Arena walls/gate system need to go

[Atarlost]

I think PM was referring to the stations around the arena. There's about twenty CW stations surrounding the arena, and if the walls got removed, in each fight you'd need to aim precisely, and take shots only when there's no risk of missing the opponent, and hitting the stations behind. It'd take the fun out of the rampaging battles we have right now. Also, This might make the battle very easy. You just dodge a few of the opponent's shots, and armies of civilian ships will come alpha-striking him.

The "arena" becomes the Geminga stargate. There are no stations or even stars there because the supernova would have knocked it away. Just the nav beacons and cameras and repeaters.

[sun1404]

You just dodge a few of the opponent's shots, and armies of civilian ships will come alpha-striking him.

Only the player can aggravate friendly stations in this manner. NPCs get a pass - their collateral damage can kill as many friendlies as they can without drawing aggro.

Really? Just yesterday I got a friendly wolfen trying to kill me, but both sides couldn't crack each other's shield, so I flew to Starton and hide behind a centurian. It immediately went after the wolfen after being shot at, and decimated the thing with it's particle gun. Might be because of a mod, though.

[Vachtra]

This is one of those things that for a vanilla game I've never had a problem with. It seems a lot of people use custom ships though from the comments.
As far as the whole 2d thing goes. You just use our imagination. I never thought of it as a 2d arena but a representation of a 3d version. Come on it's a 2d top down game after all.
As far as being a death match I didn't see this either. It's more probable that in the arena the pilots are protected and only the ship is gone. Of course if it's the only ship you have and everything was on it then at best all you have left is credits. Maybe the arena should be able to replace ships for a cost like the insurance stations.

[FourFire]

There IS always an insurance station at the Arena.

[Aury]

You just dodge a few of the opponent's shots, and armies of civilian ships will come alpha-striking him.

Only the player can aggravate friendly stations in this manner. NPCs get a pass - their collateral damage can kill as many friendlies as they can without drawing aggro.

Really? Just yesterday I got a friendly wolfen trying to kill me, but both sides couldn't crack each other's shield, so I flew to Starton and hide behind a centurian. It immediately went after the wolfen after being shot at, and decimated the thing with it's particle gun. Might be because of a mod, though.

If two NPCs are neutral towards eachother, they will attack eachother if hit by eachother's 'friendly fire'

[digdug]

let ringouts be a valid victory condition.

this is an interesting mechanic.
I wonder if it's exploitable using momentum weapons.

[Vachtra]

There IS always an insurance station at the Arena.

I know there's an insurance station but for arena purposes only there might be an arena policy that only kicks in for arena battles.

[sun1404]

I think the walls are more or less needed for the arena to run effectively. Smart AIs should flee when it's about to be killed, but for gladiatorial purposes they shouldn't flee too far. The walls help limit the distance they can go. If you think the walls are impractical/impossible technology wise, then maybe they can be substituted with small stations firing very short-ranged rapid high momentum low damage projectiles. (imagine CW Turrets firing low powered Iocrym Repellers.) They shouldn't be omnidirectional, instead shooting only straight inward, and shooting only when there's a battle ongoing. This would be more practical than indestructible shields, but functions alike. Still, it may be possible to escape the ring, although very hard. You can make escaping the ring equals immediate losing. The ring can be destroyed if you want realism, just make them CW stations and as soon as you destroy one, you become a fugitive.

[Atarlost]

The walls are actually abusable with a long range omni or swivel. Try taking a Freyr in with a Flenser some time. Once an enemy's shield drops you can stand off from them and hold down the fire key as they bounce off the walls trying to escape. It's embarrassing. An omni particle does the same thing.

[Vachtra]

Maybe enemies shouldn't try to escape in the arena since it's actually less practical than it would normally be.

[Atarlost]

I'm really not sure why anyone's defending the current arena.

Which is more reasonable, that the Iocrym gave humanity an ultimate energy barrier technology but that nobody uses it for military applications, or that there is a stargate leading somewhere useless enough that the Maximus corporation was able to buy the whole system?

Doesn't have to be a supernova orphan. I can't find any candidates near enough in fact, but it could be a dead end system that was mined out by the galactic races before humanity existed.

[kay.py]

I kinda like the useless-dead-end-gate idea. Doesn't even need to be a 'useless' system- I can easily imagine some cosmic event or another flinging a gate into empty interstellar space.

It might even happen deliberately- build a gate pair, fling one end at the destination star, set a timer for a few millenia, then by the time you come back to check up on it the whole area is under quarantine cause of some bunch of monkeys. Who are now using the travelling side of your gate for blood sports.

[Vachtra]

Why defend the arena?

For starters it's one of those places people just don't want to mess with. Many cities have areas where, no matter how divided factions are, all sorts of people come together to enjoy a shared interest. Ever been to a race track?

I would rather see an expansion of this system, more stations but a lack of as much hostility. A good place to have revised relations with various factions, maybe get in with the centauris instead of fighting them, by bribe possibly.

That seems to be where this was going from the start but never moved.

[Aury]

He meant defending as in 'Why is anyone on the forums saying that the current implementation of the arena with its glitchy walls a good idea?' not as in, why there are ships/ingame factions defending it.

[Vachtra]

That's what I thought. I haven't had a problem with it. It sounds to me like the glitches happen when mods are added.