom, domestic or imported — are there to name and organise the catalog. They do not change the maths.

The club catalog and presets

The system ships with ready-made presets along the lines of SCTSL and CBTT. Adopting a preset copies that course of fire into your club catalog — from then on the entry is yours, and you can edit it as you like without affecting any other club.

You can also create a modality from scratch, if your local rulebook calls for a different format.

Why the Match keeps a copy

This answers three common questions in one go:

• "I edited the modality in the catalog and the Match did not change." Correct — and it is what keeps the result of a closed Match the same a year from now.
• "I need to change it only in this Match." Edit the modality inside the Match. Nothing happens to the club catalog.
• "I retired a modality and the old Match disappeared." It does not disappear: it keeps the copy. The catalog is only the source the copy came from.

The modality is the axis of the ranking

The ranking comes out separated by modality. Whoever shoots domestic standard rifle does not compete against whoever shoots custom PCP, even in the same Match, on the same day — they are different courses of fire, and a single scoreboard would not match any prize.

That is also why registration is per modality: an athlete who is going to shoot two registers twice, and shows in both rankings.

What locks after the first score

As soon as there is a scorecard entered in that modality of the Match, the course of fire freezes: targets per series, shots per target, number of series and the existence of the X stop accepting changes.

The reason is plain: the signed scorecard was written for that course of fire. Changing the number of targets would leave the scorecard pointing at targets that do not exist, and the target tie-break would start reading a course of fire different from the one that was shot.

Still open: the name (to fix a typo), the times, the distance and turning the modality on and off.

Taking a modality out of the Match

• If there is no registration and no score yet, you can remove it.
• If there are already entrants or scores, deactivate it instead of deleting it. Deactivated, it disappears from registration and stays in the history and in the result.