Solaris VII Dueling
Outside of the Solaris Arenas, there is another world of battles taking place. The Solaris Duels. Duels involve between 2-8 MechWarriors who challenge one another. Duels are not the same as a simple street fight. Like everything else on Solaris VII, it is regulated by the Solaris Gaming Commission. The following sections describe the rules for being involvement, fighting and reporting of duels.
Solaris Duelists
In order to issue or accept a duel challenge, your character must purchase a dueling license from the Solaris Civic Council. Not every character qualifies for a license, and the initial expense can be costly. But once you have acquired a license, you have the right to partake in individual duels against other characters and stables.
Dueling Licenses Requirements
- Only characters that have reached Solaris Rank 3 and above may purchase a Dueling License
- Class 2-5 Dueling Licenses are available at this time
- Class 1 Dueling Licenses are not-applicable to our league
- Class 6 Dueling Licenses are available upon reaching Solaris Rank 6
- Dropping in Rank does not nullify your purchased licenses
- You may only purchase a license based on your current owned ‘Mechs
- If you no longer own a ‘Mech of a specific Class, you retain your license, but may not challenge within that Class
- You may only issue challenges against players who hold the same Class license
- Dueling Licenses must be renewed every 25 duels, at 50% of the original cost
Dueling Licenses Costs
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Issuing a Challenge
Once you have purchased your Dueling License, you may now issue a challenge to a character that holds a Dueling License of the same Class. This is done through the automation Match Signup page. The challenge process is as follows:
- Select the available Dueling License you wish to challenge with
- Select the character you wish to challenge
- Select the ‘Mech you will use in the challenge
- Submit the challenge for posting
Limitations on Issuing Challenges:
- Only a single challenge may be pending per license
- You may only challenge characters with the same Dueling License Class
- A challenge may NOT be withdrawn
The Defender will then be notified they have a pending challenge.
Receiving a Challenge
The automation will inform you when one of your characters has received a valid challenge. It will provide you with the pilot and character name of the challenger, challenge class, and ‘Mech chosen. You will then have the following options: Accept Challenge and Decline Challenge
Accept Challenge - At this point the following will be displayed:
- Select the ‘Mech you wish to use in the challenge
- Submit the challenge for processing
- Within 12 hours an official thread will be started in the Solaris Dueling Board forum for the 2 duelists to schedule a time to meet for their duel.
- Once accepted, the battle must be fought, not withdrawn
Decline Challenge
- The challenge is then closed and the challenger informed
- The challenger pilot will be unable to reissue a challenge to your pilot for a period of 7 days. This prevents someone spamming you with challenges, using up your declines.
- You may only decline up to 3 valid challenges a month
- Only a single challange may be pending per license
If the Defender does not respond with either an Accept or Decline within 36 hours of the challenge being issued, it is considered an automatic Decline. If the automatic Decline is used after 3 Declines have already been used, then that characters Dueling License is revoked.
Duel Preparation and Procedures
Once a challenge has been issued and accepted, a Challenge Thread will be posted in the Solaris Dueling Board forum. This thread will contain all information concerning the battle: ‘Mechs to be used, random map, server settings, etc. This is the official scheduling thread to be used by both parties and will be considered the official record. The two parties involved should arrange a time and date to meet in order to fight the battle. All Duels must be fought with 7 days of the initial challenge. Failure to do will will result in the battle being closed, and a Decline being used by BOTH parties.
Server Choice & Settings
Duels are fought on player hosted servers, one of the only times that they are used in any part of NBT. The default hoster will always be the Defender, unless both parties decide that it would be better for the Challenger to do so (connection speed, etc). Another option is for both parties to agree to use a 3rd party dedicated server if available to them (but one of the participants must be able to get the log file from this server for reporting purposes). This area requires cooperation on both sides.
All server settings will be provided in the Challenge Thread. Other settings are fixed for each match, regardless of type or participants. Server Name and Password are determined by the pilots.
ALL servers used for Solaris Duels MUST be launched with the following command line option. This enables game logging and will be used to determine mixtech violations, winnings, damage and so forth. Without this log, the match fought is invalid. Submitted logs must only contain the scheduled duel, no other drops.
-zlogname nbtsduel.log -zlogstyle 1
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Drop Procedure
T-5 Minutes - At 5 minutes before a match, all participants and observers must connect to the NBT Teamspeak2 Voice Comms, found at voice.netbattletech.com. There is a NBT-Solaris Challenge Lounge available. Create a sub-channel for your use within that channel. The Server Host should then launch the server with the correct settings based on the Challenge Thread and NBT-Solaris static settings. Both players should join the server, select their ‘Mechs, and prepare to launch.
Droptime - At the agreed upon time all parties should launch their games and enter the game, including any observers, if any. NBT-Solaris is not a hot-drop league. Immediately upon dropping into the server, all ‘Mechs are to shutdown (S key by default). No movement, torso twist or weapons fire is allowed. You may look out your windows while shutdown though (which generally causes the arms to move).
T+2 Minutes - Match Begins - 2 minutes after server launch, the match is to begin. If a Monitor based server is being used, it will announce this. Otherwise, the pilots should watch the timer for the 2 minute mark. All ‘Mechs may then startup (S key by default) and begin play. At that point, all bets are off. There are a couple things to keep in mind while playing though.
- Camping
– Camping in Solaris drops is slightly different from NBT drops.
Since winnings are based on not only surviving, but also on participation,
it behooves each player to participate in the drop to their fullest.
The goal of NBT-Solaris is to fight. Survivor Awards are only granted
if there is a single Survivor, not 2 or 3.
- Suicides - Suicides (CTRL-Z) are perfectly legal. The damage they do is real, and is levied against the other ‘Mechs. At the same time though, a Suicide does major damage to your own ‘Mech as well, and if already damaged, could very well permanently destroy your ‘Mech.
- Disconnects - Disconnects are considered Suicides for the purposes of game reporting, so disconnecting before being killed will not protect you from anything or get you out of extra damage.
‘Mech Destroyed - Camera View - After your ‘Mech has been destroyed, you will be transferred to the camera view of the match. All participants are to remain connected to the server for the duration of the match, as pilot disconnects can cause join lag, thus affecting the gameplay of the remaining pilots.
T+30 Minutes - Each Solaris match may last up to 30 minutes. At the 30 minute mark the server cycles, and all pilots are returned to the lobby. They should then disconnect and down the server so that the log files may be properly submitted.
Challenge Reporting
Either the Challenger or the Defender may report a duel. They do so by returning to their Match Signup page, and selecting the pending Duel and proceeding through the following steps:
- Upload DualLog - The automation will ask you to submit a DuelLog for uploading and parsing. Find the log on your computer and upload to the automation.
- Confirm Log Entry - The automation will then parse the log, reporting any drops that are in the log. There should only be a SINGLE drop in each submitted log. If there are more, the automation will request you to pick the valid drop.
- Confirmation - The other participant will need to confirm the log results in their automation as well.
Once the above steps are completed, the results, damage and winnings are applied to all participants. Each individuals Dueling Licenses are then cleared of pending duals.
Winnings
Winnings are determined in the exact same way as for a regular Solaris Match, with all normal rules applying. Only the multipliers are different.
- Match Survivor Award - RAM x 62,500 c-bills
- ‘Mech Kill Award - RAM x 35,500 c-bills per ‘Mech Kill
- Damage Awards - RAM x 200 c-bills per damage point inflicted
Class 6 Duels
Class 6 Duels are Open Class matches involving any ‘Mech weight class. Thus it would technically be possible for a Flea to take on an Atlas within a Class 6 Duel. Because of the higher chance for weight discrepancies, Class 6 Duels have modifiers applied to the winnings of all participants. All winnings are doubled to start with. A % is either added or subtracted from each participant, based on the amount of tonnage that they outweigh or under weigh the tonnage average. Thus if a Flea and Atlas were dueling ((100+20)/2 = 60 ton average), the Flea would receive 40% additional winnings, while the Atlas winnings would be reduced by 40%.
- Base Modifier - All winnings are doubled
- Per +/- Ton Average - +/- 1%
