Welcome to Capture The Flag.
The contest is made up of multiple categories. Each category is worth one point toward the total score; the percentage of the total points held by your team is the percentage of one point your team has for that category. The team that has 30% of the points in each of five categories has 1.5 points, whereas the team that has 80% of the points in only one category has 0.8 points.
There are two kinds of categories: flags, and puzzles.
Flag categories are challenges with a notion of a winner or service availability. In these categories, the flag-holder (the winner, or each team with a running service) makes 1 point per minute for as long as they hold the flag. If there is a single flag-holder, and the flag changes hands, a point is awarded to the new winner at the moment the flag moves.
Most of the categories come in the form of multiple puzzles: for each puzzle presented, a key (answer) must be found to recieve the amount of points that puzzle is worth. Any team may answer any puzzle question at any time. A new puzzle is revealed when a team correctly answers the highest-valued puzzle in that category.
If you are really stuck, you can ask for a hint. It will cost you points, though. For puzzles, you will lose ΒΌ of the points for that puzzle even if you never solve the puzzle. For other events, the staff member will decide how many points it will cost. You can try to bribe or otherwise fanagle information out of us or other contestants. It's a hacking contest.
We are the dirtbags. People pay us money to do the sorts of things you'll be doing in this contest.