Duels
From IGwiki
Duels are a good way of gaining recognition and proficiencies.
A duel is combat between you and your flagship against another player and their flagship. Nobody else can take part. Other differences to normal combat are mentioned below. It should be borne in mind that it is combat, so you can take damage and will occasionally die.
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[edit] Challenging
However you do it, challenging to a duel costs 1 CB There are a few places to find the link to challenge somebody. Some of the routes to challenging:
[edit] Being challenged
You accept a challenge under the Duels tab. Once you accept the duel, you immediately go into combat. Being the Challenged offers certain advantages. First, it doesn't cost you any CB. Secondly, and more importantly, you can choose the time of the duel (see below). Therefore, if you're unsporting, you can wait until you have a perfect ship and your opponent has a damaged one — or at least you can be confident of going into combat with an undamaged ship.
To make people aware you are available for duels, post on the forum here.
[edit] How to win
There is a lot of mysticism about duelling, but the answer is unclear.
[edit] What doesn't count
Rank doesn't technically enter into it. Unlike in battles, you don't get a bonus for being of a higher rank than your opponent. You also don't get a bonus for having the right tech for battling your opponent (PsiTek vs BiTek, BiTek vs MekTek, etc.).
[edit] What does count
There are things you still get bonuses for. These include:
- Your ship being all one Tek
- The quality of your ship
- Proficiencies (provided you are conscious)
The last of these is why people of a higher rank typically do better: they've had longer to accumulate proficiencies. But it also very much depends on the types of battles they've fought, of course. In order to get proficiencies, you have to fight battles in which you take damage, and you can tell by looking at a bunch of different 06 players that there is quite a difference in the number of proficiencies they have.
The most useful proficiency for duelling is generally agreed to be Command, with Gunnery coming second and Engineering third.
[edit] Sportsmanship
If you regularly challenge newly commissioned lieutenants, you are going to win — either because they will decline the challenge, or because you are likely to demolish, and probably kill them (providing you have some level of proficiency). There are constantly a lot of new people coming in who are going to be less proficient than you, so if you keep challenging them, you can continue to improve your record indefinitely.
Many Princes consider this behaviour to be unsporting (as well as detrimental to the efficiency of the fleet), and argue that one should challenge only those who are reasonably close to one's own proficiency level, or at least to one's rank and experience. Some commanders have also recommended that their lower ranked sub-commanders simply ignore challenges from very highly ranked Princes until they feel strong enough to take them on. Unlike declining a duel, ignoring one costs nothing.
[edit] References
A lot of this was copied from the post by Grand Admiral Xradan Odhrtz (Task Force Eagle) on the message boards.
For discussion of sportsmanship, see this discussion instigated by Grand Admiral Benkem Nlyidh.
